| Author | Floyd Gibbons |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Alternate history |
| Publisher | Cape & Smith |
Publication date | 1929 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 223 pp |
The Red Napoleon is an alternative history novel by Floyd Gibbons published in 1929 predicting a Soviet conquest of Europe and invasion of America. The novel contains strong racial overtones such as the yellow peril. The Red Napoleon was written in 1929 and projects the next few years. In it, Stalin is killed by an assassin in 1932. A Red Army leader takes over and starts a massive military buildup. In 1933 the Red Army invades Poland." [1]
Ironically a June 17, 1966 article in Time magazine labelled Vo Nguyen Giap "The Red Napoleon". While considered a military genius and both a yellow man and a "mongoloid", Giap was hardly the world conqueror imagined in the novel. [2] [3]
Synopsis
editThe novel's protagonist is Karakhan of Kazan, who is born in 1900 as the son of a Cossack and a Tartar, and enters the Tsar's service in World War One. When the Russian Revolution occurs, he sides with the Red forces, rising to become commander of Soviet forces in the Far East. His grasp of strategy soon leads to the takeover of China, a Communist revolution in Japan, and the freeing of India from British rule.
The novel is narrated by the author himself in the persona of a journalist, and this fictional version of Floyd Gibbons meets with Karakhan in 1932 in Moscow. Karakhan has been called back from the Far East by Stalin, who wanted him to purge Trotskyite elements from the armed forces. When Stalin is assassinated, Karakhan takes power and becomes leader of a pan-Asian Alliance centered around Russia. Floyd becomes Karakhan's press officer in the Western world. Much later in the novel, when Floyd is captured by Karakhan's forces during the American War, Karakhan names Floyd his official biographer.
The war begins in January 1933, when Poland is invaded following a bogus diplomatic incident. Floyd notes that Karakhan's tactics are designed to prevent a recurrence of the trench warfare that afflicted World War One; he uses tactical air power to support his ground forces, which are mostly cavalry; tanks only make an appearance much later in the novel. The Red forces rapidly overrun Eastern Europe, Hungary and Austria surrendering, and Benito Mussolini is killed when the Italians make a futile attempt to force the Reds out of Austria.
Germany joins the Pan-Eurasian forces after a coup by Communists, becoming the German Soviet Republic, and takes part in the Westward drive. Thanks to American neutrality, the French, British, and Belgians are forced to rely on their own less than adequate resources and soon fall. After France surrenders, the British government under Winston Churchill follows suit and his successor orders the Royal Navy to remain in port as the Pan-Eurasian forces cross the English Channel. The King of Britain flees to North America, along with many other European monarchs.
The war against the United States occurs in 1934, following the seizure of a Mexican seaport. Karakhan makes an appeal to the American proletariat to join the revolution, promising self-governing regions for various ethnic minorities, such as a Scandinavian soviet in Minnesota and a "Black Belt" in the south, the latter of which was an actual part of the US Communist Party's platform on occasion.
In this context as in others, readers may slowly realize that this is by no means an ill-informed book. The author had a fair grasp of Soviet politics during the early Stalinist period. He also seems to have had a passing familiarity with Eurasianism, a geostrategic doctrine that, in its German incarnation, held that Germany was essentially a have-not nation whose real community of interest was with Russia and the colonial world. The notion had always had some appeal for the pro-Soviet Left, but also, surprisingly, for some Nazis and post-war fascists.
References
edit- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 126.