Alfred Sauvy published in the French magazine L’Observateur the article “Trois Mondes, Une Planete” (August 1952) talking about the World geopolitical context. It concludes with a sentence based on a famous quotation by E.S. Sieyès expressed during the French Revolution: “Car enfine ce Tiers Monde ignoré, exploité, méprisé come le Tiers Etat, veut, lui aussi, être quelque chose.”
The original Worlds' partition was not based on economic criteria, but on a political one. The First World was composed by the NATO’s countries, the democratic and capitalistic ones; the Second World identified countries that have joined the Warsaw Pact, the communist and socialist block led by Soviet Union.
The Third World included all the other countries that remained un–aligned with the two poles. It consisted of the majority of the Southern Hemisphere, including the developing countries usually with a colonial past.
Besides the obvious problems of a strict categorization of the World's nations, the principles of this system were no longer effective after the Soviet Union's falls.
