The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism

By: Paul Kengor

Narrated by: John McLain

Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

The worst idea in history is back!

Communism has wrecked national economies, enslaved whole peoples, and killed more than a hundred million men and women. What's not to like?

Too many young Americans are supporting communism. Millennials prefer socialism to capitalism, and 25 percent have a positive view of Lenin. One in four Americans believe that George W. Bush killed more people than Joseph Stalin. And 69 percent of millennials would vote for a socialist for president.

They ought to know better. Communism is the most dangerous idea in world history, producing dire poverty, repression, and carnage wherever it has been tried. And no wonder - because communism flatly denies morality, human nature, and basic facts. But it's always going to be different this time.

Renowned scholar and best-selling author Paul Kengor unmasks communism, exposing its blood-drenched history and the strange sway it has long exercised over much of American media and education. He reveals:

• Stalin alone killed six times as many people as Hitler
• The Khmer Rouge slaughtered more than a third of the population of Cambodia
• Communists in Eastern Europe and worldwide tortured Christians
• Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was directly controlled by the Soviets
• Obama's CIA director voted for the CPUSA candidate for president in 1980
• Unrepentant 60s-era communists are educating American teachers today

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism debunks the world's worst ideology, sounds the alarm about its disturbing popular resurgence, and arms you with facts you need to refute its appeal.

©2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Should be required reading in High School

Easily one of the best books on Communism out there, if the intent is to introduce people who don't know anything about it. Young people are not taught this at all. This is why people like the young lunatic that just attacked innocent kids at a Florida High School wear communist shirts idolizing these lunatic terrorists from the past.
This is one of the those books that is sort of a "launching pad". The chapters allow you to start looking at other resources, other ideas, and you start to see how this has all been tied together in the last 100 years in this country.
The book attempts to explain how.. in a country so successful as the United States.. millions of young people could vote for an avowed Socialist (Bernie Sanders) who proudly displays a USSR flag in his office spaces.
When a sitting Senator from Vermont, puts up a USSR flag in his office, and you understand that that symbol represents a system that murdered more people than the Nazis.. by a factor of at least 3, maybe 4... it is an indicator that there is a serious problem in our education system with regards to the history of Communism.
Every single American who votes should read this book.

Moderate / Centrist Thoughts

** Bias Warning **

The facts presented in this book are interpreted through an unapologetically conservative lens, I mean full on religious right, and at times it caused me to nearly stopped reading the book due to concerns about credibility.

** Why Read It **
If you are worried about a left leaning bias in academia how can you be sure to learn about communism without whitewashing? Read this book.

I also enjoyed its scope - it goes right into the 21st Century, here are some things I found interesting:

* If Marx was all about class struggle, why is the left all about race, gender and sexuality today?

* What about socialism? Is that any different to Communism?

* Russian Revolution. Che Guevara. Cuban Missile Crisis. Mao. Great Leap Forward. Pol Pot. Frankfurt School etc

** Note to Conservative Readers - Don't Demonise Atheists **
Being an atheist tells you NOTHING about someone's position on anything except belief in a god or gods. This includes communism, and many atheists are just as aghast at the appalling history of communism as you are. Atheists can be right wing libertarian, left wing progressive or centrist moderates concerned about all extremism. They can even be highly religious - e.g. some branches of Buddhism.

Lumping them all together is like lumping together everyone who doesn't believe in astrology - ridiculous.

What the heck is an "Obscene Atheist Museum" anyway? How would it differ from a museum to "not collecting stamps"? What would be in it? It makes no sense but Paul constantly throws these sorts of comments around, potentially alienating many who are otherwise sympathetic with his concerns about communism.

Good Expose of communism

This book does a great job of exposing communism by covering many facets of the evil of the political system.

Finally the TRUTH

If you listen to this book, you will understand the gravity, of the relentless onslaught upon the halls of your mind. To be pushed to believe in something that destroys you, as a wonderful marvel of modern history. It will cause your blood to boil.

Must read for everyone

The narrator reads the information in an overly harsh voice, as if he’s trying share the historical information in a way that sounds like a personal, emotional attack. This takes away from the information being shared for me. It’s not a novel, it’s a history book.

The Voice Kills It

The content is fine; it's the reader's voice that ruins the book for me. I'm not sure if it's his attitude or the tone of his voice but it just doesn't do it for me.

Too much rhetoric

If you are looking for a book on history or political science, this won't meet either of those objectives. There is some useful information, but it is overshadowed by partisan opinions and name calling.

Good information, disappointing organization and writing

The information is good, but it is poorly organized. Concepts are spread throughout many chapters and are presented in a disjointed way and repeated over and over and over again and again. The language used is unnecessarily rough. The narrator has a mannerism with his voice where he stresses the ending syllables of the last word of every sentence in a strange way. It is distracting and difficult to ignore.

Eye opener

An eye opener, reconciling many conflicting thoughts in my mind. A little bit thick in sarcasm.

A must for everyone.

A must for everyone. A history and perspective necessary for the awareness of the threat to our Constitution, our liberty, and our way if life.

Overall very good

Unlike The Political Incorrect Guide to socialism, there is less focus on the purely economic aspects and more on what sort of atrocities communist regimes have committed around the world, what their ideas are and how they manifest culturally.
A lot of the book focuses on religion and how communists have suppressed religion and religious people because of their ideology and this is something which often is not spoken about. The book is however not very thorough when it comes to all the different instances of those communist atrocities. I don't remember a lot of the book focusing in great detail on the Holodomor and the suffering people went through. There's a lot of death tolls thrown around, which are great for perspective, but unless you delve into them, well, like good ol' uncle Joe said "One death is a tragedy. A thousand is statistics".
There are instances of where the book goes into the suffering of people however, and quote from people having lived under these regimes. The problem for me, which I will go more into down below, was the reader, but these instances were still good at showing what people actually went through, instead of just speaking of statistics.

One of the best parts of the book is exposing how fellow-travellers and commies have infiltrated America and given important positions which shape the society. From naïve people like FDR who thought the commies and Americans wanted the same, to out right Marxist communists who wanted to fundamentally change America, the book does a good job exposing them.
The chapter on cultural Marxism and the Frankfurt School is highly relevant on exactly how this ideology managed to shape the culture and find it's way into a large minority of radicals.

The book's focus is on exposing communism's atrocities and true ideas, but it's not really engaging with those ideas on a philosophical level. It does not try to refute or argue against critical theory or why communists are wrong in some of their fundamental ideas about humanity, human nature and the relationship between employer-employee, man-woman, white-black etc. which is why the ideology still survive, despite everything evil that has come out of it.
But, in exposing those atrocities, the attraction towards communism will be lessened because communism thrives on ignorance.

I personally found the narrator to be overall enjoyable. It might be because I am European and I found his very strong American accent and the way he uttered "communism" to be amusing that I really enjoyed it. When the narrator speaks on communism and it's atrocities, I found it very amusing and enjoyable. There was something in how he expressed himself that made me think of the good 'ol anti-communist American giving these Reds a healthy dose of anti-communist reality.
The parts where I found it a bit annoying was when he was speaking on the more serious and dark parts where the writer clearly intended a tonal shift to be more dark and tragic. John McLain tries to adjust his voice, but it just doesn't quite work for me.

Overall, it's a good introduction for conservatives who wish to start learning about communism and some good resources on the ideology.

Unbearably bad reader

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A different reader.

Who was your favorite character and why?

n/a

What didn’t you like about John McLain’s performance?

He treated every sentence like a trailer for an action film--a bad one.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism?

I don't know. I couldn't listen to it past chapter two.

Any additional comments?

The narrator ruined the entire thing.

I'm Donald Trump. And I approve this message! Not!

Firstly, I am not in the slightest offended by anything in this audiobook. I like politically incorrect content and I find it funny that some people are easily offended. I even broadly agree with the anti-communist (and even anti-socialist) sentiment of this book.
That said, the best thing I can day about this audio book is that, for a while at least, you can listen to it as a comedy on the assumption that the author is joking about. When you realise he is probably serious it becomes a bit embarrassing. I really like listening to well reasoned arguments in favour or against anything, even if I have no opinion. When the statements "he is an atheist" or "they believe in evolution" are used in such a way as to suggest that this person is a criminal beyond defense, however, the author loses any credibility in an instant.
There were some interesting facts in the book and it was sort if funny how crazy the author is. But ultimately this is, poorly camouflaged, Tea Party propaganda which is always moronic. And I'm not even a democrat (or a "commy loser" as this book would put it).

Great snippets of the true evil of communism...

lots of information for anyone in any doubt about the inherent evil of communism. Narrator did an ok job though didn't sound suited to the subject matter.

Incredible book about the evils of communism

I read this book after seeing the extremism of BLM inflame America whilst the whole world cheered on the bombing of police stations, radical black nationalism and murders of innocent working police officers.

It’s an amazing analysis of why society has fallen to narratives and ‘pattern thinking’ of politically correct radicalism. My eyes are opened.

So bad I had to stop listening

If you are someone that looks at a photo of a suspect and says ‘look at his evil eyes’, then this book is probably for you. Truly terrible!

Boring and badly narrated.

Gave up after a couple of hours. It might be better as a physical book (doubt it) but as an audio book the tone and pace of the narrator made it a difficult listen. I gave up after a couple of hours.

Pulls the wool OFF your eyes!

Fully explains why modern politics are the way they are.
I am grateful to Paul Kengor for finally explaining how the various commonly conflated Inter-sectional political issues of the day come together to form a logical, and historical strategy!

Every outraged social justice activist should read this to assess whether they are truly fighting to free the people or if they are, in fact, an unwitting pawn in a century old political philosophy.

My favourite line: "progressives are pushing ideas from 2 privileged white German males from over a hundred years ago!" The irony is delicious with the sweet taste of cyanide...

Overall solid, slightly silly in one section

Solid but...the theory of evolution isn't a pseudo science in the way Marxism is. that was a weird tangent and I'm not sure on the point being made.

Thoroughly well researched.

A real wake-up call as to what is going on in the world. Five stars.