Revolution by Mack Reynolds

Pro-socialist Cold War spy story
Revolution, a novella by Mack Reynolds, was first published in the May 1960 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. How it got there, however, is a mystery, since this is not a science fiction story. Though it takes place five years in the future (i.e. 1965), it’s basically just a story of Cold War espionage, and only about as sci-fi as a James Bond film. Unlike his similar novellas Combat and Status Quo, Reynolds doesn’t even bother to sprinkle the narrative with gratuitous hovercars, just a couple of secret agent gadgets reminiscent of something Bond might get from M.

In this very-near-future vision of 1965, the USSR is winning the Cold War. Their totalitarian form of government, coupled with an abundance of cheap labor, has allowed them to outperform the U.S. in almost every sector of manufacturing. Paul Koslov is an operative for an American intelligence agency. Through years of successfully accomplished covert missions and political assassinations, Koslov has earned a reputation as a very effective and lethal agent. This time when he reports to his chief’s office for a new assignment, he is given the mother of all missions. Instead of merely thwarting a commie plot or taking out a high-profile target, he is tasked with nothing less than overthrowing the entire Soviet government. To do so, he must travel to Russia and direct the operations of the anti-Soviet underground movement within the USSR.

As in so many other Reynolds stories, the deeper the hero delves into the USSR, the more he (and the reader) discover that the Soviet system isn’t so bad after all. If separated from its totalitarian regime, Reynolds argues, Russia’s brand of socialism could actually solve many of America’s economic problems. Reynolds’s writings often put forth a socialist message, to which I am not entirely unsympathetic. I just wish he would pay more attention to the story he’s using to convey that message. The first half of Revolution is really a pretty good spy thriller, but it falls apart in the end, or in the lack thereof. Having made his political point, he sees no need to continue the story, so he cuts it off with an abrupt and lackluster ending, leaving the reader bemused and unsatisfied.

I’ve read a few great sci-fi stories by Reynolds, which convinced me to work my way through a collection of his novellas. Too often I find, however, that his writings are just half-baked political treatises dressed up in the barest of sci-fi trappings. Here in Revolution, he doesn’t even bother with the trappings. Still, if he had given this story a decent ending, all would be forgiven. As it stands, however, Revolution is disappointingly unremarkable.
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