It could look daring to try and cover what is actually a history of communist regimes (communism as an ideology and opposition communist parties are by and large excluded) in just 206 pages; but the other titles in the same series are enterprises at least as bold (for example, Oceans in world history, or The spread of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam to 1500) and, what is most important, the end result in this case is more than honourable. As could be expected in a collection catering first and foremost for students and teachers, the writing is always clear and synthetic, the subdivisions numerous, the issues and conclusions neatly demarcated from the main text in each chapter. All major events and problems are at least mentioned. For the scholar, some discussions – if short – are quite interesting, such as the connection between communism and feminism, the possible explanations of Stalinism, the contrasting evolutions of the Soviet Union and China, or the interplay between initial intentions and outcomes.

The book plan is only partly chronological. Of the six chapters, two are dedicated to the birth and transformation/collapse of the main communist regimes; two others focus on the Soviet Union, then on China; one looks at the confrontation between them and the capitalist countries, centring on the Cold War. Chapter One (‘Communism in context’) is actually an introduction, which deals with the connected but distinct Marxist, utopian, and revolutionary roots of communism, as well as with its global dimension. The infamous (for some) ‘T-word’ – totalitarianism – is not skipped over, and Strayer does not reject that qualification for communist regimes. Chapter Two (‘Revolution and the birth of communism’) goes to and fro suggestively between the two major cases. The collapse of old regimes in Russia and China is carefully analysed, after which the widely differing revolutionary processes (nine months in the first case, thirty-eight years in the latter) are accounted for. The conclusion distances itself rightly from any monocausal or teleological explanation: ‘it was the coinciding of foreign imperialism, rural misery, the Bolshevik example, the Japanese invasion, and GMD (Guomindang) weaknesses that led to the communist victory in China. Remove any one of these elements and the outcome would likely have been different’ (p. 55).

Chapter Three (‘Building socialism alone: Stalinism and the Soviet experiment’) focuses on the post-Leninist, pre-Khrushchevian Soviet Union. Interestingly, the economic and social aspects are handled (in equal depth) before turning to the political/ideological questions. Thus it is implied that the concentration of economic power into the state apparatus and the constitution of a new Soviet elite are connected with what the author does not shy away from calling ‘a Soviet Holocaust’ – the Stalinist Terror, carefully scrutinized in the last pages of the chapter. Other explanations are considered, such as the Russian tradition, socialist utopianism, Stalin’s personality, or the external influences of the tragic ‘global time’ of the 1930s. In Chapter Four (‘Mao’s path: building socialism in China’), the subdivisions are more traditionally chronological and based on the huge campaigns that shaped, then rocked, the new regime: land reform, collectivization, the Hundred Flowers, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. However, more structural aspects are not neglected, including the creation of a strong state, the wayward path between the Soviet Union and the USA, the painful definition of a specific model of socialism, and the increasing role of utopia. The final part returns to the question of enemy targeting and suppression, through a comparison between Stalinist and Maoist practices, and comes to a conclusion that is surprisingly lenient for the latter.

Chapter Five (‘Communism in the global arena’) comes closest to considering communism as a global system but, presenting the numerous events in a rather strict chronological order, it misses a unique opportunity to analyse the peculiarities (or not) in the theoretical and practical structuring of the relations between nationalities and countries inside a ‘communist camp’ that encompassed, for some four decades, more than a third of all human beings, and spread over four continents. Did communism create at least a partial alternative to capitalist globalization? Did it delay – as is often assumed – the progress of the latter? Or, on the contrary, did capitalism and communism actually complement more than contradict each other in the globalizing process? The nuclear arms race is rightly considered by Strayer as central in the Cold War, but the general considerations on nuclear weapons appear as a (short) digression. Generally speaking, that chapter is the least satisfying, probably because it is composed in a very traditional, ‘international relations’ manner.

Finally, Chapter Six (‘The end of the communist era’) describes at some length the ‘collapse of communism’ in the USSR, as well as what the author calls, a bit abruptly, ‘the abandonment of communism in China’ (actually many features of Mao’s era still exist today, and not only in the political field). The last sections of the chapter are the most original: they compare Chinese and Russian transformations in the agricultural and industrial fields, in the conception of reform policies, in democratization, and in their end results. The new bases of socialism in China are deemed to be a mixture of nationalism, consumerism, and revived tradition. One could be more sceptical regarding underdeveloped statements about the post-communist world: phrases such as ‘capitalism triumphant’ or ‘a single superpower’ (the US) sound strangely outdated for such a recent book. The short but thought-provoking epilogue (‘Communism and reflections on history’) comes back to the role of the unexpected and to the central place of individuals (including leaders, activists, revolutionaries, and dissenters) in a history often described in the past as the implacable interplay between impersonal forces. The epilogue focuses even more on the ‘ambiguous enterprise’ that communism was: ‘mountains of crimes’ but also ‘genuine achievements’, such as ‘the righting of past inequalities; new opportunities for women, workers, and peasants; rapid industrial development; the end of imperialist domination’ (p. 194). Each of these ‘achievements’ could be argued over but, in this time of capitalist crisis, many would probably sympathize with the author’s interrogation: ‘Can we capture something of the appealing quality of the socialist vision, so different from the individualistic, acquisitive, and competitive spirit of capitalism?’ (p. 190).

Thus this small book has many merits. The attention given to cultural phenomena (such as rock music in Soviet Union) and even more to gender issues in both revolutionary processes is praiseworthy. The different periods and aspects are well-balanced and comprehensively studied. However, at the same time, some serious shortcomings should be highlighted. The most damaging is the almost exclusive emphasis on the Russian and Chinese cases. They are without doubt by far the most significant but, for a book that aims to analyse ‘the communist experiment’ in toto, the near absence of east European countries, of Cuba, of Cambodia (Vietnam and North Korea are slightly better treated, but exclusively through the wars they staged) is a shortcoming. Eastern Europe, for example, demonstrated the limited ability of the Soviet model to extend to new settings with widely differing historical experiences and cultures. Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea underline the reality of an Asian remodelling of communism that proved more resilient than its Soviet prototype. And Pol Pot’s ‘Democratic Kampuchea’ remains the apex of communist terror the world over; it has been the seat of what has probably been the only communist-inspired genocide. The horrified rejection of such extreme methods probably played some role in the final weakening of communist ideology.

Some mistakes can be spotted, mostly concerning China. For example, it is not true that the Chinese Red Army protected its bases in the years 1928–34 by using ‘techniques of guerrilla warfare rather than fighting frontal battles’. The statement that, during the Long March (1934–35), the communists fought ‘a full-dress battle on average every two days’ (p. 51) belongs to the realm of propaganda, not to serious history (see for example Sun Shuyun, The long march (2006)). The supposed communist ‘aggressiveness in confronting’ (p. 52) the Japanese has similarly been put into question: even more than the Guomindang regime, they privileged the consolidation of their army in view of the incoming civil war. The description of the violence against supposed landlords that went along with the 1946–52 land reform underestimates the degree of manipulation of the peasants by the communist apparatus (pp. 53, 87).

The account of the choice of a ‘Chinese path’ towards socialism in the late 1950s follows too closely China’s official discourse, or perhaps some outdated Western historians (pp. 96–8). In fact, from 1956 onwards, Mao Zedong attempted to be the ‘Soviet-betrayed’ faithful heir of Stalin. He did not criticize the Soviet model but tried to apply it more radically to China. Thus the Great Leap Forward (1958–61) emphasized an ultra-rapid industrialization, not the promotion of peasants. It is not true that, during that fateful period of widespread famine, ‘As disasters accumulated, the Party backed off the most radical measures’ (p. 102). The disasters were denounced at the Party’s highest level as early as 1959, but the first genuine counter-measures had to wait till 1961. And the statement that ‘Mao himself accepted some of the blame for the disaster’ should be seriously qualified: he was forced to retreat somewhat at that point, but took a terrible revenge during the Cultural Revolution on whoever had dared to criticize him, however indirectly. There is a startling assertion that the political ‘death toll in the Soviet Union was far higher than in China, where no large-scale executions occurred’ (p. 112), at least during the Cultural Revolution. The contrary has been amply demonstrated (for example, most recently by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals in Mao’s last revolution (2006)). It is actually most probable that executions in China, from the late 1940s, represented three to five times those of the Soviet Union under Stalin, presently estimated at under one million (see Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Margolin, et al., The black book of communism: crimes, terror, repression (1999)). Consequently, the proportion of victims among the populations of the two countries has been found to be roughly similar. Finally, the presentation of a Mao struggling ‘to overcome the inequalities associated with China’s modern development’ (p. 113) should be seriously counter-balanced with the obstinate setting up, during the 1950s, of a comprehensive caste system, in which one’s destiny (education, employment, accommodation, political status, even marriage) was fully shaped by the so-called ‘class origins’, duly transmitted to one’s children. China is obviously Strayer’s weak point. Nevertheless, his highly readable and generally reliable book has more virtues than vices.