Soviet films, books, etc. depicting an American invasion

Cafe Society
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The idea of a Soviet incursion into or invasion of the USA was a common theme in Cold War–era American fiction: notable examples include the following:
[ul]
[li]Invasion USA, a 1952 film about a Soviet attack on and invasion of America’s west coast[/li][li]The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, a 1966 film in which a Soviet submarine crew makes an unplanned landing in Massachussetts (albeit without hostile intent)[/li][li]World War III, a 1982 NBC miniseries about a Soviet invasion of Alaska[/li][li]Red Dawn, a 1984 film about a group of young American guerrillas resisting a Soviet invasion[/li][li]Invasion USA, a 1985 film (no relation to the 1952 one) in which the Soviets lead a Latin American guerrilla invasion force in Florida[/li][li]Amerika, a 1987 ABC miniseries depicting the aftermath of a Soviet takeover of the USA[/li][/ul]
There are even more films, television series, and books which depict wars (or preludes thereto, or aftermaths thereof) between the USA and USSR which don’t involve an invasion of the former by the latter.

I was wondering if there were any analogous works of fiction made in the Soviet Union or its allies about an American invasion into their territory. My partner comes from that part of the world but she isn’t aware of any such films; then again she hates “old” movies and makes a point of not watching them, so I can’t say her knowledge of Soviet film history is particularly comprehensive. :slight_smile:

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There’s also Sixth Column, Heinlein’s 1949 novel about the conquest of the U.S. by “PanAsians” (mostly Chinese). The Soviets weren’t the bad guys, although the book had a strong Cold War flavor.

Dunno about Soviet fiction about a U.S. invasion, though there was a 1978 SPI tabletop game called Objective: Moscow. I still remember the print ad for it, which showed the U.S. flag flying from the top of one of the onion-domed churches on Red Square.

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I don’t remember any fiction in USSR about US invasion. I don’t think it would have been allowed by the regime, since even talking about it in theoretical would have shown weakness. I expect there are also no Chinese books/films about hypothetical future foreign invasions either.

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I don’t know about that; there are any number of ways of framing the story that allow you to paint the invaders as incompetent, or the invadees as triumphant, or both. The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming did a good job of the former, depicting the Soviet sailors as bumbling dunces who ran their own ship aground on an isolated island, and when they tried to appropriate the equipment needed to effect their escape, found themselves swiftly outwitted by the local villagers. And other similar regimes, such as North Korea, evidently have no qualms about making films about their heroic resistance of past or potential American or American-supported aggression.

5

That’s exactly it - making films about heroic resistance of the past is very common to communist regimes. Making hypotheticals about future invasions - at least I have never heard of it, and I lived in the Soviet Union from 1963 to 1980. An invasion of any kind, even on a small scale, would have implied incompetence on the part of the current regime, which would be absolutely unacceptable.

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hmmm, I can’t remember the details but I do remember reading a review about a movie in the Soviet Union in about 1985-6 about exactly this. The review specifically mentioned that it was made in response the Rambo, Rocky IV and Red Dawn. Unfortunately I don’t remember anything about the title or anything about it beyond descriptions of a plucky massively outnumbered Russian commando killing lots of klutzy stupid American soldiers.

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Hold on, folks, I got one!

Well, sort of. Infiltration, not invasion. But it’s just so damn awesome I absolutely had to post about it, so here goes:

In Marietta Shaginian’s “detective-adventur novel” Mess-Mend from 1924, “the American industrialist Jack Kressling” tries to “bring down the Soviet state from within.”

As mentioned, the dastardly Yank doesn’t actually INVADE the Soviet Union, but rather “sends Jeremy Morelander, his right-hand man and most trusted engineer […] to find a way to bring down the Bolshevik state and take over a secret mine [which] contains an ore that […] will allow Kressling mastery over the world”!

Oh no!

But lo and behold, Morelander “returns from his trip a convert to the Soviet system,” preaching the awesomeness of Bolshevism!

Yay, right?

But no! Morelander is promptly murdered – and Kressling then plans a series of devilish assasinations targeting the Soviet leadership!

Oh no – again!

Who shall now stop the wicked Amerikanski?

None other than the super-duper-awesome “Mess-Mend,” of course!

That is, a “secret workers’ guild” which fearlessly “engages in a variety of counterespionage activities designed to uncover and subvert Kressling’s plot,” using such neat tricks as “the ability to appear out of thin air; to travel great distances along electrical power lines with dizzying speed; to eavesdrop unseen on one’s enemies, even to film their meetings”!

So, thankfully, “the novel ends with the collapse of the capitalist’s designs and the unmasking of the nefarious forces responsible for this attempt to destroy the Soviet state and deny the will and rights of workers throughout the world,” but not before one of Kressling’s henchmen first turns into a mechanical steel-beast (!), which is just on the verge of tearing the city of Petrograd apart when it is stopped at the last moment “by the bullet of a Red Army soldier, who shoots it in the head with predictable calm bravery amid the chaos.” Phew!

As it turns out, “this work was read widely in the Soviet Union,” but, tellingly, its winning streak lasted only until the first five-year plan (1928-33), which “lowered the threshold of official tolerance for non-edifying genres such as detective novels.”

The author tried defending her work to Stalin’s censors, but alas, to no avail.

All quotes from Anthony J. Vanchu’s “Technology As Esoteric Cosmology In Early Soviet Literature,” from “The Occult In Russian And Soviet Culture,” published by Cornell University Press.

(Feel free to add “in Soviet Russia, x y’s you”-jokes below.)

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Please tell me there’s an English translation…I wanna read it!

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There is.

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… Aaaaaaand a (silent) movie, too! Which set box office records when it first came out in 1926!

The book is 75 USD (!!!) used on Amazon, which is kinda ridiculous.

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[quote=“Elendil_s_Heir, post:2, topic:616157”]

There’s also Sixth Column, Heinlein’s 1949 novel about the conquest of the U.S. by “PanAsians” (mostly Chinese). The Soviets weren’t the bad guys, although the book had a strong Cold War flavor.

[QUOTE]

Cold War flavor? It was serialized before Pearl Harbor. It has a distinct WWII – or arguable even earlier – flavor. It was pub;lished in book form after the war, in 1949, but without any major changes AFAIK.

It’s based on John W. Campbell’s even earlier All (which wasn’t published until the 1970s. I’ve read it – it’s awful.)

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That’s capitalism for ya, tovarish.

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Yep, invasion stories were not uncommon before the cold war. See the Purple Invasion in Operator No. 5, or one of the many “yellow peril” tales from the pulp era.

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Well shit, when a loaf of bread is $10 what do you think a literary masterpiece is gonna cost?

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Yay! InterLibrary Loan, here I come!

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Cool thread. I have to get that Mess-Mend book.

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Not entirely in line with the OP but Ralph Peters’ book Red Army is the story of a Soviet invasion of Europe told entirely from the Soviet perspective.

The Soviets win.

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respected.
Soviet films - is not only an ideology. There are a lot of good movies about love, friendship. Just look at the movie The Circus 1939 to mine, I do not remember. This film is about an American actress who came to the USSR with black Afro son and ordinary people loved him, despite the color of the skin. Especially cartoons teach children good and justice.

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I remember that movie. Of course, its depiction conflicts with Russians’ virulent racism, especially against the blacks, but otherwise yes, it was a nice propaganda movie.

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What movie were you watching? Nobody outwitted anyone. The locals were at least as idiotic and bumbling as the Russians. Brian Keith and Alan Arkin were the only two people who weren’t complete dolts, and they were hardly razor sharp cold warriors either.