Robert C. Tucker (b. 29 May 1918) is an American historian.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he was a prominent Sovietologist at Princeton University. He served as an attaché at the American Embassy in Moscow from 1944-1953. His biographies of Joseph Stalin are cited by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies as his greatest contribution. Robert Tucker is also responsible for the coining of "military communism" to distinguish communist regimes which militarize the party.

At Princeton he started the Russian Studies Program, and he still holds the position of Professor of Politics Emeritus and IBM Professor of International Studies Emeritus at the school.

Tucker married a Russian, Eugenia (Evgeniia) Tucker, who eventually emigrated with him and taught Russian for many years at Princeton.

Publications

• Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia
• Stalin as Revolutionary: 1879-1929 (1973)
• Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941 (1992)
• Politics as Leadership (1995)
• Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx (1961).
• The Soviet Political Mind
• The Great Purge Trial (Co-Editor)
• The Marxian Revolutionary Idea
• The Marx-Engels Reader (Editor)
• The Lenin Anthology
• Włodzimierz Brus and Robert C. Tucker (1977). Stalinism: essays in historical interpretation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-05608-2.