Out of Service's books on Communism, this is both his broadest and unfortunately, his weakest. The scope is impressive, particularly in the particulars of communism in lesser-known situations such as in Chile or during the Spanish Civil War. However, it often feels like the author is merely rushing over facts without much time for further analysis or in-depth study. ( )

For an expert on Communism, Robert Service doesn't have many kind words to say for his subject which must make for a depressing speciality. In fact this is less a history of communism than a history of Russian Communism. Although Service feels obliged to add chapters on China, which feels somewhat outside his competence, and does include a sympathetic treatment of Cuba, other communist regimes globally are dismissed in a couple of pages. In fact Service is best on the growth of Communism before WWII - he is expert on the rise of the government in Russia, internal disagreements, the Second and Third International, Comintern, Communism in Europe etc. But after the war really all Service wants to do is rant about lack of freedoms, human rights abuses - and look these are things we know about already. The leaders of Eastern Europe are particularly scantily treated; we know they were under the thrall of Moscow but there must be something more to say about them than that? So a good half a book but it didn't add much to my knowledge of post war Communism ( )

From Marx to Mao, from Engels to Allende, from Lenin and Stalin to Ceaucescu and Castro, "Comrades" tells the story of communism from its inception to the present day. It offers a succession of incisive pen-portraits of outstanding leaders and decisive events and spans the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. It draws on material from many national collections and several major languages and is the most up-to-date account produced since the 1960s. Ranging across not only the high politics and ideology of the most prominent communist regimes but also daily life under communism, culture and propaganda, Service analyses communism's appeal abroad as well as local attempts to set up communist administrations. He ends by showing that there was more to communism than mere brutality and demonstrates that while communism in its primordial form is now dead in most countries, the causes of its ability to gather support among intellectuals and ordinary people have not vanished: economic poverty and political oppression. And the lasting message of the book is that something must be done to eradicate poverty and oppression if the world is to avoid a repetition of totalitarianism in some new form.

A good starting position for those exploring world communism. A pretty fair retelling of the rise and fall of the communist belief system. Focuses mainly on the Soviet Union and its intricacies rather than a true in depth look at world communism (the author is a professor of Russian history). But overall a good reader for beginners on the subject. ( )

Good scholarship overwhelmed by ideologically-led bigotry