Compiled by Stephen Schwartz
Most of these books are personal memoirs or original source materials compiled
by participants in the events they describe. For this reason, they are especially authoritative and useful.
My
Life As a Rebel
By Angelica Balabanoff
Balabanoff, notwithstanding her Russian name, was a prominent figure in the Italian socialist left, became involved with the Soviets, and then broke with them. She was the political “discoverer” of Mussolini. An outstanding account of how Western European radical leftists were drawn to the Bolshevik mirage.
Wild
Lily, Prairie Fire: China’s Road to Democracy, Yan’an to Tian’anmen, 1942-1989
By Gregor Benton and Alan Hunter
An
important compilation on the unknown development of dissidence within the
Communist Chinese movement and its emergence in the broader Chinese society.
Out
of Bondage
By Elizabeth Bentley
A riveting
personal account by a major Soviet agent who broke with Moscow and gave major
testimony against the conspiracy.
Shipwreck
of a Generation
By Joseph Berger (Comintern memoir)
A
fascinating memoir by an agent of the Communist International (Comintern)
involved in creation of the Communist Party in Palestine during the 1920s, who
ended up in the Gulag, and, miraculously, survived.
World
Communism
By Franz Borkenau
An
unparalleled account of the Comintern by an early functionary in its propaganda
apparatus and associate of the Frankfurt School, with details and insights
appearing nowhere else.
Vietnam:
A Dragon Embattled
By Joseph Buttinger
Buttinger
was a former left socialist from Austria.
His account of the origins of the Vietnam War is immensely
important. He once tried to explain
Vietnam to Tom Hayden – a waste of time to say the least. His wife Muriel Buttinger was the individual
whose personality was “stolen” by the Stalinist Lillian Hellman in her
fabrication of the character of “Julia,” an antifascist agent.
By Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Essays on
the fate of Cuba by the leading literary defector from the Castro movement.
Witness
By Whittaker Chambers
The
uniquely “transforming” personal account of Communism in the 1920s and 1930s,
how people were recruited as spies, and how Chambers himself decided to support
the cause of freedom, leading to his testimony against the Alger Hiss ring.
The
Russian Enigma
By Ante Ciliga (the first and best gulag memoir)
The first
memoir of the Gulag to gain major attention in the West, by a Croatian
Communist. Ciliga is especially
interesting because he was sent to the Gulag as a Trotskyist but shows how the
prisoners he encountered had to intellectually analyze the regime that
imprisoned them. He revealed the
existence of a vast unknown ferment inside the Russian revolutionary movement,
following the Bolshevik and Stalinist takeovers.
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
By Stephane Coutois, et al
Irreplaceable
as an encyclopedic source.
Family
Portrait with Fidel
By Carlos Franqui
Franqui was
a comrade of Fidel Castro and the editor of the main daily Revolución
after Castro took power. He was also
one of the most distinguished figures to break with Castro. An extraordinarily important and
enlightening book.
Eleni
By Nicholas Gage
The story
of the murder of the author’s mother by Communists in the little-known civil
war between Communists and the U.S.-supported government in Greece after World
War II.
My
Disillusionment in Russia
By Emma Goldman
An
especially useful and important account of the aftermath of the Bolshevik
Revolution by a leading American anarchist and feminist.
Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America
by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr
The best
and most accessible account of the decryption of Soviet secret police and
espionage message traffic by Western codebreakers, leading to the arrest of
various spies.
Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey
By David Horowitz
The
outstanding autobiographical account of an American ‘60s radical.
Tragedy
of the Chinese Revolution
By Harold M. Isaacs
An
exceptionally important account of Comintern meddling and Communist revolution
in China in the 1920s.
A
Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977-1990
By Robert Kagan
An
important summary of the campaign against the Sandinistas, by a then-State
Department official deeply involved in supporting the Contras.
Report
on the Murder of the General Secretary
By Karel Kaplan
The
official report of the Czech Communist authorities on the post-1945 purge
trials in Eastern Europe, anti-Semitism in the trials, and the involvement of American
spies. Significant for the Alger Hiss case.
In
Stalin’s Secret Service: Memoirs Of The First Soviet Master Spy To Defect
By Walter Krivitsky
Path-breaking
expose of Soviet spying in the West, by a defector who was murdered on U.S.
soil.
The
Red Decade: The Classic Work on Communism in America During the Thirties
By Eugene Lyons
An amazing
and unchallengeable examination of the influence of the Stalinist left in the
U.S. during the 1930s, everywhere from the union movement to Hollywood.
This
Deception
By Hede Massing
Personal
account of her disillusionment by a member of a Soviet spy ring in the U.S.,
with special knowledge of the Hiss case.
The
Guillotine at Work: Twenty Years of Terror in Russia (data and documents)
By G.P. Maximoff
An account
of the suppression of the Russian anarchist movement by the Communists, written
by a personal witness.
By George Orwell
Doubtless
the most important single work on Communism in English – a personal record of
Orwell’s participation in the Spanish civil war of 1936-39 in the ranks of the
anti-Stalinist POUM, and his persecution in Spain by Soviet agents.
Spain
Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War
Edited by Ronald Radosh, Mary Habeck, and Grigory Sevastianov
Documents
from the Russian archives on the Soviet intervention and subversion of the
Spanish Republican government during the Spanish civil war.
Communist
Party in Action
By A. Rossi and Willmoore Kendall
A detailed
account of the activities of the French Communist Party during and after the
Hitler-Stalin pact, written by a former Italian functionary of the Comintern
(real name Angelo Tasca), who was one of the original comrades of Antonio
Gramsci. A political and organizational
model that was applied all over the world.
Catholic
Martyrs of the Twentieth Century
By Robert Royal
Includes
very important and rare information on Communist persecution of the Catholic
church.
Memoirs
of a Revolutionary, 1901-1941
By Victor Serge
More vivid
and wide-ranging than any other, a personal memoir by an anarchist who joined
the Comintern and functioned in its network, then supported Trotsky and was
sent to the Gulag. Released and allowed
to come to the West, he became an early avatar of the neoconservatives and was
probably murdered by Soviet agents.
Stalin;
A Critical Survey of Bolshevism
By Boris Souvarine
Still the
best original account of the insane Russian dictator, by another former
Comintern official, with access to documents nobody else had at the time the
book was written.
By Jan Valtin
Memoir by a
Comintern agent who operated among maritime workers in Europe and the U.S. A tremendous bestseller in America just
before World War II, which opened the eyes of many to the reality of Communism.
The
Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America – The Stalin Era
By Allen Weinstein
Authoritative
account of the Alger Hiss spy case.
Three
Who Made a Revolution: A Biographical History of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin
By Bertram Wolfe
The most
accessible and detailed account of the Bolshevik Revolution by a founder of the
American Communist movement who broke with Communism.
The
Killing Fields (DVD)
By Sidney Schanberg
The classic account of the Pol
Pot regime and its program for mass murder in Cambodia.