List of Fictional Revolutions and Coups - Books

Books

• Animal Farm by George Orwell
  • In this satirical allegory, farm animals representing Bolshevik revolutionaries successfully execute a coup d'état (which they call 'The Rebellion'), ousting the cruel farmer Mr Jones (representing Tsar Nicholas II).
• Strike Force by Dale Brown
  • General Hesarek al-Buzhazi, former Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Internal Defense Forces (Basij) commander, disgraced due to previous failures, turns to the Americans and former arch-nemesis General Patrick McLanahan to support him in a coup to overthrow the Islamic theocracy and restore civil rights in Iran (later renamed the Democratic Republic of Persia).
• Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
  • Colonel General Pavel Alekseyev, aware that the Politburo was considering using tactical nuclear weapons, stages a successful coup d'état with Energy Minister Mikhail Sergetov and the Chairman of the KGB to replace the Politburo with a 'Troika' and cease war between the USSR and NATO.
• The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy
  • After badly losing against a Russo-American alliance that liberated Siberia, and China's attempted launches of nuclear weapons against both countries, Chinese protesters invade a Politburo meeting, whence Politburocrat Fang Gan assumes control of the government, arrests the leaders of the military invasion, and withdraws Chinese forces from Russia.
• A Very British Coup a 1982 novel by Chris Mullin
  • Features a successful coup d'état against Harry Perkins, a left-wing Labour Prime Minister. In the television version of the story, the result is different (cf. below).
• O Senhor Embaixador by Érico Veríssimo
  • First Sacramenteña Revolution - Liberal Revolution against a corrupt democratic government in the Caribbean Republic of Sacramento. Led by António Chamorro, it installed him as Dictator and his wife as the true Commander.
  • Second Sacramenteña Revolution - Liberal Revolution against the dictatorship of António Chamorro in the Republic of Sacramento. Led by Juventino Carrera and Gabriel Heliodoro, it installed Carrera as Dictator.
  • Dr. Júlio Moreno overthrow - coup d'état in the Republic of Sacramento against the leftist, democratically elected Moreno government. Led by ex-president Juventino Carrera to reinstall him as Dictator.
  • 1959 Revolución Socialista Sacramenteña - Socialist revolution in the Republic of Sacramento against the dictatorship of Juventino Carrera. Led by Manuel Barrios, it installs a communist government.
• Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II
  • A group of American generals and senators unsatisfied with President Jordan Lyman's ratification of a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union develop the ECOMCON (Emergency Communications and Control) and plan to divert the country's communications media and infrastructure to prevent the treaty's ratification.
• The Man Who Held the Queen to Ransom and Sent Parliament Packing
  • British Army Captain Richard Wyatt leads the kidnap of the Queen, dismisses Parliament, and installs a revolutionary government.
• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
  • The plotting and execution of a prisoners' revolt against Earth rule in the Lunar penal colony, establishing a political system combining anarchism, libertarianism, and socialism.
• The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
  • Describes a coup d'état organized by right wing conservatives to overthrow the popular, newly elected socialist government. While the book is technically fiction it is strongly based on the overthrow of the government of the author's cousin Salvador Allende and the dictatorship of General Pinochet
• The Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth
  • Describes a coup d'état in the small African republic of Zangaro, organized by mercenaries hired by British industrialist James Manson, who uncovered a very rich platinum source in the republic.
• Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
  • Revolutionaries provoked by the over-paranoid, evil methods of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Homicidal Lord Winder, organize a rebellion against him, wherein Samuel Vimes finds himself, for the second time, after a magical accident sends him back in time.
• Settling Accounts: In at the Death by Harry Turtledove
  • Confederate Army officers led by chief of staff Nathan Bedford Forrest III attempt to overthrow Confederate President Jake Featherston in the dying days of the Second Great War in 1944. General Forrest confronts Featherston in the latter's bunker in Richmond, Virginia and attempts to talk the president into surrendering power while waiting for backup from his soldiers. Featherston figures out what Forrest is up to and secretly alerts his own loyalists, who intercept Forrest's followers and break into the meeting between Forrest and Featherston. Forrest is taken away for execution, his coup having failed and thus the one attempt for the CSA to get a negotiated peace with the United States goes with him.
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
  • The Wizard stages a bloodless coup d'état to arrest the Ozma Regent and have Ozma imprisoned. The adult Elphaba and the resistance also plan a counter-coup d'état to kill the Wizard and the high authorities, but it fails.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
  • Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters successfully lead a coup and gain control of the Ministry of Magic.
• It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
  • The fascist President Berzelius Windrip, just a few days after his inauguration, arrests most of the congress and subsequently dismisses it ultimately becoming a dictator.
• U.S.S.A. by Tom De Haven, S.N. Lewitt, S.C. Sykes
  • A military overthrow of the United States government and President Patrick Cudahy results in General Sawchuk and a junta of other high-ranking military officers taking control, confining the President to a ranch in Oregon, near Nevada. The name of the country is changed to United Secure States of America.
• The Turner Diaries
  • A white supremacist organization overthrows the US federal government and eventually takes over the world.
• Red Phoenix by Larry Bond
  • A rogue South Korean Army general, Chang Jae-kyu, plans a coup d'etat codenamed "Operation Purify" to take advantage of a planned US withdrawal from South Korea in light of political instability in the country using one infantry division based near the DMZ to seize Seoul. One of his accomplices, a general in the Defense Security Command, works to arrest his own superiors by charging them of plotting a coup. However, a US Forces Korea commander's strict orders against deployments of South Korean troops away from the DMZ without his explicit approval results in the interception of Chang's coup force as it reaches the outskirts of Seoul. A sniper kills Chang before he could rally more soldiers to his cause and the coup force is slaughtered. The fallout of the incident results in further destabilization of the South Korean military by arresting hundreds of suspected coup plotters who are eventually brought back in action with the North Korean invasion almost three weeks later. Near the end of the novel, elements of the North Korean military dissatisfied with the war arrest Kim Jong-il and ask China to help facilitate a cease-fire. It is implied that the North Korean renegades killed Kim.