Tortured for Christ, by Richard Wurmbrand

In his  1978 Harvard commencement speech, Solzhenitsyn said:

Through intense suffering, our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive...A fact that cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger.  68 years for our people, and 30 years for the people of Eastern Europe: during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience.

If you were to become curious about the nature of the spiritual training Solzhenitsyn means, Richard Wurmbrand's life provides a good example.  Wurmbrand was a Romanian who grew up in a secular Jewish family, converted to Christianity as a young man, and became a Lutheran pastor.  When the Soviets took control of Romania after driving out the Nazis, they established a Communist totalitarian government that drove the genuine churches underground.  For standing up to them, Wurmbrand and his wife were both sentenced to lengthy terms in what can only be described as a torture camp.  Despite the horrific conditions, this is an inspiring story of hope, endurance, and the great consolation of faith in God.

Marx and Satan, by Richard Wurmbrand

This is a very convincing book, written by a Romanian victim of Marxism, that brings forward the hypothesis that Karl Marx and some of his most infamous followers may have been strongly influenced by Satanism.  Wurmbrand cites excerpts from Marx's books, poetry, and correspondence that point in that direction, such that further research into the possibility is warranted.  I also did not realize that a very large portion of Marx's writings have been sitting in Russian vaults and kept from being disseminated, translated, and discussed. Very surprising for a thinker whose work has made such a huge, albeit negative, impact upon the world.