The Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives Collection of Communist and Socialist Serials collects 1,945 serials and publications chronicling the activity of national and international Communist and Socialist groups, published between 1850 and 2013, originally received by the Tamiment Library through subscriptions, donations, and as part of archival collections.

The majority of the collection consists of incomplete runs of newsletters, newspapers, reports, information bulletins, theoretical journals, and informally prepared communiqués. The serials document the trajectories of Communism and Socialism at a granular level, rich in detailed first-person accounts of political events, variously occurring against the backdrop of World War II, the Cold War, the Vietnam war, and the fall of the Soviet Union. Serials provide a detailed accounting and lively discussion of the ideological evolution and division of Communism and Socialism, providing commentary on contemporary news - the trial of the Rosenbergs, McCarthyism, the Vietnam conflict, the reunification of Germany - and ranging in scale from pictorial accounts of community activism undertaken by various subgroups of Students for a Democratic Society to typewritten tracts responding to the death of Mao Zedong. One-off and irregularly published small-run pamphlets and bulletins circulate news, opinion, polemics, rebuttals, manifestos, disquisitions, and propaganda. Among the topics covered are anti-fascist efforts, labor negotiations, black liberation movements, the formation of solidarities between political constituencies, tensions and fissures in local and national groups, the "red scares" of the 20th century, and anti-Semitism in the United States.

Publications originate from national political parties, smaller splinter groups and factions, current affairs magazines, unions and labor coalitions at the local and national level, and publishing houses distributing essays explicating political policies and philosophies. Among the organizations well represented in the collection are the Communist Party of the USA; the Revolutionary Communist Party; the Progressive Labor Party; the Socialist Workers Party; the Revolutionary Socialist League; New American Movement; the British Labour party; as well as numerous reports and essays issued by Pioneer Publishers; New Century Publishers; Foreign Languages Press; and Getting Together Publications. Among the titles held in significant volume are the Bulletin, published by the Workers League; Burning Spear, published by the African People's Socialist Party; the Revolutionary Socialist League's Torch; the Party for Workers Power's Spark; the Revolutionary Communist Party's Revolution; The Militant; Unity; and variants of Quatrieme Internationale.

In addition to American publications, there are also hundreds of titles documenting Communism and Socialism abroad, in serials and reports emanating from large, established governmental and independent organizations - China's Foreign Languages Press; Russia's Novosti Press Agency; and Britain's Fabian Society, among others - as well as accumulations of material describing political activity in Puerto Rico, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, and elsewhere. No complete runs of publications are contained herein, and in most cases only a handful of issues of each publication are held.