"You should read a book called "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser."
Wasn't Dreiser the communist/socialist who also wrote a book entitled "Jenny Gerhardt" or something like that? That was also a good book.
Rael was a socialist too, but Twelve Against The Gods is a really great book. The chapter on Mahomet should be read by anyone who wants to understand Islam today.
I think those guys thought socialism and the League of Nations would save the world from another "war to end all wars".
If alive today, I don't think they would support socialism.
I don't know about him being a commie, etc. The story I heard about this book is that Dreiser was a newspaperman during the early part of the 20th century, and this book was based on a murder case that happened about that time. After he wrote it as a fiction story he came under a lot of criticism for basically using the real event almost verbatim and just making up a lot of fictional scenes and motivations, etc.
Now that the years have passed and few people remember the real event it was based on, the book can be viewed as pure literature. And the writing is excellent! (Note - this is not a book with a happy ending. Read it if you like to wallow in the troubles and pathos of a real loser in life.)
The reason I mentioned it is because poor Clyde (in the book) ends up killing his young, pregnant wife. The situations that put him up to this deed, and the character of Clyde that drives him to do this are just fascinating.