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The national liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s marked a turning point in the decolonisation of internationalism. At a time when hegemonic Marxism-Leninism was increasingly subservient to the geopolitical interests of the Soviet Union, these movements in the South broke with Moscow and adopted a vision of internationalism that was more decentralised, decolonised and rooted in context. By creating unprecedented spaces of political autonomy and revolutionary imagination, they reconfigured the very grammar of the global struggle. Yet, this moment of national liberation proved tragically short-lived. This article examines this conjuncture, its unfulfilled potential and its trajectories (in particular the Left’s cultural turn in contexts such as Iran), its detachment from regional struggles and its own emancipatory heritage.