 Book cover | |
| Author | Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Arnie Fenner |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Alternate history |
| Publisher | Mark V. Ziesing |
Publication date | September 1997 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 356 |
| ISBN | 0-929480-84-8 |
Back in the USSA is a 1997 collection of seven short stories by English writersEugene Byrne andKim Newman, which was published by Mark V. Ziesing Books.[1]The title is a reference to the song "Back in the U.S.S.R." byThe Beatles. The stories are linked through their setting, analternate history of the twentieth century in which the United States experienced a communist Second Revolution in 1917 and became a communistsuperpower, whereasRussia did not. Six of the stories first appeared inInterzone magazine, and the concluding story in the sequence, "On the Road", was written especially for the collection.
 | This sectionpossibly containsoriginal research. Pleaseimprove it byverifying the claims made and addinginline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.(March 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Theodore Roosevelt is re-electedPresident of the United States as theProgressive Party candidatein 1912. On 19 December 1912, prior to assuming office, Roosevelt is assassinated byAnnie Oakley while personally breaking alabor strike at theChicago Union Stockyards with the help of theRough Riders. Vice president-electCharles 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 intoWorld War I in 1914 and the assassination of his rival candidate,Woodrow Wilson, duringthe 1916 election campaign.
By 1917, the United States is unstable politically and socially, with overwhelmingcivil unrest stemming from the massive (and seemingly pointless) loss of American lives in the mud of theWestern Front and the increasing gap between the wealthy 'robber barons' and the poorworking class, and the massive corruption and exploitation this has resulted in. TheSocialist Party of America, led byEugene V. Debs, gains increasing support, and soon the unrest has led to a Second American Revolution and Second American Civil War, following which Kane is ousted from theWhite House, overthrown, and executed for treason. Afterwards, a new socialist order, led by Debs, takes over. The United States of America becomes the United Socialist States of America.
The early idealism of this change is misplaced, however; upon Debs' death in 1926, power is seized byAl Capone (an obvious parallel toJoseph Stalin, just as Debs is used to mirror the achievements ofVladimir Lenin), who proceeds to rule over the USSA with a brutal, repressive fist of iron, establishing acult 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, followingWorld War II, theCold War between the USSA, the United Kingdom and asemi-constitutional monarchistRussian Empire, and thewar in Indo-China, the USSA begins tostagnate 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.
| This sectionpossibly containsoriginal research. Pleaseimprove it byverifying the claims made and addinginline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.(July 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
As is common with much of Newman's work, the stories feature a great deal ofintertextuality, both with actual historical events (many of the stories feature events which mirror actual events that took place within the real 20th century; in particular, the 1917Russian Revolution and theVietnam 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 fromOrson Welles' 1941 motion pictureCitizen Kane, whereas Tom Joad — hunted by real-life law enforcers Eliot Ness and Melvin Purvis in 'Tom Joad' — is the protagonist ofJohn Steinbeck'sThe Grapes of Wrath.Hannibal Lecter appears as the head of theDepartment of Health, andJohn Rambo helps train Vietnamese Communists. Rambo is played in a film byRaymond Massey.Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart appears as a British officer inTeddy Bears' Picnic (thoughDoctor Who is referred to as fiction in the same story), as doNigel Molesworth andBasil Fotherington-Thomas.
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(December 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Back in the USSA item | Real-world equivalent |
|---|---|
| United Socialist States of America (USSA) | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) |
| 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 |
| Texican Wall | Berlin Wall |
| People's Republic of France | People's Republic of China/Cuba |
| Alsace-Lorraine Missile Crisis | Cuban Missile Crisis |
| Cuba | Czechoslovakia |
| Progressives | Tsarists |
| Socialists | Bolsheviks |
| Telstar | Sputnik 1 |
| X-15 | Vostok |