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As I read Heinlein's books, I keep running into either an anti-communist agenda or casual jibes about communists. To illustrate, The Puppet Masters portrays slug-infested Americans as communists while in Double Star, he notes that communists use underhanded hypnosis techniques to brainwash people.

I'm curious to know which of his books carry such explicitly anti-communist overtones.

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    Do you include pro-individualist libertarianish stuff (e.g. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) as being "anti-communist" even if they don't explicitly reference communism?
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Aug 25, 2013 at 12:56
  • @DVK I think it might be best to only consider explicit references. I've updated the question accordingly.
    – coleopterist
    Commented Aug 25, 2013 at 16:27
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    Given that Heinlein's entire oeuvre is influenced by his libertarian ideas, I'd think every single of the books can be seen as being "anti-communist" in that the ideas put forth in them conflict with central control at so many layers.
    – jwenting
    Commented Aug 26, 2013 at 10:12
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    Keep in mind that Heinlein was a socialist in the 1930's, active in Upton Sinclair's EPIC organization. He was not doctrinaire or partisan, and he was annoyed by card-carrying libertarians who tried to get him to wave their banner. In Tramp Royale he comments approvingly on the social welfare state of Uruguay but unfavorably on New Zealand's. He certainly hated Stalinism and the USSR with a passion, and bandied phrases such as "the butchers of Budapest."
    – user2490
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 1:21
  • You should read his short essay, Pravda Means Truth Read the full text here. unz.com/print/AmMercury-1960oct-00051
    – Rob Grier
    Commented Nov 7, 2018 at 17:10

3 Answers 3

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Novels:

  • 6th Column - AKA The Day After Tomorrow: The bad guys, the Pan-Asians have a somewhat communist society.

  • Starship Troopers - I'm not sure this counts as anti-communist, but there's a scene where it's said that the bugs are a perfect communist society because they aren't individuals, but since humans are individuals, communism doesn't work for them.

  • Double Star - Explicitly mentions communists as being underhanded, e.g. using hypnosis

  • The Puppet Masters - Compares the aliens and the way they run human society (in the places they gain control) to communists.

Short Stories:

  • Solution Unsatisfactory has Russian/Chinese communists as the bad guys.
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  • Farnham's Freehold also has the "Ruskies" nuking the US but I can't remember if it was out-right anti-Communism.
    – Craig
    Commented Aug 26, 2013 at 9:52
  • @cppl: The nuclear war in Farnham's Freehold is simply presented as something that happens. There is no indication, for example, of whether it's a first strike by one side or the other. However, there is some macho posturing by Hugh Farnham in which he states his determination that if the Russians invade with boots on US soil, he wants to kill as many of them as possible before they kill him.
    – user2490
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 5:01
  • The huge example is The Puppet Masters. It's a very explicit anti-communist allegory from beginning to end. In the other examples communism is at most a minor theme.
    – user2490
    Commented Nov 4, 2018 at 0:01
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In The Door Into Summer there is mention of a WW3 in which the cities of the Communist bloc are referred to as "slave cities".

In Free Men, America has been conquered by what sounds very like Chinese Communists.

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In The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, a young man, Bill, who was rescued by the protagonists is described as having "the socialist disease" because he believes society owes him a living.

Richard, Bill has the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the world owes him a living. He told me sincerely - smugly! - that of course everyone was entitled to the best possible medical and hospital service - free of course, unlimited of course, and of course the government should pay for it. - Robert A. Heinlein, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

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    This is a nice answer but would be better if you edited in the quotes to back it up.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Nov 2, 2018 at 20:10
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    I don't think Tunnel in the Sky is an example. I guess you have in mind the scene in the second half of ch. 8. The candidates are Rod Walker, Grant Cowper, Caroline Mshiyeni, and Arthur ("Waxie") Nielsen. As they're preparing to vote using tokens such as pottery shards, Jimmy says "all the crackpots are votes for Waxie." I don't see anything socialist in what Waxie says. He says that laws and constitutions are bad things, and that the castaways should "breed scientifically a new race, a super race." This is not at all in line with classic communism, which preferred Lysenkoism to Darwinism.
    – user2490
    Commented Nov 3, 2018 at 23:52
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    @BenCrowell. You are right. I miss remembered that one.
    – Rob Grier
    Commented Nov 5, 2018 at 21:11
  • @TheLethalCarrot Quote added.
    – Rob Grier
    Commented Nov 5, 2018 at 21:34
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    @RobGrier note you can use quote markdown > to denote a quote. I’ve done this for you now.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Nov 5, 2018 at 22:00

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