About History of Communism

History of Communism is a reference on the history of communist states and movements: the ideas behind them, the parties that built them, the way they governed and the people who lived and died under them.

Our view, stated openly

We follow the evidence, and the evidence — the regimes' own archives, many of them opened after 1991, survivor and defector testimony, demographic research and decades of scholarship — shows that communist parties in power built totalitarian states. They abolished independent institutions, outlawed opposition, ran secret police and labor camps, and caused famines and mass killings on an enormous scale.

We say this plainly rather than pretending to a neutrality we don't hold. What we owe readers in return is rigor: every claim sourced, contested numbers given as ranges with the scholars behind them, and opposing interpretations described accurately before we explain why the evidence points the other way. Our editorial standards set out exactly how.

What we cover

• Communist states, from the Soviet Union and China to Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, Eastern Europe and Indochina.
• Ideology: what Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao wrote, and how doctrine shaped policy.
• Famines, purges, camps and mass killing — and the cover-ups that followed.
• The dissidents, workers, clergy and ordinary people who resisted.

Browse by topic or read every article.

Who writes it

Articles are written and edited by D. R. Ashworth. The site is independent and funded by readers; it carries no advertising and takes no money from governments or political parties.