By Vikas Datta Literature, as with all forms of expression of culture, can be immune to the possibility of acquiring or manifesting a political or ideological aspect, regardless of the claims or assertions of the authors.
It could be an unconscious motivation, but the writers are either directly or indirectly affected by their sociopolitical millieu, even when they are against it.You don’t have to be an Marxist to recognize that.
The same way that Edward Said showed in his study of “Orientalism,” or works that have recently highlighted the covert or overt politics of literary figures like William Wordsworth (Jonathan Bate’s “Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World”) and Jane Austen (Helena Kelly’s “Jane Austen, The Secret Radical”) Politics can be a factor into the realm of poetry or comedy of manners, or other types of fiction, too.This can cover the entire spectrum of literary classics all the way to pulp fiction.
The Cold War is a fitting illustration.
When two opposing systems of political and social organisation were fighting for influence across the globe and influence, the struggle to influence minds and hearts was the basis for military and diplomatic maneuvers.
Duncan White’s “Cold Warriors: Writers who played the Literary Cold War” (2019) provides an overview of the ways that poets and novelists were involved in the games of betrayal and espionage and conspiracies in the war through the stories of George Orwell, Stephen Spender, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, John le Carre, Anna Akhmatova, Ernest Hemingway and Boris Pasternak (among others).
Let us look at one aspect popular fiction, of the thriller genre and one individual -the name of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union and regarded as the failed reformer who brought down the building.
Soviet rulers generally did not have very contrasting representations in Western fiction.
Lenin -despite his tremendous potential as an ideologue of profound depth is mostly absent, with the exception of in one tinny story in which an British agent, charged with the rescue of the last Tsar Nicholas II (at the private initiative of his cousins as well as the British King and the German Kaiser) meets him in his unsuccessful mission.
Stalin will be better served by and is featured in Michael “House of Cards” Dobbs’ culminating work of his Winston Churchill quartet, “Churchill’s Triumph” (2005) The initial two novels of Simon Sebag-Montefiore’s Soviet trilogy -“Sashenka” (2008) and “Sashenka” (2008) as well as “One Night in Winter” (2013) – and the entirety of Sam Eastland’s Pekkala series starting with “Eye of the Red Tsar” (2010) to “Berlin Red” (2016) and “One Night in Winter” (2013), even though the characters range from an autocrat who is manipulative (at the very best) to an extremely suspicious and insecure psychopath.
Nikita Khrushchev is only featured in one major film, in Barbara Allen’s “Bombshell” (2004) in which he is targeted for assassination during a US visit.He is helped by the help of Marilyn Monroe and Walt Disney!
Leonid Brezhnev is still absent despite his potential.
Yuri Andropov only gets cameos in Ted Allbeury’s “Moscow Quadrille” (1976) as the former KGB chief, though his appearances of two or three are powerful.He also appears in Robert Littell’s “The Company” (2002).
The rather boring Konstantin Chernenko did not stay in the KGB for long enough to be counted.
Gorbachev however was a different man His rise to power was an air of fresh air for the Soviet people who had grown accustomed to the gerontocracy in the Kremlin for more than 10 years.
His Western friends embraced the fact that he was not steeped in traditionalist doctrine like the predecessors before him, with Margaret Thatcher’s “we can do business with Gorbachev” approval setting the tone.
He will continue to deliver.
The treaties on arms control and reduction and the departure of the Soviets from the Afghan quagmire and later East Europe would make him a respected politician in the majority of the world’s eyes.He did not have the same success at home, however his attempts to reforms were met with years of inertia , and the vested interests of and the inevitable pushback.
This is the way he appears in the majority of Western thrillers.He is threatened by attempts to overthrow or kill the man, (and here comes the political subtext) he has a gamut of Western agents/spies who come to his assistance.There are exceptions.
Frederick Forsyth’s “The Negotiator” (1989) is one of the best.
The fundamental plot is that Gorbachev and his US counterpart President John Cormack, agree on an extensive arms reduction treaty, however there are certain sections in both countries that aren’t happy.
The son of the President is abducted from Oxford and, despite the efforts of an experienced but uncompromising hostage release expert The “Negotiator” of the title is killed at the moment of release.
An Soviet device is discovered inside his body and is responsible for scuttling the deal.Negotiator digs in with the help of the KGB.
Gorbachev plays a significant role to play.He particularly shines in the scene where he summons a high-ranking military officer who is a central character in the film, to his office.
He is silently pointing to an array of images that show a reckless move by security forces in response to the nationalist protest.The officer raises an eyebrow and Gorbachev declares”Bastard.”Bastard.”
It was certainly not out of normal for the Secretary General.The records show Gorbachev was often a bit sarcastic and humorous even with the military.
The Mathias Rust incident was a instance in the point.
The amateur German pilot, who was then 18 years old, was flying his Cessna aircraft from Helsinki on May 28, 1987 to the Soviet Union — and after being tracked and detected and tracked, flew without a hitch until Moscow and landed close to the Red Square.The only thing that made it more difficult was the fact that the day in the incident happened to be the National Border Guards Day.
A angry Gorbachev summoned the military’s top brass and slammed themwith a candid admission from the Air Defence Forces chief that he was aware of the incident just after the plane landed in Moscow attracted the ire of the entire world on his head.
“I think that what the Traffic Police told you,” was the most kind of things he heard.
The Soviet leader is also featured in three of Tom Clancy’s earliest Jack Ryan novels — but not under his name.Andrey Ilych Narmonov, the Soviet General Secretary in the novels “The Hunt for the Red October” (1984), “The Cardinal of the Kremlin” (1988) and “The Sum of All Fears” (1991) is clearly modeled on Gorbachev.
Narmonov is only seen in Narmonov appears in Soviet scenes of the first.He as well as Ryan -who just pulled off an outrageous move to rescue an agent and in preventing the threat to Narmonov’s authority — meet near the conclusion of the film “The Cardinal” and he is openly dismissive of American assistance.
In the final film — the one that will contain the Soviet Union — a supposed plot to overthrow Narmonov is a crucial plot point, and in the final scene, when the situation is rapidly unraveling, it’s his decision to ease the tensions to can avert the disaster from happening.
The similarities with the real world Gorbachev could not be more obvious.
As we mentioned earlier, the majority of the other deals with threats against Gorbachev who can only be saved with either covert or overt Western assistance.
In the novel by Herbert Burkholz “Strange Bedfellows” (1988) in which Gorbachev is about to sign an agreement with the US one of his “closest associates” is attempting to kill him but “the attempt fails and the assassin eats the poison cyanide.” The US government is determined to uncover the plot through the use of their most powerful agent, Ben Slade.A highly trained and skilled’sensitive’, he is blessed and cursed with the ability to read minds.
Dennis Jones’ “Concerto” (1990) includes fake TV units enters the high-security compound of the Soviet consulate in New York City, and “within minutes nine men are dead and Soviet Union’s most powerful and revered leader -Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Gorbachev — is missing”.
Conservative writer and CIA agent William F.Buckley Jr’s spy ‘Blackford Owens’ (“A Very Private Plot” 1993) and Adam Hall’s Quiller (in “Quiller KGB” 1989) attempt as well at rescuing the Soviet leader.
Joseph Finder’s “The Moscow Club” (1991), of another plot, seems prescient, and was published months before the failed coup attempt in August 1991.
But, it came as a fact in the end and the Soviet Union did go into history, but there was no conspiracy against Gorbachev.
(Vikas Datta is reached via [email protected])
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