Can anyone recommend educational works of literature on Communism, etc?

Start with Marx and Engels.

In any given election year you can read the Democratic National Platform just before their convention.

Yep, if you seriously want to study the whole thing then starting with Marx is probably a good idea, but be aware that just like any other school of thought with a large following, you can spend a lifetime learning about the different branches and nooks and crannies.

Or you could start with this

If you can find it, The Marxists, by C. Wright Mills.

He gives you the effectiveness of the philosophy as an ideology, its symbiosis with liberalism, and its pervasiveness worldwide up to the time of his book.

C. Wright Mills, who also wrote The Power Elite and White Collar and who was a professor in the Frankfurt school American satellite/nest Columbia University, spent the last years of his life decrying what he saw as the failure of liberalism from a forlorn, “what if” perspective.

The smugness comes through in his writing about how while Western nations, particularly this country, were outwardly resistant to the Marxist system, it was being introduced stealthily into many of their institutions, particularly gov’t and private schools and media, and we weren't picking up on it.

We did many years later – like now – but it’s a little late.

In his book, The Marxists, he admits that both Marxism and liberalism have identical objectives, and that the major difference between the two belief systems is in the methods to be used in attaining those objectives. And it is within this context that he viewed liberalism not as an antithesis/adversary to Marxism, but as merely a more acceptable alternative.

Just two excerpts from The Marxists:

“You can’t examine Marxism effectively without stating and examining the standards of liberalism.”

“Those who reject or ignore Marxist ways of thinking are rejecting the classic traditions of their own disciplines.”

He’s speaking above of academia, but it has metastasized into many more institutions than just academia.

In retrospect, the book provides some insight into the foundations that were being laid for where we are now.

And there should be no mystery as to how that disaster in the WH happened.