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  • DankZedong A
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    142 years ago

    It’s a bit of a standard book in marxist circles these days, but Blackshirts and Reds by Parenti made me slap my table like I was in a Carribean dance hall group

    Absolute must read in my opinion.

    Also, Lenins work on revolution

  • Muad'DibberA
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    142 years ago

    For me it was:

    Freshman level (intros and essays)

    • Zinn - people’s history of the US
    • Paul d’amatto - the meaning of marxism
    • Engels - principles of communism
    • communist manifesto
    • Marx - wage labor and capital

    Sophomore level ( ML thought )

    • Engels - socialism utopian and scientific
    • Lenin - State and revolution, left-wing communism
    • luxemburg - reform or revolution
    • stalin - foundations of leninism
    • Castro - my life

    Graduate level Marxism (dependency theory, labor aristocracy theory, settler-colonialism, SWCC)

    • cope - Divided world, divided class
    • smith - imperialism in the 21st century
    • dunbar-ortiz - indigenous peoples history of the US
    • rodney - how europe underdeveloped Africa.
    • collected works of deng xiaoping
    • boer - swcc, a guide for foreigners
      • Muad'DibberA
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        62 years ago

        Just random ones, most of the works are very short, but it really helps you learn the PRC’s long term strategy for how to defeat the #1 contradiction in the world today: capitalist-imperialism / the inequality between rich and poor countries, and the theft of surplus value from millions of global south proles to feed the imperialist countries.

        China is pretty much the only country that’s been able to escape the low wage trap that every other global south country is still suffering under, and that’s thanks to Deng Xiaoping and the brilliant comrades who created SWCC.

    • @halfie
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      32 years ago

      I recommend death of a nation by parenti if you want to be outraged by nato and the imf

    • @halfie
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      22 years ago

      My freshman history teacher had us read zinn love that guy

    • @afellowkid
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      22 years ago

      I like this curriculum style list

  • Preston Maness ☭
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    132 years ago

    Value, Price, and Profit - Karl Marx.

    It is the most structured, concise, and cogent introduction to Marxist economic thought that I have read so far.

  • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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    2 years ago

    Lenin’s “Materialism and Empiriocriticism”. Before i was greatly confused about materialism and idealism, since philosophy is not realy my field of interest nor experience, and he as usual explained it very clearly. I recomment to read it even before Marx & Engels pieces on philosophy.

  • Dialectical Drip
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    122 years ago

    Das Kapital. Don’t get me wrong a lot of the times it’s boring and its long af but after some parts you truly feel enlightened.

    • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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      2 years ago

      Book 1 is absolute banger. Book 2 is much worse read and i don’t think really very useful for political activity and propaganda since it’s mainly about capital circulation. Book 3 is very useful again.

  • Redpri (He/Him)
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    2 years ago

    Dialectical and Historical Materialism - Stalin

    Such a great introduction to diamat

  • @Psychotronics
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    112 years ago

    Lenin’s The State and Revolution. Right into chapter one he brings up Engels’ analysis of the formation of the state:

    “The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it ’the reality of the ethical idea’, ’the image and reality of reason’, as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ’order’; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state.”

    This was extremely useful in my radicalization process, as it explained states have class characters and thus why we need a dictatorship of the proletariat.

  • @Shaggy0291
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    112 years ago

    Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder was pretty big for me with regards to how it encouraged me to be more aware of opportunism amongst the people I work with in an organising capacity, not to mention being careful not to fall into such pitfalls myself.

    A great many people in leadership positions will justify counterproductive actions and policies in the name of the “good of the organisation”, but this assertion doesn’t necessarily hold water in itself. Discerning the proper course of action in any given situation is often complicated and people can subscribe to positions that hold their organisation back, while fully believing that their chosen course is in fact prudent and correct.

    Its that mentality that leads organisers to fall into bad practices in leadership, such as endlessly surrendering small battles here and there at the first sign of trouble in the name of protecting the organisation from greater losses. Knowing when to advance and retreat is a critically important skill, the judgement of which is rarely something that can be carried out in a mechanistic fashion; often times the relevant factors leading to success or failure are very difficult to distinguish and therefore much depends on the personal judgement of the leadership in charge. It isn’t a problem that can be solved with a simple calculus of your available resources. To give up whenever a problem becomes difficult is to foster a style of leadership that easily surrenders in the face of the slightest adversity. Such a leadership is incapable of leading the working class in any capacity, under whose leadership their organisations will be consistently chipped away at until functionally nothing remains.

  • Soviet Snake
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    92 years ago

    Caliban and the Witch truly made me think differently about feminism and women’s exploitation, although Federici is an anarchist she did a Marxist analysis thst’s superb; she even mentions something like that her book is an expansion into Marx’s theory of capital accumulation where he did not kept into account women, and that said capital accumulation wouldn’t have been possible without a working force, which can’t exist without wombs, therefore the witch hunt was a mass terror campaign about the enclosure of reproduction.

  • @whoami
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    82 years ago

    started with zinn and chomsky when I was much younger. Chomsky’s books are just list of crimes committed by the US across the world. It was really eye opening. I wouldn’t really read him now, but it was still a big influence on me at the time I eventually moved on to Marx and Lenin.

    Funnily enough as I’ve gotten older, videos by the likes of Parenti and Prashad have been extremely important to my learning. And the old reddit genzedong, informed tankie, genzhou, etc. all were crucial to how I view things now.

    I guess my own ideological growth would go liberal>>“libertarian socialist” (copied straight from chomsky)>>vague socialism>>marxism leninism

    Some big world events influenced me as well. 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, 2008 financial crisis and the occupy movement, among others

    • SovereignState
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      2 years ago

      I don’t know if you’ve read them or are interested in understanding the U.S’s imperialism even more, but William Blum’s Killing Hope and Rogue State were utterly world-shattering for me. They made me understand the sheer audacity of this empire. Reading too much into it too quickly can be enough to depress and give someone a complete mental breakdown I think, though, so I’d understand if it’s too much.

      The CIA even has a pdf of “Rogue State” available for free on their website, blatantly mocking Blum and anti-imperialists. It’s disturbed as hell.

      • @afellowkid
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        62 years ago

        Reading too much into it too quickly can be enough to depress and give someone a complete mental breakdown I think

        Very good warning to keep in mind. I’ve had to take breaks when researching certain topics because of this kind of thing. Was researching some things about the Vietnam war a couple weeks ago and had to stop, I was feeling physically ill from what I was reading/seeing, even though it’s things I “know” about already.

        • SovereignState
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          52 years ago

          It’s elucidating and enlightening beyond belief, but reading about this stuff definitely made me understand the phrase “ignorance is bliss” and I get the physical sickness absolutely. All you really have to know is that NATO / the U.S. / the transatlantic empire are profit-driven, wicked, and never have the best interest of people other than shareholders and war profiteers at heart, and that you have to fight against them every step of the way. Blum et al.'s work will make you a better anti-imperialist IMO, but you’re already golden if you do and believe the above. It’s not worth understanding every facet of every misadventure and every suffering imposed by empire if it’ll kill your passion for revolution or hurt you so deeply that you lose it. I deep dove and had comrades and friends tell me that I should take a break because they saw the sheer horror overtaking me at times. I got over it, thankfully.

          • @afellowkid
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            52 years ago

            Agreed. I’m glad you seem to have developed some balance in dealing with the horror while also still continuing to learn things, and glad you had some friends to keep you grounded. I have a tendency to deep dive as well. I try to keep a purpose in mind when doing so (I am looking for X information for Y reason) to keep my diving reasonable.

      • @whoami
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        32 years ago

        I know who Blum is and have read some of his articles. I don’t think I’ve read his books.

        If you want fucked up reading, Hidden Terrors is a book about the US’s involvement in South America, especially Brazil and Uruguay. It’s centered around the life of CIA agent Dan Mitrione, who was responsible for well, basically torturing leftists. Pretty brutal, but it gives a real picture into how the CIA works in other countries.

      • @whoami
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        42 years ago

        yeah all of the above was big for me too.

        I started young, and sort of progressed to the point where I am now. About a decade ago I would have been a Jacobin subscriber haha

  • @Samubai
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    72 years ago

    Honestly, Guerrilla Warfare by Che is really cool. It helps solidify in the mind what a REAL anti-imperial war would look like just about anywhere on Earth. It helped me see that, with some updates, it is viable, it’s a great sacrifice, but it is possible to wage a war like this. Really, any committed communist revolutionary should read it.

    It is less philosophical and more practical. Something I really appreciate. Beyond that, it’s an interesting view into the mind of a great one like Che.

    Besides that, On Contradiction by Mao is awesome. Critique of the Gotha Program is so good.

  • ButtigiegMineralMap
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    72 years ago

    Anarchism or Socialism by Stalin. Idk maybe you’ve read it maybe not, but “content precedes form” blew my fucking mind when he explained it properly in Chapter 2. . And Little Red Book is a bit more of musings and quotes, less of full on theory, but the chapter on Imperialism as a Paper Tiger is very good and I find myself using the example to explain Imperialism to regular people that aren’t into politics. Last one is Marx’s Critique of The Gotha Programme. He just slaps around a false interpretation of Marxism in the most satisfying way. The part about Nature vs labor as sources of value changed my mind forever and gave me more of a materialist perspective upon analyzing what he said and how he worded it. I don’t wanna spoil any of these too much bc I could never explain it as well as the original authors, but if you have a shitload to read, message me, I can give you a quick run through on some of it