When I was nine, I watched the Air Force dig a giant hole outside of my hometown to install a Minuteman Two nuclear missile to protect us from Soviet attack. I wanted to know what the Communists had against me personally, and the childhood question turned into a lifelong quest. I have lived in post-communist countries, consulted the Party files in the Comintern Archives in Moscow, interviewed dozens of former and current members of the Communist Party, and earned a PhD in the history of Communism from Georgetown University. On the way, I met memorable people, uncovered secrets, and experienced an amazing journey. I invite you to join me.
All right, this is not a book on American Communism, but you need to see the big picture. I have read every book that tries to explain the history of world communism, and this is the best I have encountered.
I like this book because it is not a triumphal account of the fall of communism but a genuine attempt to understand the movement’s appeal to millions of people. Another strength is that the book does not end with the fall of the Soviet Union but with the robust survival of communism in China.
From an award-winning historian, a new global history of Communism
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia may no longer be Communist, Communism and sympathy for Communist ideas have proliferated across the globe.
In To Overthrow the World, Sean McMeekin investigates the evolution of Communism from a seductive ideal of a classless society into the ruling doctrine of tyrannical regimes. Tracing Communism's ascent from theory to practice, McMeekin ranges from Karl Marx's writings to the rise and fall of the…
The only way I can describe this book is as a masterpiece.
Cherny spent decades researching and writing this book, including extensive work in the Moscow Archives and hours of interviews with Bridges himself. The result is an intimate study of a life dedicated to radicalism that brings Bridges and the San Francisco waterfront vividly to life.
I have only one criticism of the book. Bridges spent his life denying that he had been a member of the Communist Party, but the records in Moscow demonstrate that he belonged to the Party and was a member of its Central Committee. Cherny is reluctant to call Bridges a liar and dances around the membership question. But in my opinion, the book’s many virtues outweigh this single flaw.
Winner of a Silver Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards
Won Honorable Mention for 2023 ILHA Book of the Year (International Labor History Association)
The iconic leader of one of America's most powerful unions, Harry Bridges put an indelible stamp on the twentieth century labor movement. Robert Cherny's monumental biography tells the life story of the figure who built the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) into a labor powerhouse that still represents almost 30,000 workers.
An Australian immigrant, Bridges worked the Pacific Coast docks. His militant unionism placed him at the center of the 1934 West Coast Waterfront…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
For decades, historians argued over the extent of Communist Party involvement in Soviet Espionage directed at the United States. The opening of the Soviet archives and the release of the VENONA project decodes of communication between the Soviet Consulate in New York and Moscow finally provided a solid answer.
Of the many books written about the subject, I like Sibley’s best. She takes her readers through the facts of the most famous cases and gives equal attention to the points of view of all the main actors. I particularly like her descriptions of early Soviet networks devoted primarily to industrial espionage.
When the United States established diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in 1933, it did more than normalize relations with the new Bolshevik state - it opened the door to a parade of Russian spies. In the 1930s and 1940s, Soviet engineers and technicians, under the guise of international cooperation, reaped a rich harvest of intelligence from our industrial plants. Factory layouts, aircraft blueprints, fuel formulas - all were grist for the Soviet espionage mill. And that, as Katherine Sibley shows, was just the beginning. While most historians date the onset of the Cold War with American fears of Soviet…
Extensively researched in both Chicago and Moscow, Storch’s book tells the story of the ordinary people who joined the Communist Party.
I like this book because it firmly refutes the myth that American Communists were a semi-criminal conspiracy of disturbed individuals. As Storch demonstrates, they were just ordinary people looking for answers to the Great Depression crisis. Attracted by specific Party campaigns, such as racial equality or workers’ rights, they rarely stayed more than a few years before finding Party life too demanding.
Focusing only on the Party’s leadership leaves most people out of history. I like this book because it puts the rank and file at the heart of the story.
Red Chicago is a social history of American Communism set within the context of Chicago's neighborhoods, industries, and radical traditions. Using local party records, oral histories, union records, party newspapers, and government documents, Randi Storch fills the gap between Leninist principles and the day-to-day activities of Chicago's rank-and-file Communists.
Uncovering rich new evidence from Moscow's former party archive, Storch argues that although the American Communist Party was an international organization strongly influenced by the Soviet Union, at the city level it was a more vibrant and flexible organization responsible to local needs and concerns. Thus, while working for a better…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Published in 1973, this was one of the first books I read when I began my lifelong research into the history of American Communism. It was one of the very first to be written by a former member of the Party and in my opinion remains one of the best in a now large number of communist autobiographies.
I like the book because of the intimate glimpses that Richmond gives his readers into the lives of the Party members he met over the course of his career and the outrageous tale of his own life. Richmond’s mother was a communist and an eyewitness to the Russian Revolution, making it almost inevitable that he would follow in the family business.
This remarkable book is a unique combination of personal narrative and political commentary, for it alternates autobiographical sketches and essays on the central issues of American radicalism.
In 1928, George Mink, a Soviet agent, created the Marine Workers Industrial Union, which in less than ten years transformed itself from a highly visible radical fringe organization to a covert group that dominated two major waterfront unions, the National Maritime Union and the International Association of Longshore and Warehouse Workers.
Based on extensive research in the Moscow archives of the Communist International (Comintern) the book demonstrates how orders issued in the Soviet Union were implemented in the United States and how the shadowy Comintern organization, the San Fransico Bureau of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat, laid the foundation for the West Coast maritime strike and propelled secret Communist Harry Bridges into prominence as the leader of the Longshoremen’s union.
