# Fiction that predicted the fall of the Soviet Union? (and those that didn't!) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 26, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209 "2013-08-26T15:34:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209/21 "2013-09-02T02:27:02Z")
_Star Trek:_ At least one of Chekov’s “Russian inwentions” is attributed to someone from Minsk, which is in modern-day Belarus. Leningrad’s cloud cover rating is given during the disaster scene in _Star Trek IV._ And a dedication plaque for the SS _Tsiolkovsky_ in _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ gives its construction as taking place in the Baikonaur Cosmodrome in the USSR (modern-day Kazakhstan). That means that in the _Trek_ universe, the Soviet Union existed at least up until 2364. (Or perhaps it was restored sometime between 1991 and the 2260s). On the other hand, the Trek universe is _already_ a full-blown alternate continuity from our own, since they had the Eugenics Wars (which included the rise and fall of Khan) in the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209/22 "2013-09-02T02:49:05Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > On the other hand, the Trek universe is _already_ a full-blown alternate continuity from our own, since they had the Eugenics Wars (which included the rise and fall of Khan) in the 1990s. To be fair, it is, like every other entertainment universe, an ‘alternate universe’ where the laws of physics are clearly different from those in our universe. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209/23 "2013-09-02T03:19:21Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > he has an more open USSR still intact and cooperating with the USA and other western countries In a way, that is what we have now, except that it is now called Russia, and is a little bit smaller. It is still huge, and still ruled by a former Soviet official. (And, of course, it was very often informally called Russia, even when it was the USSR.) ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209/24 "2014-04-22T07:18:49Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Spinrad should have know better. His non-fiction essay “Taming of the Bear” didn’t exactly predict the fall of the Soviet Union, but did spell out some reasons that the eighties were not going to be their decade. (Written, by the way before either Reagan or Gorbachev took power.) > > I think that Spinrad’s novel, which now must be viewed as alternate history, had as a basis assumption the success of Gorbachev’s reforms, transitioning the Soviet Union, _intact_, into a free market, more democratic state. I’ve been reading _Russian Spring_ and its quite an amazing novel even with its rather ridiculous sibling Cold War (with one being almost completely Americanized and the other Russianized) and all the characters having sexual lives resembling that of Hollywood movie starts. While some of its specific predictions were obviously incorrect, its picture of American society and government policy is spot-on while the secessionist movements toward the end of the novel foreshadows the collapse of the USSR albeit delayed massively. The most incredible part is that there is a nuclear standoff between the US and the USSR due to a _Ukrainian secessionist movement_. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209/25 "2014-04-22T07:34:08Z")
David Brin’s _The Postman_ (1985) is about the aftermath of a nuclear war and subsequent American social and political collapse, but the enemy in the war is described as the “Slavic Resurgence” ruled by “Slavic Mysticism” rather than the USSR ruled by Communism. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209/26 "2014-04-22T08:06:37Z")
This is not what the OP asks for exactly, but I think Ayn Rand’s 1957 book Atlas Shrugged does a remarkably good job of predicting the implosion of a Soviet Union-like economic system. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209/27 "2014-04-22T10:37:34Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > I’ve just finished reading a pretty entertaining technothriller novel, ‘Firebreak’ by Richard Herman JR, written in 1991 it ties up one of the subplots by having a hardliner winning a internal power-competition in the USSR He must have aced the swimsuit part. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fiction-that-predicted-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-and-those-that-didnt/667209.md?page=1)