I read “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” while in the eighth grade (not assigned) in 1969. That and the invasion after the Prague Spring convinced me about Communism being just a form of brutal state control. I got in a lot of arguments with an uncle who is a hard lefty, and is just about disowned by much of the family (lot of Polish and Lithuanian).
This short book should be required reading for every high school student in The USA. Maybe they might not think that communism is not so bad.