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Amerika (miniseries)

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Amerika -- suggesting a Russian name for the United States -- was an American television miniseries that was broadcast in 1987. It starred Kris Kristofferson, Mariel Hemingway, Sam Neill, Robert Urich, and a 16-year-old Lara Flynn Boyle in her first major role. Amerika was about life in the United States after a non-violent takeover by the Soviet Union. Seeking to avoid any depiction of the actual coup, ABC network executive Brandon Stoddard decided (at the suggestion of his wife) to set the action of the miniseries ten years after the event, focusing on the lives of the American people a decade after the Soviet takeover.

The subject matter of this miniseries attracted considerable attention and controversy at the time of broadcast. Although claims have been made that the program was made partly in response to the 1983 television film The Day After -- which some critics felt was too pacifist and did not portray the consequences of a possible loss of American freedom -- Stoddard dismissed this view, pointing instead to a column in the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner written by attorney (and, later, television personality) Ben Stein. Stein criticized The Day After but suggested, "What would life in America be like under Soviet occupation?" Stoddard acknowledged that this remark provided the inspiration for the series, and Stein apparently wrote either an outline or story treatment for Amerika, although he was otherwise not directly involved with the miniseries.

Described in promotional materials as "the most ambitious American miniseries ever created," Amerika aired for 14-1/2 hours (including commercials) over seven nights, and reportedly cost $40 million to produce, but it arrived to mixed reviews. Many critics and viewers felt it was too long and unrealistic, a number of critics argued that it would be bad for Soviet-American relations, and an attorney retained by the United Nations objected to the U.N. being depicted as an occupying force under Soviet control. Some conservatives felt that the Soviet brutality was underplayed; conversely, a number of liberals dismissed the miniseries as right-wing paranoia.

Amerika was preceded by an ABC special addressing the considerable controversy prior to its airing (The Storm Over Amerika), and was followed by an "ABC News Viewpoint" panel discussion moderated by Ted Koppel, with Brandon Stoddard, executive producer/director/writer Donald Wrye and others addressing the issues surrounding the miniseries, along with questions and comments from a live studio audience in Minneapolis.

Situation Presented

In the late 1980s, as the U.S.S.R.'s economic and political decline puts it in danger of losing the Cold War, the Soviet leadership makes a desperate gamble to rearrange the global balance of power. Four huge thermonuclear weapons are exploded in the stratosphere over the United States. The electromagnetic pulse (or EMP) of these weapons destroys the nation's military and commercial communications and computer systems, electrical grid, and, indeed, any piece of equipment that relies on computer technology, such as most late-model automobiles. With America's ICBMs inoperative, and the National Command Authority unable to contact U.S. military forces abroad to counterattack, America is forced to accept Soviet terms for surrender. The United States quickly falls under Soviet military occupation, and the President of the United States and Congress become figureheads for their Soviet overseers.

The subsequent takeover of the U.S. is tamely dubbed "The Transition". The miniseries details the final phase of the transition -- the breakup of the United States ten years after its defeat.

(The above events are implied in the miniseries, although never directly explained. The description is taken from the novelization of the miniseries, Amerika: The Triumph of the American Spirit by Brauna E. Pouns (Pocket Books, 1987), based on Donald Wrye's screenplay; Wrye is reported to have written a 175-page story treatment describing how the Soviets took over. An introduction to the miniseries explaining the conquest of America ended up on the cutting room floor before broadcast, and only a fleeting line by actor Sam Neill alludes to an America without communications, presumably due to the effects of the electromagnetic pulse. The loss of technology and communications, however, is effectively presented in the opening scenes: no radios are heard, one scene in a church is lit entirely by candlelight, television is shown only in the Soviet leaders' offices, and a woman is seen using an old sewing machine operated by foot pedal.)

Amerika criticizes American society in the 80's, implying that disunity and the unwillingness to defend freedom on the part of many citizens made the conquest rather simple. At one point, a key Soviet official observes that their plan of disrupting American commerce and military forces with the electromagnetic pulse succeeded far beyond their wildest dreams, because upon losing technology and communications, Americans turned inward, not caring about national issues, seeking only to retain a piece of the prosperity that had once been theirs. "You lost your country before we ever got here," says the Soviet leader. "You had political freedom, but you lost your passion ... How could we not win?"

An early scene shows schoolchildren in Chicago learning about Social Darwinism, which is characterized as the dominant philosophy in the old United States before the Soviet conquest and occupation, and a speech delivered by one child demonstrates the extent of Soviet indoctrination in the new America:

We are the voice of the new generation. We are the voice of the new people. The destructive ways of the past are gone. We will replace them with our vision of the future. The Party will lead us to the new age. There have been those who have tried to stop the new age. They are the corrupt reminder of the past. They have tried to confuse us with the idea that the old America was a good country. We know that lie. History teaches us that lie. We are grateful to our Soviet brothers for saving the world from destruction, and we can now join them in a world of socialist brotherhood. Everyone will go to school, everyone will have a job, everyone will be equal. No one will exploit or be exploited, and all those who oppose this wonderful vision...will be crushed.

Major Characters

The storyline of Amerika primarily follows three political leaders:

Peter Bradford (played by Robert Urich) is a well-meaning, honest, patriotic county administrator in Nebraska who cooperates with the Soviets to create a better life for his community. Bradford gains the attention of the Soviet leadership because, while interested in cooperating, he is independent and widely respected by his constituents. The Soviets select him to run one of the Bantustan-like states -- "Heartland" -- carved out of the former United States.

Devin Milford (played by Kris Kristofferson) was a maverick politician before the occupation, and even ran for president in 1988 (1992 in the novel), after the U.S. defeat. He was placed in a prison camp for daring to speak the truth about the Soviet conquest during his presidential campaign. At the beginning of the miniseries, Devin is declared "rehabilitated" and is released back into society, into the custody of his father, who lives in the county run by Peter Bradford.

Colonel Andrei Denisov of the KGB (played by Sam Neill) is the Soviet administrator for the American Central Administrative Area. At times, Andrei seems disappointed by the ease with which America has been conquered. He is romantically involved with Kimberly Ballard (played by Mariel Hemingway), an actress who discovers her American patriotism during the miniseries. Andrei's immediate superior and mentor is General Petya Samanov (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl), the Soviet military leader in charge of the occupation.

Major female characters in addition to Ballard include Peter Bradford's wife, Amanda (played by Cindy Pickett), Devin Milford's ex-wife, Marion (played by Wendy Hughes), and most notably, Devin's sister Alethea (played by Christine Lahti), who at the outset is prostituting herself to the local occupation leader. In subsequent episodes, Alethea finds her bearings and self-respect. "Alethea is the center," noted Donald Wrye. "She is a metaphor for America -- not just phonically -- and it is she who discovers her moral core through the course of the series."

The human drama of these characters intersects with the political intrigue of the Soviet plans for the breakup of America. Bradford, the pragmatist, clashes with Milford, the idealist; Bradford's wife is Milford's ex-girlfriend, who finds she still has feelings for Milford upon his release from the prison camp; Denisov appoints Milford's ex-wife, now a powerful magistrate (and Gen. Samanov's mistress), to serve as Bradford's deputy/assistant in Heartland; and Kimberly's renewed sense of American pride ultimately affects her relationship with Denisov.

Plot

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A decade after its defeat, America is occupied by a United Nations peacekeeping force called the United Nations Special Service Unit (U.N.S.S.U.). The U.N.S.S.U. is comprised primarily of Eastern Bloc forces, and is overseen by an East German, Major Helmut Gurtman. Periodically, the U.N.S.S.U. engages in "training exercises" which are, in fact, destructive, and highly intimidating to the local population.

Those Americans who engage in dissent, or who otherwise express their opposition to the Soviet occupation, are stripped of their privileges and sent to exile camps, where they are anathema not only to the Soviets, but also, it seems, to their fellow citizens. Association with (and assistance to) the exiles is generally prohibited, although a few brave souls risk the loss of their own remaining freedoms by offering humanitarian aid.

Production quotas have been imposed, and foodstuffs rationed, with the surplus presumably being shipped to the Soviet Union. Peter Bradford and other residents of the future Heartland must settle for soy cakes with molasses at the local diner. ("That's what really makes you want to give up. You can't even get a good breakfast," says one character.)

The Soviet leaders of the occupation find themselves faced with the dual problems of keeping America pacified and convincing the Politburo that their fears of a revitalized America are misplaced because the country is under occupation and can no longer pose a threat. The Politburo is unconvinced, and even considers exploding nuclear weapons over several American cities as a warning -- to the American people, and to the world. At great personal risk, Samanov finally convinces the Soviet leadership to accept a compromise plan: no nuclear weapons will be detonated, the United States will be divided into "client states" such as Heartland, and the U.S. Capitol building will be destroyed as a symbolic gesture of the dismantling of America. At the same time, most of the members of Congress will be killed in a "terrorist attack" after they refuse to disband their legislative body.

After the attack is carried out, Samanov surveys the damage, and recognizes the enormity of the crime that he has committed. Sitting in the Speaker's chair in the House of Representatives, he commits suicide.

In the final episode of the miniseries, Heartland is about to secede from the United States. There are scenes of Americans digging up guns they have hidden for ten years. Heartland troops, along with local militia, attack the local U.N.S.S.U. compound, effectively declaring war on the Soviet occupation. A scene with Americans raising the U.S. flag on top of a grain elevator is shown, and there is even a reference to a Second American Revolution. The miniseries, however, ends with General Sittman (the leader of the Heartland Defense Force and a former U.S. Marine) shooting Devin Milford before he is able to make a nationwide broadcast calling on Americans to resist the breakup of the United States. Although there is hope that the spirit of America lives on, in the end it appears that the Soviet plan to dissolve the United States will come to fruition.

Several sources have claimed that the finale of the miniseries was deliberately left somewhat unresolved to allow for the possibility of a weekly spinoff television series -- but such plans, if they indeed existed, never materialized.

The Dividing of the United States

In this fictional timeline, Congress divided the United States into several "administrative areas" in 1988, roughly one year after the Soviet takeover. As the miniseries progresses, these areas are planned to become separate nations, joined together in a new North American Alliance. A map shown onscreen reveals these administrative areas to be:

In addition to these administrative areas, Washington, D.C. apparently comprises its own National Administrative District, South Florida is described by a character as the "Space Zone," and there is a passing reference to three "International Cities," which are not specified.

Alaska is mentioned as never having been pacified, requiring continued engagement by Soviet troops, and there are also pockets of armed resistance in the Rocky Mountains and in West Virginia. There is no mention of what happened to Hawaii, or to U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa.

The Rust Belt (presumably "Ameritech") faces its own special problems. Most of its advanced factory equipment was removed at the start of the occupation and taken to the U.S.S.R., as happened in East Germany after World War II. The region suffers 50% unemployment as a result, and its residents are not permitted to leave, except to volunteer for factory work in the Soviet Union, from which no one has been known to return.

Travel and communications between the various zones is heavily restricted, part of the "divide and conquer" plan of the Soviet occupation.

New International Divisions

Both the novel and miniseries leave the impression that, with the death of freedom in America, there is nowhere else in the world where it may be found. In the novel, one character muses: "The truth is, we've reached the first time in history where there's no place left to escape to. America, England, Israel, Canada, there was always a beacon of hope somewhere. Now there's just one world and it's all bad." This dialogue suggests that the Soviet Union or other totalitarian forces conquered other free countries after the U.S. coup; it can be surmised that the EMP which disabled American technology probably would have also crippled Canada and Mexico, for example. There is also a scene with two emigres from the GDR who came to the United States before the Soviet takeover and are now exiles in their new country: "It's one of life's little jokes. We escaped from East Germany to come to the promised land; now the promised land has become worse than what we left."

In this new world, Fidel Castro leads what is known as "Greater Cuba", embracing most of the Caribbean and Latin America, and the Chinese region of Manchuria has evidently been absorbed into the U.S.S.R., as General Samanov remarks at one point that a rebellion has occurred in "our own Manchuria." A leader named "Mbele" heads the "Socialist Republic of Southern Africa", while "Barghout" is the leader of "Iraqistan". Eastern Europe is characterized as being a "powderkeg". The Soviet/Communist occupation of the world in Amerika is clearly not a peaceful one, echoing the unrest in the occupied United States.

Revised Pledge of Allegiance and Insignia

A new Pledge of Allegiance is given by "rehabilitated" political prisoners upon release from the American gulags. It goes as follows:

"I pledge my allegiance to the flag of the community of American, Soviet, and United Nations of the World, and to the principle for which it stands -- a nation, indivisible with others of the Earth, joined in peace, and justice for all."

While the prisoners are told that they are free to refuse to make this pledge if they so desire, the circumstances under which the oath is administered would seem to indicate otherwise.

The flag of the occupation is the pale blue UN flag, with crossed American and Soviet flags superimposed on the sides. The American flag is shown without its stars, and this starless flag is also displayed during the "Lincoln-Lenin Day" parade (see below). The standard American flag is outlawed, although one scene early in the series shows a group of war veterans marching with the American flag upside down, this being intended as a distress signal.

The Star-Spangled Banner, America's (former) National Anthem, is also outlawed, although this does not stop a group of citizens from singing it, haltingly, after the Lincoln Day parade. "That song is forbidden!", yells Gurtman. "Arrest them all," says Peter Bradford, with a touch of defiance.

Abraham Lincoln is included with Karl Marx and Lenin in propaganda. Indeed, the signature scene in the film is a twenty-minute, dialogue-free depiction of the celebration of "Lincoln-Lenin Day" (a holiday replacing the Fourth of July), with both Lincoln and Lenin displayed on banners that were most likely intended to be striking and startling to television audiences of the time.

Ratings and Cultural Influence

The first two nights of Amerika garnered huge ratings, but audience numbers dropped thereafter, and the overall miniseries was viewed by only 19 percent of the American public (as compared to a 46 rating for The Day After). "It wasn't the big hit some of its supporters had hoped," said Ted Koppel, "but it wasn't a disaster, either." While The Day After may have changed the opinions of some people about nuclear war, Amerika did not appear to have significantly affected public opinion either of Communism or the former Soviet Union. Because of its disappointing ratings performance, however, Amerika is thought by many to have brought an end to the "epic" miniseries often featured on American television in the 1980s. Future productions were generally shorter in length with the notable exception of the 30-hour War and Remembrance the following year.

Availability

Amerika has remained unseen on American television since its original telecast on ABC, possibly because its politics quickly became dated over the next few years with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the reunification of Germany; perhaps also because it was not as popular as other miniseries. A VHS box set of the miniseries was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 1995, but no official DVD release is yet available. Portions of the soundtrack by Basil Poledouris were released on CD by Prometheus Records in 2004.

Similar works

  • The 1984 film Red Dawn presented a conventional/nuclear Soviet attack on the United States, aided by allies from Latin America, and a group of high schoolers who form a guerrilla group to oppose them.
  • The 1952 film Invasion U.S.A. showed a Soviet invasion of the U.S. succeeding because the citizenry had fallen into moral decay, war profiteering, and isolationism. The film was later parodied on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (This is not the similarly-titled Chuck Norris action-oriented film from 1985.)
  • The novel Invasion by Eric Harry features a conventional Chinese invasion into the Southern United States.
  • Eric Harry's novel Arc Light concerns an accidental limited nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Russian Republic, followed by a conventional U.S./European invasion of Russia.
  • Warday (And The Journey Onward) by Whitley Streiber and James Kunetka is a novel that takes a pseudo-documentary look at the United States five years after a limited nuclear war is fought between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Although only a few cities are hit in the exchange, America has been turned into a Third World country because of the effect that the EMP had on its technology.
  • Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois is an alternate history novel about the United States a decade after the Cuban Missile Crisis results in a limited nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
  • The role-playing game The Price of Freedom by Greg Costikyan presents an America occupied by the USSR. The first scenario involves the player characters' reaction to the arrival of Soviet troops in their hometown.
  • "K" was a short-lived Philippine television mini-series that told the fictional story of the country being ruled by Communists. Made on a low budget, this series enjoyed a huge following among viewers and was even used as an educational reference on what the nation and Filipino lives might be like under Communist rule. Right-wingers and human rights activists in the Philippines objected to the mini-series, however, as they believed that K would only spread Communism among the people and even spark revolts between the government and rebel forces. Politics aside, K is widely believed to be influenced by the Amerika mini-series, as it was released in 1988 (a year after Amerika's release), and shared many of its themes.
  • Freedom Fighters is a 2003 third-person/first-person tactical shooter video game that takes place in an alternate timeline where the Soviets have gained dominance during the Cold War and invade the United States. You play as a former plumber turned resistance fighter in New York City who ultimately takes on the mantle of leadership.
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