Walter Jean Kolarz (26 April 1912 - 21 July 1962) was a British-based scholar of the communist world who wrote widely on ethnic and religious issues.

Kolarz was born in Teplitz-Schonau, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied at Charles University in Prague, then moved to Berlin to work as a journalist. However, he was expelled by the Nazis in 1936. He moved to Paris, before fleeing to London in 1940.

Kolarz worked as a journalist for United Press of America, before joining the BBC in 1949, specialising as an analyst on Soviet and East European affairs.

Kolarz married Alexandra Lipovsky in 1939 (she died in March 2000) and they had one son.

Kolarz died in hospital in Kensington, London, on 21 July 1962.

A number of Kolarz' books were compiled by others in the wake of his early death.

• Stalin and Eternal Russia, 1944
• Myths and Realities in Eastern Europe, 1946
• Russia and Her Colonies. Frederick A. Praeger, New York. 1952 (third edition 1953)
• How Russia is Ruled, 1953
• The Peoples of the Soviet Far East, 1954
• Religion in the Soviet Union, 1961
• Religion and Communism in Africa, 1963
• Communism and Colonialism, 1964, MacMillan & Co., London

The Times, obituary 23 July 1962

• Alexandra Kolarz's Obituary, "The Guardian", 31 March, 2000