More Tales about Communism

Informative and entertaining stories about communism around the world

We had a great response to the recent 2026 newsletter titled Tales about Communism. Thanks to everyone for your comments, “likes” and “shares” with friends. I recently received a list of recommended books and films about communism compiled by the academic experts who study totalitarian ideologies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC). Without further ado, I’d like to share this valuable resource with you.

Here is VOC’s list of recommended books and films about communism. These resources are organized by country of origin. I hope you find them informative and entertaining.

*Indicates adult language and content. Please review each work carefully for age appropriateness before presenting to students.

Europe and Eurasia

Soviet Bloc/Russia

Literature:

• 1984 by George Orwell 

• Animal Farm by George Orwell 

• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

• The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

• Darkness at Noon by Author Koestler 

• Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin 

• Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak* 

• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles 

• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin  

• The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf & Yevgeny Petrov

• Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

• Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina 

• A Night Divided by Jennifer Nielsen  

• Which Way is Home by Maria Kiely 

• Everything Flows by Vasily Grossman 

Non-fiction:

• Communism: A History by Richard Pipes

• Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum 

• The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stephane Courtois 

• The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 

• The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

• The Russian Revolution: A New History by Sean McMeekin 

• A Brief History of the Cold War by Lee Edwards and Elizabeth Spalding 

• Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Montefiore 

• Stalin: Waiting for Hitler 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin

• With God in Russia by Walter Ciszek

• Echoes of Communism: Lessons from an American by Choice by Ileana Paugh

• The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia by Esther Hautzig 

• The Power of the Powerless by Vaclav Havel 

• The Penkovskiy Papers by Oleg Penkovskiy

• The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis 

• The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz 

• The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception and Infiltration by Paul Kengor 

• The Story That Cannot Be Told by J. Kasper Kramer 

• Diary of a Gulag Prison Guard by Ivan Chistyakov 

• What is to be Done? By Vladimir Lenin 

• Party Organization and Party Literature by Vladimir Lenin 

• War in the Woods: Estonia’s Struggle for Survival 1944-1956 by Mart Laar

• Women of the Gulag: Portraits of Five Remarkable Lives by Paul R. Gregory

• The Great Lie by Flagg Taylor

• The Great Terror by Robert Conquest

• Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg

• New Lies for Old by Anatoli Golitsyn 

• Marx and Satan by Richard Wurmbrand 

Film:

• The Lives of Others *

• Doctor Zhivago *

• The Inner Circle *

• Mr. Jones * 

• The Courier *

• Burnt by the Sun 

• Katyn 

• The Way Back *

• Chernobyl HBO miniseries *

• Ashes in the Snow 

• Names Engraved in Marble

• The Irony of Fate 

• Dear Comrades *

• Burning Bush HBO miniseries 

• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy*

• The Joke (1969, Žert)

• The Teacher (2016, Učiteľka)

• The Reenactment (1968, Reconstituirea)

• Battleship Potemkin (1925)

• Thirteen Days

• Bridge of Spies

• The Tunnel

• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

• Within the Whirlwind*

• I Am David

• Confession

• Guilty of Treason

• Man of Iron

• We the Living

• Lost in Siberia

• Coming Out of the Ice (1982)

• As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me (2001)

• Eternal Winter (2018)

• Gulag (2000)

• Women of the Gulag

China

Literature:

• Red Sorrow by Nanchu 

• People’s Trilogy by Frank Dikotter  

• Everything Under the Heavens by Howard French 

• Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962 by Yang Jisheng 

• Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe 1958-1962 by Frank Dikotter

• Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra Vogel 

• The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Li Zhisui 

• People’s Republic of Amnesia by Louisa Lim 

• Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia 

• Bury What We Cannot Take by Kirstin Chen 

• The Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang 

• China's Son by Da Chen 

• Snow Falling in the Spring by Moying Li 

• Colors of the Mountain by Da Chen 

• Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chung 

• Grass Soup by Zhang Xianliang 

Film:

• To Live 

• China: A Century of Revolution 

• Tug-of-war: The Story of Taiwan 

• One Child Nation 

• China Undercover 

• Revolution of Our Times 

• Inside the Red Brick Wall 

• Taking Back the Legislature 

• Do Not Split 

• The Road Home

• Under the Hawthorn Tree

• Coming Home

• One Second

Tibet

Literature:

• Dragon in the Land of Snows by Tsering Shakya 

• Tibet: A History Sam van Schaik 

• The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier by Benno Weiner 

Film:

• The Cup 

• Pawo 

Xinjiang/Uyghur region/Central Asia 

Literature:

• Eurasian Crossroads by James A. Millward 

• Uyghur Nation by David Brophy 

• Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State by Justin Jacobs 

• In the Camps by Darren Byler 

Hong Kong

Literature:

• Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink by Jeffrey Wasserstrom 

• City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong by Antony Dapiran 

• Underground Front by Christine Loh 

• Asian Godfathers by Joe Studwell 

Film:

• May You Stay Forever Young 

• Far From Home 

• Night is Young 

Taiwan

Literature:

• Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan 

Korea

Literature:

• Korea’s Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings 

• DMZ Crossing by Suk-Young Kim 

• The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot 

• Brother's Keeper by Julie Lee 

• Every Falling Star by Sungju Lee 

• The Martyred by Richard Kim (Religious influences)  

Vietnam

Literature:

• Scars and Stripes: The True Story of One Man’s Courage in Facing Death as a Vietnam POW by Red McDaniel

• When Hell was in Session by Jerimiah Denton

Cambodia

Literature:

• Short Hair Detention: Memoir of a Thirteen-Year-Old Girl Surviving the Cambodian Genocide by Channy Laux

Film:

• First They Killed My Father

• The Killing Fields

• S21 Khmer Rouge Killing Machine

Latin American

Venezuela

Literature:

• Crude Nation: How Oil Riches Ruined Venezuela by Raul Gallegos 

• Dragon in the Tropics: Venezuela and the Legacy of Hugo Chavez by Javier Corrales 

Nicaragua

Literature:

• Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua by Stephen Kinzer  

Cuba

Literature:

• Refugee by Alan Gratz 

• The Sugar King of Havana by John Paul Rathbone 

• Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia (adult themes) 

• Finding Manana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus by Mirta Ojito 

Film:

• Bitter Sugar