Im not sure if this is the right place to ask, since it's not a specific question about a historical period. I'm more interested in a recommendation. I've read plenty about communist states, but most of those works focus on the practical state policies and cultures in which these operate. I'm not looking for this. What I want to know, if somebody knows a good work on intellectual history regarding communist/socialist thinkers. I know the utopian socialist, marx and Engels, Bakunin, Lenin, Luxembourg, etc etc, exist. But I don't know a lot about the nuances in the intellectual discourse surrounding it. So if anybody is aware of a good monograph covering the intellectual debates within communist discourse I would greatly appreciate it if somebody could point me in the right direction.
This is a pretty big ask, since socialism (of various kinds) was probably the most influential political movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. Consequently I’m going to focus specifically on Marxism, and even then fairly broadly.
On Marx himself, the best available biography is Michael Heinrich, Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society, which is being published in several volumes and currently covers Marx’s early years. McLellan’s single volume biography of Marx, Karl Marx: A Biography, is probably the best single volume treatment of Marx’s life. Sven-Eric Liedman’s A World to Win gets an honorable mention too. All of these works try to provide a broad overview of the development of Marx’s thought, and truly to situate it within the historical context. For more detailed studies on the development of specific ideas or texts in Marx, see (in no particular order): Teodor Shanin, Late Marx and the Russian Road; Roman Rosdolsky, The Making of Marx’s Capital; Marcelo Musto, The Last Years of Karl Marx; Hobsbawm’s introduction to Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations; and many, many more I can’t fit here…
For a broad intellectual history overview of Marxism proper that stays fairly neutral, McClellan’s Marxism After Marx is a serviceable introduction. Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism is a much more critical overview (which I personally think is of dubious value but probably worth reading anyway). Beyond a certain point you need to look at intellectual histories of particular currents of Marxism (e.g. “Western Marxism”). Many of these are provided in the chapter notes to McClellan.
It’s hard to really appreciate the debates in Marxism without understanding their institutional contexts. For a broad social history of the Left, see Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy. Donald Sassoon’s classic One Hundred Years of Socialism focuses more specifically on the 20th century Left in Western Europe. Paul Buhle’s Marxism in the United States covers Marxism in America. Take a look at the bibliography of the Eley book; that will get you very far.