Rating: 
Summary: Communism laid bare!
Review: For anyone interested in the events of the 20th Century, this is a must read. Pipes, one of the foremost experts on communism and the Soviet Union, lays bare the fallacies of communism and the tragedy that it has visited upon the world. Yes, Pipes is anti-communist, but then any rational person who looks at the evidence must be. To those who continue, against the judgment of history, to apologize for communism ("when you make an omelette some eggs get broken"), Pipes has the perfect response: the millions of victims of communism represent a lot of eggs and, by the way, where's the omelette? Communism has consistently produced lower living standards while destroying lives and freedom and oppressing workers and everyone else. It's been demonstrated to be the classic "lose-lose" situation. The Modern Library is to be congratulated for creating these short histories of important issues. These are books for people who desire to be well informed, but who lack the time or inclination to be experts. I believe there's a great market niche for such books. Read this book. You'll understand the past century a whole lot better when you're through.
Rating:
Summary: the truth hurts
Review: Richard Pipes is a brilliant Harvard teacher and an expert on Soviet history with access to the central arquives in Moscow, which revealed facts harmful to SOME leftists, allways ready to forgive the Communist atrocities because their intentions were supposelly "good" ( we should read "good" for the SURVIVORS of the 100 millions of human beings killed by them - not talking about the suffering of their hundreds of millions of relatives- or the dozens of millions of "human cattle" jailed and tortured on the LAO GAI and GULAG).
So there's nothing new with the expected critics and personal attacks on Prof. Pipes academic works. It was the same with the BLACK BOOK OF COMMUNISM, le Passé `d une Illusion, etc ( remember SARTRE attacks and propaganda's campain against SOLJENITSINE and his GULAG ARCHIPELAG... I could continue the examples nearly AD INFINITUM.)
The strategy is allways the same: 1) first deny (the communist barbarities were "inventions" of capitalism ;2) than when the evidence is so overwhelming, accept it but as DEVIANT events disconected with the core doctrin. If possible discharge all responsability for those crimes in one man's hands ( stalinism did it , Maoism did it, Pol Pot did it,not "communism" which is untouchable and on the contrary of nazism, should never be judged for their acts but for their intentions......)
Prof Pipe is right: 1)who created the GULAG? 2) Who created the State Police of Terror? 3)who legislated ( and practicezed) the "RED TERROR"in 1918? 4)Who created the tradition of "SHOW TRIALS of the "enemies of the people( revolutionary socialists, mensheviks etc.)? 5)who promoted POLITICAL HUNGER as an instrument to smash the opposition of the ucranian peasants in 1922 ( remember Lenin words " hunger is useful because it destroys the faith in god..")?
If you think the answer is Stalin you must try again because it was Lenin!
The New Economic Politic was ( using Lenin's words) just a TEMPORARY pause on the road to communism.
And we must pay attention on the famous LENIN's letter to the Congress: " Stalin is too rude, and this fail, WHICH IS COMPLETELLY ACCEPTABLE IN OUR ENVIRONMENT AND BETWEEN US COMMUNISTS, becomes inacceptable for the CHARGE of General Secretary. So I propose you to think in a way to substitute stalin from that charge.."
in other words: LENIN DOESN'T CONDEMN STALIN FOR HIS CRIMES(some of them made under lenin and with his approval)- He only thinks THAT STALIN ISN'T THE APROPRIATE MAN FOR THE CHARGE ....
Thanks Lenin for beeing so sincere and elucidative! and thanks Pipe for your research, knowdlege and...courage!
Rating:
Summary: Bravo
Review: A brilliant and harrowing historical essay summing up in less than 200 pages the full span of one of history's darkest chapters. How can one find fault with the book, as the reviewer below does, for focusing a history of communism on...self-professed communist regimes, particularly the Soviet Union? What ELSE whould you write about? This is a work of history, concerned with communism as a reality, not a work of philosophy, concerned with ideal states. (Though it certainly deals effectively with the communist fantasy that one can reinvent human nature, root and branch.)
Rating: 
Summary: An unfortunately misleading title
Review: Writing history takes a certain finesse which Richard Pipes lacks: the ability to step outside the subject to conduct a balanced, non-culturally relative piece of concise, factual analysis. Pipes is a die-hard capitalist and right-wing ideologue. In itself, thats not a bad thing. Unfortunately, though Pipes has a capable intellect, it is tainted by his own socio-political ideas. The result of Mr. Pipes's study is not a history of Communism but rather a critique of it; and had it carried that title (Historical Critique) instead of "History," this book would be deserving of more understanding. As it is, it falls far, far short of his intent. This book is meant for conservatives, not the general public. Hopelessly biased and incomplete to the point of being propagandic. Does not qualify as a history. To add, I'm afraid that Pipes is too much steeped in his own thinking to ever understand Communism, much less write a detailed, history-based description of it.
Rating: 
Summary: The story of an influential ideology
Review: It is amazing that in 160 pages, Richard Pipes manages to cover the development of Marx's ideas, the realization of those ideas in the USSR by Lenin and Stalin, and the courses of communism in China and other third world countries. Much of the book is on how communism has been implemented, and that mostly in Russia, but that is probably as it should be. The focus though is on the (bloody) consequences of communism. I think the pace of the book is right on, and there is a great deal of information to be found in it; after finishing, it seems like you've read a much longer book. As such, I think it serves as a fairly successful example of the Modern Library Chronicles series, the point being to cover large topics in few pages. Pipes does not regard communism highly and his bias pervades the entire book. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. He is not ashamed of his opinions and they are very evident when they appear. So whether or not you agree with his opinions, it is easy to see what those opinions are, and it is also clear why he holds those views. Still, he provides a very penetrating analysis, and while nobody should stop here in a study of communism, it makes for an engaging introduction.
Rating:
Summary: A tour de force, breathlessly written
Review: The Modern Library is to be congratulated on its short, authoritative summaries of historical research by outstanding historians. I refer not only to its volume by Richard Pipes, "Communism," but also to its altogether excellent "Hitler and the Holocaust" by Robert S. Wistrich. The Pipes volume, as is to be expected from Richard Pipes, is a tour de force of historical summary and interpretation. It is one of those books that can be given to a teenager for a quick introducction to an importatnt subject, and can also be read by knowledgeable adults for its often new and striking insights. But excellent as it is for its overview -- particularly in its introductory and concluding chapters -- this book also shows signs of haste in its composition. Its weaknesses, as I see them, are four: 1) The tone is often overbearing, opinionated, arrogant. Reasonable people can have different views on many of the issues that it discusses, but Professor Pipes shows little patience to entertain any such dissent. 2) In his apparent haste to do this overview, too many topics that should have been included are not. The important French, German, and American Communist leaders, for example, cannot be found in the index. 3) The Suggestions for Further Reading, which should be so important in a work of this kind, are inadequate. 4) There are more errors than can be justified. It is not true that Lenin's Council of People's Commissars consisted "exclusively of Bolsheviks," as is claimed on page 40; on page 45, a non-Bolshevik on this Council is quoted and named. It is not true that Djilas was the first to speak of a new Soviet exploiting class (p. 167). This had been done many years earlier by Bruno Rizzi, James Burnham, Max Shachtman, and others. It is not true that Lenin was unaware of the negative aspects of Stalin (p. 57). In fact, Lenin had warned against Stalin in his famous "Testament." A more leisurely writing and a more careful editing could have eliminated such howlers. Nevertheless, overall, this is a very valuable summary statement of what Communism was like.
Rating:
Summary: Evil: A History
Review: Arnold Toynbee once said that modern man, in making a pact with Communism, never stopped to ask whether he was making a pact with Christ or Satan. This sad fact has never been better shown than in this enjoyable book by Professor Richard Pipes. In 160 well-written pages, Prof. Pipes gives us the history of Communism from its intellectual origins to its fizzling out in the late Twentieth Century. This book mostly concerns Communism as a political movement told from the focal point of the Soviet Union. While this is a weakness, such an approach is dictated by the limited space. Although Prof. Pipes doesn't deny that the West overreacted in some cases to the threat of Communism, there can be no doubt that the Cold War was the responsibility of the Soviet Union. From the invasion of Poland in 1920 to the invasion of Afghanistan to 1979, the Soviet Union was bent on expansion. Though the Soviets at times held back in their support of Communist movements in other countries, it was never to build "socialism in one country," but in the hope that such concessions would help the long-run expansion of communism. Both the left and the libertarian right (e.g., Murray Rothbard) were flat out wrong in denying the expansionary nature of the Soviet Union. In fact, Stalin signed the non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939 hoping that Hitler would direct his fury at the West. Once the West was bogged down in a World War I style war, Stalin would invade. (Prof. Pipes doesn't discuss the more revisionist view that Stalin was planning to invade the West in 1941.) The human costs of utopia were immense. 85-100 million people died as a direct result of communism -- more than World War I and II combined.
Rating:
Summary: pithy and eloquent
Review: The "reader from Cambridge" below is truly witless -- lambasting this great historian for writing a history of communism so *biased* as to reckon with the tens of millions of people murdered by communist regimes in the last century! To imply that there's any sort of moral equivalence between what the US did and what Russia and China did is outrageous. You poor fool. The cost of being such an ahistorical dullard is quite clear right now. The fact is, Pipes's book is a wonderful overview of a massive subject, the summa of his great career. Couldn't be more timely.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully written summary - everyone should read
Review: This little book is packed with wisdom and understanding. It is a brevity that comes from great mastery rather than carelessness. This is a wonderful introduction to the horror that is Communism. It is wonderful because it is NOT a simple condemnation of the idea. Dr. Pipes explains in simple historical terms what happened, what was said, what was promised, what was done, and contributes his succinct insight and analysis. Nothing is overstated or caricatured even though much has to be summarized. That the story of Communism is one of unimaginable horror is well known by anyone who has been watching the news and reading the history of the past century. This book should whet your appetite for more and Dr. Pipes has many more books that are also worth reading on the history of the USSR and on other topics. There is also Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" series and his other books, the Yale University Press has the terrific "Annals of Communism" series and there is also the recent "The Black Book of Communism". I recommend all of them, but keep in mind that all of them together still only begin to scratch the surface of this very profound topic. However, this book is a great way to jump in the lake and get used to the water. Please read it and get others to read it, especially young people who know little to nothing of the horrors inflicted upon humanity in the name of this obscene dogma that we humans inflicted upon ourselves to our great cost and to our eternal shame.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent survey
Review: Pipes is probably the greatest living authority on Communist Russia alive today. His writing is clear, authoritative and impressive. His other works on Russian history have shown him to be an historian of the first rank. If a person can buy this book and still defend Communism after reading it they are morally bankrupt.
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