Rating: 
Summary: A Short Book With a Long Message: Savor It
Review: "On perhaps the tenth night that I lay in bed quietly reading "Communism: A History" by Richard Pipes, my wife asked me why it was taking so long to read such a short book. She had checked it out. It has just 175 pages. Then a week later she peered at me again, frowned, and asked the same question. "This is a powerful book," I explained. "It cannot be read in a hurry."Why is the book so good and such a slow read? The answer lies in the story the author tells and in his power to tell that story. Harvard historian Richard Pipes is best known among economists for his marvelous 1999 book "Property and Freedom" (New York: Vintage). During a lifetime devoted to the study of Russian history and culture, he discovered that private-property rights form the linchpin of wealth creation, and this discovery served as the basis for "Property and Freedom." The present book, "Communism," followed naturally. Pipes explains why the systematic elimination of private-property rights became the critical first step in the Marxian journey that was to achieve a classless egalitarian society capable of attaining perfection. In this brave new world, wealth would move, as "The Communist Manifesto" declared, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Pipes recounts the human slaughter that followed when Marx's ideas were impressed on human communities. The story is at once chilling and inspiring. One is chilled by the horror of communism and for that reason inspired to make some effort, no matter how small, to keep liberty alive." "Pipes has written a valuable book-short but with a long message. Savor it."
-From "The Independent Review," Summer 2002
Rating:
Summary: simply excellent
Review: This is the first book in the Modern Library Chronicles series I have read, and I finished it quite impressed. If others are half as well done, then I'm in for a real treat when I grab the next one. Of course, Richard Pipes' reputation precedes him, and he certainly adds much to this slim and excellent volume. His prose is crystal clear. His argument is both well presented and extremely well documented. This book, though short, is full of facts, all pointing to Pipes' predominant argument--that Communism, both a pseudoscience and pseudoreligion, is a flawed and contradictory system. Pipes treats Communism as three "types": ideal, program, and regime. The ideal, that of full social equality, stretches back to Plato and was carried on, to varying degrees, by figures such as Thomas More, John Locke, and Helvetius. In the 1800s, Marx and Engels proposed their program--abolishing private property. And with Lenin and the Soviet Union, Communism as a regime comes into being. It is this third type that occupies most of the book. Pipes explains the rise of Communism in Russia--why, for example, it took place there despite its not being industrialized. He then traces its institutionalization under Lenin and then Stalin, the terror it perpetuated, the lives it took. (And he makes the sometimes forgotten point that the Communist Party had MUCH to do with the rise to power of the Nazis in Germany.) His attentions then turn to attempts at Communism elsewhere--China and the Third World. Pipes' approach is somewhat centered on the Soviet Union, but this is fair, given that the USSR looms the largest in the story of Communism and given its role in attempting to promote revolution abroad. The system, Pipes argues, is bound to fail because the equality it seeks to create requires an enforcement apparatus that destroys equality, and because, in times of conflict (which Communism requires), ethnic and territorial loyalties dominate those of class. It is, moreover, too rigid, unable to correct itself, inflexible. I would have liked to have read a bit more about the philosophical development of Marxism and Communism, particularly in connection with liberation theologies in the Third World. But this hardly detracts from the book, which is meant only as a summary and introduction, to whet the appetite for further reading. And at this, it is quite excellent.
Rating:
Summary: A Chronicle of Bloodshed and Lies
Review: Professor Pipes's chronicle of Communism's century of butchery and lies is brief, fascinating, and elegant. It is required reading for anyone intrigued by Leftist ideologies and curious to discover their legacy in the 20th Century. Also mandatory for Americans interested to learn why their government spent so much blood, treasure, and political capital fighting the spread of these ideas. Pipes strives for great clarity here, and he delivers. It's one of the best pieces of political writing I've ever seen. Let me say that those reviews that critique Pipes for writing a book about "Stalinism, not Communism" have sorely missed the book's point. Pipes devotes an entire section of the book to the life of Lenin and the great terror that transpired under his leadership. Stalin, according to the author, was indeed Lenin's most ruthless successor - but he was also a student. This is among the most important arguments in the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Why it never happened
Review: The main explanation for why socialism failed to occur on the soil that one reader sarcastically refers to as "unfertile" is predominantly this: cuba, china, korea, russia:at the time of their respective revolutions, these were all UNDERDEVELOPED countries, not having reached the peak of capitalism, and thus not ready for revolution. The working class in all these countries was slim if not non-existent. The sole exception here is russia, which was semi-developed. Here, the revolution failed mainly because of the failure of revolutions in other European countries to aid its cause and the developement of Stalinism. ...Free market capitalism doesnt 'always work', it is the dominant system. socialism was conceived by the dialecticians to be its natural successor. Obviously when one looks at Europe and the US one sees thriving capitalist societies-they have been around for centuries!
Rating:
Summary: interesting read, but biased and often wrong
Review: It was a simple, and reasonably interesting read, but Ive given it a bad rating because factual mistakes and bias are important problems. As another reader pointed out, this book is about stalinism, not communism. The biggest mistakes come up in the section on the 3rd world. For example, his explanation of what happened in Chile is completely contradicted by documents that have recently been released by the American government.
Rating:
Summary: the teen who was attacked by some guy from vermont
Review: this is just a response-i never justified communism in my review-never said that socialism would work if we had followed what marx and trotsky said. i am NOT a commie-i am reading Capital and i have many many problems with it- like the entire labor theory of value
i respect human rights and this is my other big problem with lenin and trotsky, they were too brutal-far too brutal. i merely pointed out that what pipes depicts is not communism, but Stalinism. this doesnt justify communism in any way. unlike you, ive decided to study both sides of the arguement rather than spend my time buying into the idealism of youth and blindly following leftist ideology, only to "chuckle" at myself later.
Rating: 
Summary: Thorough but bias
Review: i have read Pipe's work on the russian revolution and find him to be factually sufficient however he makes extremely subjective conclusions...his analysis is no more or less true than that of a post-glasnost historian, a point of view i find more malleable and thus agreeable.
Rating:
Summary: Reactionary Propaganda?
Review: I had to chuckle at the reviewer below (8/19,not a communist from Boston) because it's the classic apology for the horrors of communism that this book examines. I used to hear this argument repeated often by my 'comrades' when I was a lefty in the early 80's: The communism that has existed in the world is not 'real' communism, and if only everyone would follow what Marx 'REALLY' said, all would be perfect. Besides, if communist governments committed atrocities, it's only because mean old monopoly capitalism forced them to. The poor, noble Bolsheviks were fighting a civil war, the west had sent troops to the Far East, Stalin was a monster, but what can you expect, with the west trying to overthrow him? And if only Trotsky had been in control, we would have had a veritable heaven on earth, blah, blah, blah. I've heard it all before. What is so horrible about communism/socialism is that so many leftist intellectuals made, and still make, apologies for it (it's so much more comfortable to criticism Hitler and fascism, isn't it?). It's amazing that communism has had and continues to have so many true believers. It's a kind of 'fundamentalism,' if you will. The leftists I used to run with wanted it both ways: they proclaimed that the USSR was a travesty of Marx's and Trotsky's theories. And yet, when they saw something they liked about the USSR (i.e, 'free' medical care), they were quick to call it 'real, existing solialism.' Open your own eyes, o 'teen developing own econom system' (no firing squads in your system, okay?) Books like this are a 'must read' lest we ever forget the horrors committed in the name of 'the workers' state.'
Rating: 
Summary: Another nail in the coffin of socialism, and none too soon.
Review: An important book that should be read widely. May I also recommend Martin Amis' nightmare-inducing KOBA THE DRED....which should be widely read. Now that socialism is dying, it is very important to basically attack and eliminate any remaining glowing embers of socialism amongst pseudointellectuals. After swimming in the utter horror of socialism, via this fine book or Amis' recent book, it is difficult to feel sorry for any remaining socialists; one tends to feel mainly fury. As new forms of socialism (notably environmentalism) threaten the world once again, it's important to look back on the almost unlimited horror (100 million dead) of the "century of the state," the 20th century, and, not to mince words, rub it in the face of any remaining socialists. The price of liberty...of life...is really vigilance...be vigilant, buy and read and distribute this book.
Rating:
Summary: 'O M L E T T E' - tosser
Review: Children: The opinion of any individual incapable of spelling correctly the word 'omlette' is to be considered null and void.
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