Communism [Modern Library Chronicles]

By: Richard Pipes

Narrated by: George K. Wilson

From the acclaimed Modern Library Chronicles comes an exploration of a promising theory that when put to practice wreaked havoc on the world. An expert on communism, Richard Pipes follows the history of the Soviet Union from the 1917 revolution to the Cold War, and finally, to its deterioration and collapse.©2001 Richard Pipes

its good

it was a short but fair and educative review of communism that shows the true nature of this ideology that it fails because it is wrong not because they couldnt perform it well and how dangerous it can become

Achieved the Impossible

Amazing that the author could do such a good job of summarizing the history of communism. But the success of the USSR is understated, at least the part about the subversion of USA, Germany, Japan, and China. See Diana West, American Betrayal and M. Stanton Evans, Blacklisted by History. The penetration of USA started early and lead to the adoption of foreign policy favorable to USSR but unfavorable to USA and others. Soviet agents in USA and Japan managed to get USA fighting Japan and Germany rather than maintaining two strong bookends to the USSR. Deftly got Germany into WWII by joining them only to switch sides and get military equipment and nuclear weapons through lend lease to conquer East Europe and promote the Korean War. Agents fabricated information about anti-communists in Eastern Europe and China to make it easy to kill off the anticommunists in those countries. They set Americans against Americans and corrupted our government to the core.

Right on the Money

This book is very informative and quite graphic with some of it's descriptions on the horror that communism has unleashed upon humankind. It charts the rise of socialist ideals with Marx and Engles and goes through the communist and socialist movements of the twentiethh century all the way up to the present day.

Informative

Quite informative. A bit slow in a few spots, and I felt a bit missing in others.

But overall it is informative and worth a read.

BEST Short Summary of Global Communism

Few subjects have more misconceptions than that of Communism. Most people cannot define the ideology properly or give a good description of why the Soviet Union went “out of control” so quickly. This book explains all that with an eye toward speaking plainly. It has short clear examples where needed but doesn’t get bogged down in details.

This is the book to start with for context on this topic with a special emphasis on the Soviet Union.

If you like the topic and want to learn more with audible, check out:
Pipes; Russian Revolution (best book on topic)
Figes; A People’s Tragedy (About Russian revolution)
McMeekin; Russian Revolution (broader look at local influences)
Kotkin; Stalin volume 1&2 (best book on topic)
Conquest; The Great Terror (best book on topic)
Remnick; Lenin’s Tomb (highly readable look at the contradictions that doomed the Soviet Union...this book assumes a good deal of background knowledge...knowledge you can get from PIPES book on Communism :-) )