The Project Gutenberg EBook of Revolution, by Dallas McCord Reynolds

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Title: Revolution

Author: Dallas McCord Reynolds

Illustrator: Gardner

Release Date: December 20, 2007 [EBook #23929]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REVOLUTION ***

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REVOLUTION

By MACK REYNOLDS

_Before you wish for something--or
send agents to get it for you--make
very, very sure you really want it.
You might get it, you know...._

Illustrated by Gardner

Preface ... _For some forty years critics of the U.S.S.R. have been
desiring, predicting, not to mention praying for, its collapse. For
twenty of these years the author of this story has vaguely wondered what
would replace the collapsed Soviet system. A return to Czarism? Oh, come
now! Capitalism as we know it today in the advanced Western countries?
It would seem difficult after almost half a century of State ownership
and control of the means of production, distribution, communications,
education, science. Then what? The question became increasingly
interesting following recent visits not only to Moscow and Leningrad but
also to various other capital cities of the Soviet complex. A
controversial subject? Indeed it is. You can't get much more
controversial than this in the world today. But this is science fiction,
and here we go._

* * * * *

Paul Koslov nodded briefly once or twice as he made his way through the
forest of desks. Behind him he caught snatches of tittering voices in
whisper.

"... That's him ... The Chief's hatchetman ... Know what they call him
in Central America, a _pistola_, that means ... About Iraq ... And that
time in Egypt ... Did you notice his eyes ... How would you like to date
_him_ ... That's him. I was at a cocktail party once when he was there.
Shivery ... cold-blooded--"

Paul Koslov grinned inwardly. He hadn't asked for the reputation but it
isn't everyone who is a legend before thirty-five. What was it
_Newsweek_ had called him? "The T. E. Lawren