History Literature / RedRabbit

** [[spoiler:Zaitsev's information is also what gets the FBI started on their search for agent Cassius, whom they double in ''Literature/TheHuntForRedOctober''.

* EyeScream: [[British morticians are forced to used a blowtorch to destroy the eyes of a dead child, because her eye color didn't match that of Zaitsev's daughter. Not doing so would have alerted the Soviets that the Rabbit family wasn't actually dead, and their plot to assassinate the Pope had been compromised.]]

The protagonist is Major Oleg Zaitsev, a KGB head clerk in the communications department at headquarters in Dzherzinsky Square. He gets qualms about some of the messages he has to encode, he has issues with the way the country is being run and he wants out. The story follows how he gets to the other side.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Clancy writes the events of the novel as taking place in the fall of 1982, and with Mikhail Suslov's death taking place before the attempt on the Pope. The assassination attempt took place in 1981, while Suslov died in the spring of 1982. Not to mention that the Transformers, mentioned several times, didn't air until three years after the actual attack on the Pope and two years after the events of the book.
* AssassinsAreAlwaysBetrayed: This was Strokov's plan after his Turkish hitman shot the Pope, but Ryan got him before that could happen.

** Zaitsev's information is also what gets the FBI started on their search for agent Cassius, whom they double in ''Literature/TheHuntForRedOctober''.
* CatchPhrase: "I serve the Soviet Union" gets said so many times that it's not even funny.

* DreamingOfThingsToCome: in a dream, Zaitzev watches Politburo members personally order the Pope shot several times; the Pope looks at him and asks him why he didn't do anything to stop it. Combined with his earlier misgivings, [[spoiler:this kicks off his decision to defect to the British and Americans in order to warn them]].
* FakingTheDead: Due to the sensitivity of information [[spoiler:being brought by a defecting Zaitsev]], CIA decides to fake the [[spoiler:Rabbit family's]] deaths so that the Soviets don't know what happened. Considerable effort is spent obtaining corpses that died from smoke inhlation, as well as rendering differing features unrecognizable.
* ForegoneConclusion: the Pope will be shot, and he will survive, as dictated by history.
* FoundTheKillerLostTheMurderer: Averted. Jack Ryan catches an Eastern Bloc assassin moments before an attempt on the Pope's life, but fails to realize that there was a hired gun until he opens fire. In this case the assassin in hauled off, while the gunman is found dead in a car later on.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Besides Reagan, John Paul II, and Thatcher, the novel names Yuri Andropov, Leonid Brezhnev, and Mikhail Suslov on the Soviet side (all dead by the time of the novel's writing)

* ItsPersonal: a mild case of this for Jack Ryan after he finds out the Pope is being targeted for assassination. He's a Roman Catholic himself, which means the KGB's target is not merely an innocent civilian or a friendly political figure, but the head of his church.

* LeaveNoWitnesses: The [[spoiler:Turkish]] gunman being the witness in this case, so the act can't be traced back to his sponsor, [[spoiler:the Soviet Union]].

* VillainsOutShopping: Ed Foley, a CIA operative on mission in Moscow, strikes up a conversation about ice hockey with a man he believes to be a KGB agent. He begins to doubt his judgement when the man turns out to be a passionate ice hockey fan, but soon realizes that KGB agents [[NotSoDifferentRemark aren't so different]], and that there must be KGB agents who like watching sports as much as he does.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: The original plan was for the [[spoiler:Turkish]] gunman to die by another's hand so that he could not tell the authorities that he was hired by the KGB [[spoiler:to kill the Pope]].

* VillainsOutShopping: Ed Foley, a CIA operative on mission in Moscow, strikes up a conversation about ice hockey with a man he believes to be a KGB agent. He begins to doubt his judgement when the man turns out to be a passionate ice hockey fan, but soon realizes that KGB agents are NotSoDifferent, and that there must be KGB agents who like watching sports as much as he does.

* NotSoDifferent: the Pope and (CPSU ideologue-in-chief) Mikhail Alexandrov, the high priests of their respective belief systems, which they accept absolutely and unquestioningly despite the absence of material proof (Marxism-Leninism being repeatedly compared to a religion). Unlike many examples of this trope, it is firmly ''not'' meant to imply equivalence. The Pope is portrayed as a decent man who served his community honorably through Nazi and Soviet occupations and is willing to risk martyrdom for the sake of his fellow Poles, while Alexandrov is an out-of-touch aristocrat who plots the murder of people simply for being politically inconvenient, making him more of an EvilCounterpart than WorthyOpponent to the Pope. Meanwhile, Marxism itself is denounced as an empty, harmful, and ultimately false religion.

Taking place shortly after [[Literature/PatriotGames the ULA's attempt on Ryan's life]], Jack Ryan has just moved to England to work as a liaison between [=MI-5=] and [=CIA=]. At the same time, UsefulNotes/ThePope has sent a letter to the Soviet Union warning that if they do not cease their oppression of Poland, he will resign the papacy and return to Poland, threatening to destabilize their hold and weaken communism. This letter causes Yuri Andropov, chairman of the KGB, to plot an assassination against the Pope.

* SeriesContinuityError: