Back in the USSA

For the song by KMFDM, see Boots (EP). For the song by the Beatles, see Back In the U.S.S.R..
Back in the USSA
Author Eugene Byrne &
Kim Newman
Cover artist Arnie Fenner
Country United States
Language English
Genre Alternate history
Publisher Mark V. Ziesing
Publication date
September 1997
Media type hardcover
Pages 356
ISBN 0-929480-84-8

Back in the USSA (ISBN 0-929480-84-8) is a collection of 7 short stories by Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman, which was published in 1997 by Mark V. Ziesing Books. The stories are linked through their setting, an alternate history of the twentieth century in which the United States experienced a communist revolution in 1917 and became a communist superpower, whereas Russia did not. Six of the stories first appeared in Interzone magazine, and the concluding story in the sequence, On the Road, was written especially for the collection.

Background

The stories imagine that, in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was reelected President of the United States as the Progressive Party candidate, only to be assassinated before taking office when personally breaking a labor strike at the Chicago Union Stockyards with the Rough Riders. Following this, his vice president, Charles Foster Kane takes power, and gradually leads the United States into greater levels of oppression, class division and bureaucratic incompetence and corruption - including an earlier entry into the First World War in 1914 and the assassination of his rival candidate, Woodrow Wilson, during the 1916 election campaign.

Gradually, by 1917 the United States is unstable politically and socially, with overwhelming civil unrest stemming from the massive (and seemingly pointless) loss of American lives in the mud of the Western Front and the increasing gap between the wealthy 'robber barons' and the poor workers, and the massive corruption and exploitation this has resulted in. The Socialist Party of America led by Eugene V. Debs gains increasing support, and soon the unrest has led to outright civil war, following which Kane is ousted from The White House, overthrown, and executed for treason. Afterwards, a new socialist order, led by Debs, takes over.

The early idealism of this change is misplaced, however; upon Debs' death in 1926, power is seized by Al Capone (an obvious parallel to Joseph Stalin, just as Debs is used to mirror the achievements of Vladimir Lenin), who proceeds to rule over the USSA with a brutal, repressive fist of iron, establishing a cult of personality around himself, exiling and executing his political rivals and ruling the country more brutally and ruthlessly (and incompetently) than any of the robber barons who were previously deposed. Gradually, following the Second World War, the Cold War between the USSA, the United Kingdom and a Constitutional Monarchist Russian Empire (the book never confirms to much about democracy in Russia though), and the war in Indo-China (a Vietnam War-like affair in which armies from Russia and Great Britain attempted to support a somewhat democratic regime under attack from USSA-backed Communist guerillas), the USSA begins to stagnate economically and socially, before finally collapsing into separate, bickering nations by 1991, leading to an uncertain future for both the former USSA and the rest of the world.

Stories

Overview

As is common with much of Newman's work, the stories feature a great deal of intertextuality, both with actual historical events (many of the stories feature events which mirror actual events that took place within the real twentieth century, in particular the 1917 Russian Revolutions and the Vietnam War) and with popular culture. The stories are significant in that they feature famous fictional characters (particularly from American and British texts) interacting with real personages; President Charles Foster Kane, for example, is the main character from Orson Welles' 1941 motion picture Citizen Kane, whereas Tom Joad — hunted by real-life law enforcers Elliot Ness and Melvin Purvis in 'Tom Joad' — is the protagonist of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Hannibal Lecter appears as the head of the Department of Health, and John Rambo helps train Vietnamese Communists. Rambo is played in a film by Raymond Massey. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart appears as a British officer in Teddy Bears' Picnic (though Doctor Who is referred to as fiction in the same story), as do Nigel Molesworth and Basil Fotherington-Thomas.

Real-world comparisons

Individuals

Back in the USSA Individual Real-world equivalent
Theodore Roosevelt Alexander II
Father O'Shaughnessy Georgy Gapon
Charles Foster Kane Nicholas II
Emily Kane Alexandra
Aleister Crowley Grigori Rasputin
Nick Carraway Felix Yusupov
Samuel Gompers Alexander Kerensky
John J. Pershing Alexander Kolchak
Eugene V. Debs Vladimir Lenin
Upton Sinclair Leon Trotsky
Al Capone Joseph Stalin
Cecil B. DeMille Sergei Eisenstein
Charles de Gaulle Chang Kai-shek
Frank Nitti Lavrentiy Beria
Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Al Capone
Jimmy Hoffa Vyacheslav Molotov
Jean-Luc Godard Mao Zedong
Ed Gein Andrei Chikatilo
Arthur C. Clarke L. Ron Hubbard
Sean Connery Rudolf Nureyev
Barry Goldwater Nikita Khrushchev
Innokenty Smoktunovsky John F. Kennedy
Chuck Yeager Yuri Gagarin
Ayn Rand Joseph McCarthy
Richard Nixon Leonid Brezhnev
Henry Kissinger Richard Nixon
Jimmy Carter Leonid Brezhnev
Kurt Vonnegut Mikhail Gorbachev
J. R. Ewing Boris Yeltsin
Colin Powell Mikhail Gorbachev
Nikita Khrushchev Lyndon B. Johnson
Margaret Thatcher Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton Vladimir Putin

Events and objects

Back in the USSA item Real-world equivalent
United Socialist States of America (USSA) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
United States of America Russian Empire
American Republic Russian Republic
United Kingdom United States of America
Russian Empire United Kingdom
Washington, D.C./Debs, D.C. Saint Petersburg/Leningrad
Confederation of Independent North American States Commonwealth of Independent States
Second American Revolution Russian Revolution
Second American Civil War Russian Civil War
Second Mexican–American War Polish-Soviet War
Dust Bowl Holodomor
Chicago Moscow
Republic of France (Corsica) Republic of China (Taiwan)
Texican Wall Berlin Wall
People's Republic of France People's Republic of China
Free French Forces National Revolutionary Army
Alsace-Lorraine Missile Crisis Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuba Czechoslovakia
Progressives Tsarists
Socialists Bolsheviks
Telstar Sputnik 1
X-15 Vostok
American Federation Russian Federation

Publication history

References

External links

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