The most recommended books on communism

Who picked these books? Meet our 75 experts.

75 authors created a book list connected to communism, and here are their favorite communism books.
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Book cover of People in Auschwitz

Erik Brouwer Author Of The Fighter of Auschwitz: The incredible true story of Leen Sanders who boxed to help others survive

From my list on Auschwitz you’ve probably never heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've written books about Jewish subjects before. A few years ago I published a biography about a Jewish Dutch actress named Jetta Goudal who invented a new life story for herself and became a Hollywoodstar. Before that I wrote a book about my Jewish great-grandfather Emanuel Brouwer who traveled to London in 1908 to compete in the Olympics. He traveled to the UK by boat with his best friend Isidore Goudeket, who was murdered in a German deathcamp. My great-grandfather did not win a medal in Londen (63rd place!), but he had a lot of fun in London, with loads of beer, whisky, and cigars. In 1943 he was sent to a camp as well. 

Erik's book list on Auschwitz you’ve probably never heard of

Erik Brouwer Why did Erik love this book?

Also a book written by an insider. Langbein was an Austrian communist who was arrested by the Nazis in Vienna and got deported.

He became a Funktionshäftling in the camp (a prisoner who had to help the Nazis with daily tasks) and wrote this formidable book about Auschwitz right after the war. Langbein describes in great detail and with style about the daily life, including sports and music, in Auschwitz I.

Non-judgemental and seemingly without anger. That’s why this book is so impressive. 

By Hermann Langbein,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked People in Auschwitz as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

People In Auschwitz is published by Fitzhenry and Whiteside.


Book cover of Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

Ursula Wong Author Of Amber Wolf

From my list on WWII and Eastern Europe (that you may not know about).

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Lithuanian-American with a Chinese name, thanks to my husband. Thirty years ago, I found papers among my uncle’s possessions telling a WWII story about our ancestral Lithuania. I had heard about it in broad terms, but I could hardly believe what I was reading. I spent years validating the material. The result was Amber Wolf, a historical novel about a war within the war: the fight against the Russian occupation of Eastern Europe. While many countries were involved in separate struggles, I focused on Lithuania and their David and Goliath fight against the Russian army. After all this time, the story still moves me.

Ursula's book list on WWII and Eastern Europe (that you may not know about)

Ursula Wong Why did Ursula love this book?

Mr. Lowe’s meticulous research of post-WWII Europe gives startling insight into how devastated the continent was after the war.

He paints a picture of lawlessness and depravity, arguably as bad as battle conditions had been. In some cases, it might have been worse. Revenge killings, rapes, and starvation were among the horrors. It begs the question, when did WWII really end? 

By Keith Lowe,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Savage Continent as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Keith Lowe's Savage Continent is an awe-inspiring portrait of how Europe emerged from the ashes of WWII.

The end of the Second World War saw a terrible explosion of violence across Europe. Prisoners murdered jailers. Soldiers visited atrocities on civilians. Resistance fighters killed and pilloried collaborators. Ethnic cleansing, civil war, rape and murder were rife in the days, months and years after hostilities ended. Exploring a Europe consumed by vengeance, Savage Continent is a shocking portrait of an until-now unacknowledged time of lawlessness and terror.

Praise for Savage Continent:

'Deeply harrowing, distinctly troubling. Moving, measured and provocative. A compelling and…


Book cover of The Remember Box

Susan Grant Author Of The Bottle House

From my list on authentically illustrating genuine Christian faith.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Bible college graduate whose faith has always been a practical matter. Because I learned to find the “so what” of the Bible, when I became a teacher of the Bible in the public schools of Rowan County, North Carolina, my elective courses had waiting lists for students to get in to. As I now teach in Maine, I found I could continue to share a practical Christian faith through my writing. The books I have listed here do the very thing that I seek in my own writing.

Susan's book list on authentically illustrating genuine Christian faith

Susan Grant Why did Susan love this book?

I laughed out loud reading The Remember Box. Though the story is serious, Sprinkle captured the concerns and problem-solving that 11-year-old girls have in a time in history, 1949, when life in the South was confusing for those families who took a stand against prejudice.

The author sprinkles Carley’s sense of humor throughout the novel, such as describing an imaginary friend her young neighbor has. You grow to love and understand Carley.

That Carley’s Uncle Stephen is a minister, and the novel describes the difficulties of applying God’s word to real-life issues, makes the book even better. As Carley deals with the loss of her mother to polio, she must decide if she wants to embrace her uncle’s Christian faith or reject it.

By Patricia Sprinkle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Remember Box as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Summer in Job's Corner meant big trees, cool grass, and sweltering afternoons stretching endlessly under the Southern sun. Those were the days without plastic, microwaves, television, or air conditioning, a time when clocks ticked comfortingly in the night and a cool breeze was a gift. But as the long sultry summer of 1949 comes to an end, events will transform this sleepy Southern crossroads.

After losing her mother to polio, eleven-year-old Carley Marshall comes to Job's Corner to make a new start, along with her Aunt Kate and Uncle Stephen Whitfield and her cousins Abby and John. The family is…


Book cover of World Revolution, 1917-1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International

Oleksa Drachewych Author Of Left Transnationalism

From my list on international communist movement between World Wars.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been interested in the topic of international relations and when I started graduate studies, I focused on Russian and Soviet foreign policy between the World Wars. When I began my research, I learned of the existence of the Comintern and was fascinated both by this attempt to develop a worldwide movement and its connection to Soviet foreign policy. Since then, I have focused on trying to understand the individuals who populated the parties and the organization and unearthing a legacy that still resonates today. One cannot fully understand the history of decolonization or of human and civil rights movements without considering the influence of the Comintern. 

Oleksa's book list on international communist movement between World Wars

Oleksa Drachewych Why did Oleksa love this book?

C.L.R. James wrote the first histories of the Comintern in English, first published in 1937. He wrote it also during a particularly chaotic period of the interwar period. Italy invaded Abyssinia, Republicans (supported by communists) fought the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, Hitler continued to consolidate his power, and the Soviet Union was in the midst of the Great Terror. Taking a critical tone, informed by his support for Trotskyism, and his belief that Stalinism had led to a series of missed opportunities for the revolutionary moment, James’s book remains an important book on the Comintern. On one hand, it is a valuable primary source, giving a glimpse of the revolutionary socialist, and critical, response to the Comintern in a particularly chaotic moment. On the other hand, it offers a unique perspective on the history of the Comintern that still resonates on the left today. Hogsbjerg’s edition, which includes…

By C.L.R. James,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked World Revolution, 1917-1936 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Written in 1937, World Revolution was a contemporary attempt to synthesize the experience of the revolutionary movement after World War I. James's analysis of the Soviet Union bears a surprising freshness, and many of his predictions have proved amazingly accurate.


Book cover of Red Menace

Jeffrey Michael Ruby Author Of Penelope March Is Melting

From my list on middle grade my bookworm daughter got me into.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent pretty much my entire adult life as a journalist, a dining critic, or a humor columnist. But over the past ten years, my reading choices have been influenced less by, say, The New Yorker, than by my daughter, Hannah. As she grew from Knuffle Bunny to Junie B. Jones to Judy Moody, so did I. And when she began reading middle-grade novels, I did too. Then I began writing them. There is something amazing about the endless possibilities of a kid’s imagination before they get cynical and start to care about things like being cool that makes middle-grade the sweet spot for ideas. It’s like Hannah came along and recalibrated my brain—for reading and writing alike.

Jeffrey's book list on middle grade my bookworm daughter got me into

Jeffrey Michael Ruby Why did Jeffrey love this book?

Lois Ruby is a YA veteran who has more than 20 books to her name, many of them historical fiction, including the beloved Steal Away Home, which appeared on basically every year-end best list back in 1994. She also happens to be my mom. And her latest book, which takes place during the “red scare” of the 1950s, is among her best. It’s a tense story about a baseball-crazy 13-year-old boy whose parents are accused of being communist sympathizers, turning his life upside down when he’s supposed to be studying for his bar mitzvah. The clock-ticking backdrop, leading up to the notorious execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for supposedly passing on nuclear secrets to the Soviets, gives the whole book terrifyingly high stakes.

By Lois Ruby,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Red Menace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

A suspenseful and heartfelt story about an era whose uncertainties, controversies, and dangers will seem anything but distant to contemporary readers.

If thirteen-year-old Marty Rafner had his way, he'd spend the summer of 1953 warming the bench for his baseball team, listening to Yankees games on the radio, and avoiding preparations for his bar mitzvah. Instead, he has to deal with FBI agents staking out his house because his parents―professors at the local college―are suspected communist sympathizers. Marty knows what happens to communists, or Reds, as his friends call them: They lose their jobs, get deported...or worse. Two people he's…


Book cover of Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice

Brandon M. Schechter Author Of The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II Through Objects

From my list on books about Soviet stuff.

Why am I passionate about this?

Things have always been a window into the past for me, and from an early age I was fascinated by communism as a rejection of the world in which I was raised. Looking at how people from a very different society made and used stuff allows you to access aspects of their experience that are deeply human. As such my research has focused on how people interacted with things as a way to examine how politics, ideology, and major historical events play out on the ground – as a way of capturing individual human experience.

Brandon's book list on books about Soviet stuff

Brandon M. Schechter Why did Brandon love this book?

Cherkaev also offers us a series of amazing stories informed by theory but written in a highly readable fashion. Many of her cases are about things that weren’t supposed to exist – about the stuff gleaned from the Soviet economy that allowed people to go on expeditions into nature, bury their loved ones, and make do in an economy infamous for its shortages.

You meet a lot of fascinating people, and she throws in some very provocative, well-argued, and cogently written discussion of the Soviet leadership’s changing understanding of how to build communism and the place of stuff in the project and its aftermath.

My consistent criticism of this book is that it ends too quickly – I wanted at least fifty more pages of Cherkaev’s witty prose and fascinating tales. 

By Xenia A. Cherkaev,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gleaning for Communism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gleaning for Communism is a historical ethnography of the property regime upon which Soviet legal scholars legislated a large modern state as a household, with guaranteed rights to a commons of socialist property, rather than private possessions. Starting with former Leningrad workers' everyday stories about smuggling industrial scrap home over factory fences, Xenia Cherkaev traces collectivist ethical logic that was central to this socialist household economy, in theory and practice: from its Stalin-era inception, through Khrushchev's major foregrounding of communist ethics, to Gorbachev's perestroika, which unfurled its grounding tension between the interests of any given collective and of the socialist…


Book cover of Torch

Amanda West Lewis Author Of Focus. Click. Wind.

From my list on making you a teenage radical.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm fascinated by the potential of teenagers. The teen years are full of passion and energy. It's a time of seeing injustice and recognizing inequality. For some young people, it becomes imperative to make the world a better place. My maternal grandparents joined the Communist Party when they were teenagers. They were deeply committed to making the world a better place, but it was a commitment that affected all of their decisions. They were saving the world—what happened with their children was of little consequence. Therefore the books on my list reflect my interest in teenage radicals, as well as the fate of children who grow up under a system of radical beliefs.

Amanda's book list on making you a teenage radical

Amanda West Lewis Why did Amanda love this book?

Torch traces the evolution of a revolution.

In 1969, Czechoslovakia was being engulfed by the Soviet Union. Young people throughout the country were fighting to hold on to their freedom. Government crackdowns led to violence and despair. Choices were limited, and people became increasingly desperate.

Miller-Lachmann takes us to the heart of that time, and into the pain of young people watching their futures disappear. What I love about this book is the complex personalities of the teenagers at the heart of the story. You share their fears as they come to know more about themselves, their parents, and the terrifying world around them.

Their passions and resourcefulness are inspirational. It is a book about what is lost and gained as people fight the rise of authoritarianism. It is both a story from the past, and a cautionary tale.

By Lyn Miller-Lachmann,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Torch as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Three teens struggle to carve out futures for themselves under a totalitarian regime.

Czechoslovakia, 1969

Seventeen-year-old Pavol has watched his country's freedoms disappear in the wake of the Soviet Union's invasion. He's seen his own dreams disappear too. In a desperate, fatal act of protest against the oppressive new government, he sets himself on fire in public, hoping to motivate others to fight for change.

Instead, Pavol's death launches a government investigation into three of his closest friends. Štěpán finds his Olympic hockey ambitions jeopardized and must conceal his sexual orientation from authorities who could use it against him. Tomáš…


Book cover of McCarthyism: The Fight for America

Larry Tye Author Of Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy

From my list on red scares in the USA.

Why am I passionate about this?

Larry Tye is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book is Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy. Before that, he was an award-winning reporter at The Boston Globe, where his primary beat was medicine. He also served as the Globe’s environmental reporter, roving national writer, investigative reporter, and sports writer. Tye, who graduated from Brown University, was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1993-94. He taught journalism at Boston University, Northeastern, and Tufts.

Larry's book list on red scares in the USA

Larry Tye Why did Larry love this book?

The fairest way to begin to explore the conspiracy McCarthy and his backers feared is to hear it from the Cassandra himself. Joe lays out his case in this thin volume.

By Joe McCarthy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked McCarthyism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Straight from the middle of the Cold-War era, then-Senator Joe McCarthy outlines his mission to reclaim America from the threat of communism, offering what he calls "documented answers to questions asked by friend and foe." A chilling set of documents then...and now. This is the original publication from 1952, NOT a modern reprint, in paper wrappers with McCarthy's photo on front cover,101 pages + Index in rear. Condition is downgraded to only Good due to external edgewear, light rubbing & some corner creasing. . Protected in mylar collector bag Free! Please see our photos--they show the Exact book you will…


Book cover of Spider Eaters: A Memoir

Lisa A. Kirschenbaum Author Of International Communism and the Spanish Civil War: Solidarity and Suspicion

From my list on world communism.

Why am I passionate about this?

When in the summer of 1991, I stood with the crowds at Moscow’s White House during the attempted coup against Gorbachev, I had the sense that I was living through and in a small, but not unimportant way, making history. I left Moscow fascinated by the questions of how big historical events shape individuals’ lives and how personal circumstances influence public action and commitments. My books explore how children experienced and made sense of the Russian Revolution; how survivors of the World War II blockade of Leningrad interacted with official state commemorations of the war; and how international communists explained and remembered their participation in the Spanish Civil War.

Lisa's book list on world communism

Lisa A. Kirschenbaum Why did Lisa love this book?

Rae Yang offers a moving and sometimes harrowing account of how a privileged child of Chinese Communist Party elites became during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s a member of the Red Guards, and, in the aftermath of the revolution, a pig tender on a farm in the remote northern wilderness. Ultimately, she emigrated to the United States and became a professor of East Asian studies. In this beautifully written memoir, Yang recovers her youthful idealism and offers an unsparing assessment of the consequences for China, her family, and herself of the desire for revolutionary heroism. 

By Spider Eaters,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Spider Eaters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Spider Eaters" is at once a moving personal story, a fascinating family history, and a unique chronicle of political upheaval told by a Chinese woman who came of age during the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution. With stunning honesty and a lively, sly humor, Rae Yang records her life from her early years as the daughter of Chinese diplomats in Switzerland, to her girlhood at an elite middle school in Beijing, to her adolescent experience as a Red Guard and later as a laborer on a pig farm in the remote northern wilderness. She tells of her eventual disillusionment…


Book cover of The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba`thists and Free Officers

Johan Franzen Author Of Red Star Over Iraq: Iraqi Communism Before Saddam

From my list on Middle Eastern communism and leftist movements.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up during the Cold War, I became interested in Communism early. I read about how the Communist International worked to spread the world revolution. Despite its Eurocentrism, Communism appealed to people in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. However, it failed to make meaningful inroads in the Middle East. I wanted to know why. When I trained to become a historian, my curiosity turned towards the Arab world. I decided to combine my two interests and research the history of Arab Communist movements. I discovered a fascinating world of firebrand activists struggling against the tide of nationalism, fascism, and religious bigotry. I hope you find these books as gripping as I did.

Johan's book list on Middle Eastern communism and leftist movements

Johan Franzen Why did Johan love this book?

This immense book, which in reality is three books in one, is what first attracted me to Iraqi communism. I had long been interested in the history of the Communist movement, but none of the many books I had read on the topic had ever dealt with Communism in the Arab world. Batatu’s book was a revelation. It is a tour de force of the history of Iraqi social movements of the early twentieth century. Despite many detours along the way, Batatu masterfully tells a gripping narrative of the disparate groups who ended up in the Iraqi state that was created after World War I and how they made sense of this new reality. 

By Hanna Batatu,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The book description for the previously published "The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of Its Communists, Ba'thists, and Free Officers" is not yet available.