Fifth International - in Fiction

In Fiction

The plot of The Fifth Internationale, a thriller by author Jack King, is built around the premise that after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its allies, and the subsequent re-organization or dismantling of the various countries' intelligence and security agencies, their agents formed a pan-international organization called The Fifth Internationale.

Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein mentioned a Fifth International in several of his depictions of the future. In Heinlein's 1940 short story "Solution Unsatisfactory" a group called "The Fifth Internationalists" takes over the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin (who was still alive at the time of writing) and leads the country to an all-out war with the US. More sympathetic Fifth Internationalists appear in Henlein's later The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, where they are one of the assorted groups involved in the war of independence waged by the human-colonised Moon.