Red Dawn
AuthorDeng Xiaoping
Original titleThe Great Rift
TranslatorVladimir Putin
Cover artistXi Jinping
LanguageRussian, English, Chinese
SeriesRed Asia
GenrePropaganda
PublisherBeijing Book Factory
Publication date
1979
Publication placeChina
Media typePrint
Pages215
ISBN971-550-201-6
OCLC4535
899.211'3
LC ClassPL6058.4 1973
Preceded byLenin 
Followed byThe East is Red 

Red Dawn is the first novel in the Red Asia series. Set ten years after the events of Lenin, it deals with China's role in the new world order and the rapidly degenerating Soviet Union. Written by Chinese novelist Deng Xiaoping, it is heavily influenced by the works of Mao Zedong.

Title and Setting

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The title refers to the new communist world order. The book is mostly set in Asia, describing events which happened after the Great World Revolution of Lenin. Some scenes take place in the Soviet Union.

Plot

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Prolouge

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In China, Chairman Mao Zedong hears of the Great World Revolution from Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Mao congratulates him, saying a bright future for communism lies ahead.

Part I. Asian Situation

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Ten years after the Revolution, Asia is mostly communist. Most of the countries in Southeast Asia are communist, with the exception of the Indonesian military junta under anti-communist Suharto. Korea has reunified under communist rule. In Japan, communism steadily becomes more popular, with the Communist Party of Japan receiving more and more votes. In South Asia, Pakistan falls under communist sway and liberates East Pakistan under communist rule. India maintains its democracy, although it is beginning to become more and more influenced by communism. Afghanistan becomes communist under Soviet influence. The Middle East remains mostly non-communist, but Turkey is a Soviet puppet state in the Moscow Pact and a communist coup in Persia against the Shah succeeds, leading to a wealthy Iranian communist state trading oil with the Soviets and Chinese.

In China, Taiwan was forcefully reunited with the mainland some years ago. Chairman Mao is dead, with Deng Xiaoping being leader instead. In the Soviet Union, Stalin is dead, with the Union being governed by Nikita Khrushchev, who seems intent on reversing Stalin's legacy.

Part II.

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Khrushchev begins his policy of De-Stalinization, immediately demolishing monuments in honor of Stalin. Dang Xiaoping attends the renaming of Stalingrad to Volgograd and warns Khrushchev not to interfere with Stalin's legacy. Khrushchev ignores him.

Back in China, Xiaoping sends a report to second-in-command Zhou Enlai, stating that Khrushchev is a danger to world communism. Khrushchev gets rid of Stalinist officials, including Vladimir Lenin and Mikhail Kalinin. They escape to China.

Khrushchev attempts to interfere with communist governments in the Moscow Pact. He attempts to kick the Stalinists out, an impossible task as most communist countries are Stalinist. In Czechoslovakia, the Stalinists purge non-Stalinist officials, resulting in Khrushchev invading Czechoslovakia. Many nations leave the Moscow Pact, forming a Stalinist 'second Warsaw Pact'.

Khrushchev goes to China in an attempt to promote De-Stalinization. However, he is barred from going outside the airport, resulting in him trapped inside the Beijing Airport. The tense standoff between Chinese and Soviet officials ends when a Soviet plane transports Khrushchev back to the Soviet Union. Xiaoping announces that the Soviets are nothing but greedy revisionists who want to destroy communism and calls the workers of the world to rally around China.

Xiaoping decides to send Lenin to the Soviet Union to begin a movement against Khrushchev. Lenin is sent to Vladivostok, where he immediately begins organizing a Stalinist movement. He disguises it as the 'Leninist Party'.

In Afghanistan, an anti-Khrushchev movement emerges. The Soviet government moves to purge the Afghan government, but the Stalinists declare a civil war. Xiaoping sends Kalinin to Afghanistan to command the Stalinist forces. The Soviet forces use Mujahideen terrorist attacks to decrease Afghan morale, but it results in more people joining the Stalinist cause.

The Afghan forces clash at Ghazni in the first battle of the war, and Kalinin's leadership enables them to win the battle. They continue on to liberate Kabul, and then Kandahar. The Soviets ready their armed forces to intervene.

The Stalinists manage to liberate Afghanistan almost fully, but at the fierce fighting around Herat the Soviets invade Afghanistan. The Stalinist forces are pushed back to Kabul. Xiaoping sends Zhou Enlai to attempt to mediate peace, however he readies the Chinese Army to intervene.

Khrushchev and Xiaoping decide to hold a conference in Pyongyang to attempt negotiations. When on the subject of Afghanistan, Xiaoping demands Khrushchev to let a Stalinist government control it. Khrushchev refuses, and the negotiations become heated to a point where Kim Il-Sung is forced to intervene. The Soviet delegation storms off in protest.

Xiaoping makes a speech at Tiananmen Square and says that a Sino-Soviet split has occurred. He denounces the Soviets, saying that Stalin's legacy of world communism is under attack and that Khrushchev is nothing but a capitalist. His speech is broadcast all over the communist world, and he gains popularity.

Part III.

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Lenin is caught in Vladivostok. He is pursued by the KGB, however he manages to escape to Mudanjiang. The Stalinist party he founded starts a mutiny. The KGB is sent fleeing, and the Stalinists take control of Vladivostok and the surrounding areas. The Soviet Pacific Fleet is captured by the mutineers.

In the Soviet Union, the economy grinds to a halt. Many communist nations have stopped trading with them. A desperate Khrushchev invades Iran in an attempt to gain oil. The invasion of a fellow communist nation is denounced by China, who sends volunteers to Iran.

In Afghanistan, the Soviets are decisively defeated at Jalalabad. The Soviets begin pulling out from Afghanistan, to free up troops for the Iranian campaign. Kalinin's forces catch up with the Soviets at Mazari Sharif and encircle the retreating forces. The Soviets eventually surrender. Afghanistan is placed under Stalinist rule, and the last Mujahideen holdouts are eliminated at Kunduz, with their leader, Osama bin Laden, being killed.

Kalinin returns to China. In the military base at Kashgar, Xiaoping congratulates Kalinin, but he tells him that there is still much work left to be done. He points out that the Soviets have captured Tehran and are advancing on Isfahan. He sends Kalinin back with a division of elite Chinese troops.

In Vladivostok, an independent Far Eastern Republic is declared and secedes from the Soviet Union. The Red Army attempts to retake it, but local militia manage to draw the Soviets into urban warfare. Lenin returns to Vladivostok with a brigade of communist volunteers.

Border clashes occur on the Chinese border with the Soviet Union, with the fighting being particularly fierce around Zhenbao Island. The Soviets are defeated, and the Chinese advance as far as Khabarovsk before a ceasefire is declared. Both sides ready nuclear weapons, and the world is on the brink of nuclear war.

Zhou Enlai is found dead in his Shanghai home. A suicide note is found, saying that since diplomacy has failed, so has he. His death is ruled as a suicide, and to replace him, Xiaoping employs Xi Jinping, a much more impatient person then Enlai.

In Iran, the Soviet advance on Isfahan is stopped by Kalinin, who pursues the Soviets all the way to Qom, where the Soviets manage to reorganize. The Soviets attack the Iranian Army protecting Kalinin's flank, and his forces are encircled. The Soviets storm the city from all directions. Kalinin is captured and is sent to the Gulag in Yakutsk.

Seeing all diplomatic solutions useless, Xiaoping orders the PLA to attack the Soviets. The Chinese manage to capture the Soviet nuclear facilities at Chita. With the risk of nuclear war averted, the Chinese call on all communist nations to attack the Soviet Union.

Lenin returns to the Far Eastern Republic in Vladivostok, but the city has been surrounded by the Soviets. Lenin calls on the workers of the Soviet Union to unite against Khrushchev. The Red Army once again attempts to take the city, but a timely Chinese intervention manages to defeat the Soviets. The Chinese armies pursue Soviet forces along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Around the world, many communist nations heed China's call and attack the Soviet Union. A emergency stockpile of Soviet nuclear warheads are intercepted by the Polish People's Republic at Brest-Litovsk. In Iran, the emergency forces the Red Army to retreat to Tabriz. Khrushchev attempts to hold a ceasefire, but he is rejected.

In the Russian Far East, the Chinese advance up the Amur River. The Red Army retreats to Nikolayevsk-on-Amur and begins building defenses. The Chinese attack with the help of the captured Soviet Pacific Fleet. The Red Army is decisively defeated, and flee into the Siberian wilderness, losing all organization. The last Red Army strongholds surrender at Okhotsk.

Part IV.

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Kalinin manages to escape his captors at Ulan-Ude. From there he journeys to the Chinese lines, where he surrenders himself. Xiaoping meets Kalinin and tells him that he needs to return to Iran to deliver the knockout blow to the Soviets at Tabriz. Kalinin accepts.

In Moscow, Khrushchev inspects the troops at Red Square. Once a formidable fighting force, defections to Stalinist armies, loss of morale, and constant war has reduced the army to a shadow of its former self. Khrushchev tells his men that everything will be fine, and he sends them to Odessa to deal with a Romanian incursion. However, in the Kremlin, a power struggle is brewing. A Stalinist coalition led by Leonid Brezhnev, a survivor of Khrushchev's purge, is quickly gaining popularity. Khrushchev attempts to send Brezhnev to the Gulag, but he is vetoed by the Politburo. Khrushchev disbands the Politburo, however Brezhnev flees to communist Germany.

The Chinese coalition fights off writer's block.