This classic of political writing features essays by some of the brilliant intellectual minds from the 1930s through the mid-1950s.  The studies include those of Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Andre Gide, Richard Wright, Louis Fischer and Stephen Spender.  All had joined (some for only a few days) their local Communist parties and all had rejected it for a variety of reasons.  Each sought to find a solution to the problems they faced, such as the fall of Capitalism (often predicted, none accurately yet), artistic freedom, someone to stand against Fascism, the end of racism, etc.  Each found that while the theory was supposedly “scientific”, the practical application of the theory in fact worked against the solutions they sought and were run by humans with the same emotions, fears, etc. that have always existed