I figure this is a common ask but I haven’t seen a post anywhere in the recent past, so…What is the VERY first book on theory that I need to read?
I haven’t read any theory yet, besides a short excerpt from the Communist Manifesto a long time ago. I have read some Parenti and Blackshirts & Reds is definitely on my list. I’m also interested in history books, biographies, autobiographies, anything socialist/marxist really.
I am also very interested in recommendations from non-white folks, as well as any literature about non-white socialist movements/people/history/theory etc.
I like to recommend Wage, Labor, and Capital by Marx (my physical copy also contains Value, Price, and Profit). It’s short, written to be understood by 19th century working class Germans, and is sort of like Capital volume 0.1.
Otherwise, State and Revolution or What is to be Done? by Lenin are bangers, and I like to recommend them to ML-curious people (usually people who have just taken the first steps away from just being a radlib faux-anarchist). Lenin was a great writer, engaging and passionate, but his works build on a large background of Marx and Engels (and others, of course), and you might not get all of the references.
EDIT: In case you didn’t know yet, basically everything written by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and a lot of others are available for free on Marxists.org
State and Revolution just sort of abruptly ends with a “brb gonna go do the Russian revolution” it slaps
I like that half of it is Lenin dunking on his haters
Awesome thank you. Wage, Labor & Capital definitely sounds like a good starting off point, I can definitely do 25 pages. I’ve gotten pretty bad at reading over the years so it’s intimidating figuring out where to start and not jump into something that’s super super dense. I have heard Lenin is a good read too so maybe that’s where I’ll get my feet wet.
got nothing but here’s some wholesome interactions between lenin and stalin after lenin had returned from a vacation (everyone told him to take a fuckin break because he worked too hard)
Aw that is precious, the admiration is obvious
Wayne’s Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’ For Beginners
Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth
Newton’s Revolutionary Socialism
Davis’s Women, Race, and Class
Bevin’s Jakarta Method
I really enjoy A People’s Guide to Capitalism for someone who’s new to Marxist economic theory, very easy read that takes concepts from Capital and makes them much more digestible for modern audiences.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/olgin/pamphlets/1933/whycomindex.htm
October by China mieville
Howard zinn’s peoples history
Ten days that shook the world by John Reed
Molotov Remembers by himself and transcribed by Felix Chuev
Felix Dzerzhinsky: a biography
Dialectical and historical materialism by Stalin
Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism by Otto Wille Kuusinen
Foundations of Leninism by Stalin
Marxism and the national question by Stalin
Inside north Korea by Anna Louise Strong
The origin of family, private property, and the State by Engels
On inter-party struggle by Liu Shaoqi
This Monstrous War By Wilfred G. Burchett
Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard By Douglas Tottle
The Lesson of Germany By Gerhart Eisler, Albert Norden, Albert Schreiner
The Origins of Christianity By Archibald Robertson
Science and Religion By Marcel Cachin
Soviet Democracy and Bourgeois Democracy By M.B. Mitin
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ah yes, starting off with 2000+ pages of super dense theory as my first dive into it sounds awesome, thanks lol
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haha, well as long as we’re all in it together I’m for it! Thanks for the explanation about the other read though, that sounds right up my alley tbh. One day I’ll grow the attention span to read through and annotate Kapital. When that day comes I know I will have transformed myself as a person
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I don’t know whether it was the sheer amount of college itself or the mass amount of internet access and drinking that completely ruined my motivation to read dense texts, but it happened. Maybe the combination of them all because after college I called it quits HARD. Being an academic is overrated, praxis is the move (when ya got the spoonz)
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I feel it, friend, there’s a heap of mental factors here too. We do the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt! Honestly reading it out loud is probably really effective though
CatW is critical reading, can’t recommend it enough.
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Principles of Communism is great for an intro. It’s really easy to read too. I recommend it first over the Manifesto because I feel like it does a better job paying out the framework.
Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds is a great historical text about the history of Communism/The USSR with contrasts to Capitalism/Fascism.
State and Revolution is probably a good entry point into I guess real theory. It’s gonna read a bit like it was written 100 years ago and Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg, and others that I’ve read so far all read in this almost ramble-y dense way that isn’t comment nowadays. Rev doesn’t do it so hard.
Wage Labor and Capital is as another said, a good precursor to Das Kapital. I like it because it starts to get you to think about everything in a lens of labor and value of labor, and what really is surplus and a bit more. It starts out easy but like 3 chapters in it goes full bore Marx.
For Das Kapital, there is a podcast on Spotify called Reading with Comrades I think. It’s done with a professor that has done 6 reading groups on the book and he does a great job of explaining the tough bits. But after a while it feels very same-y so maybe listen in chunks.
I started reading Wage Labor and Capital and got to chapter five (the nature and growth of capital) and I’m so lost ;~; the speed at which I’ve been reading and the number of times I’ve had to re-read has really illuminated how much my literacy has declined since I left college lol
That’s where it goes full Marx. I think if you were able to still follow along for most of it, you probably have a decent idea of what he was trying to convey. If you don’t understand the harder parts now, that’s fine. Don’t beat yourself up over not understanding it all, all at once. I plan on going back over it later on just because I didn’t really get the later parts either. I think the big take away is understanding what value, labor, and the other compartments are because a lot will build on that. Das Kapital gets into some formulas and abstract vs concrete labor but even these concepts, you can just look up for little refreshers.
I think the main thing is that you are trying to better understand it from a scholarly perspective. Take your time and maybe pick a few easier reads here and there so you don’t feel like you are always trying to force through the rough stuff.
If you are Stateside, they really don’t prep you for reading this kind of stuff. But I guess expecting to take a class in high school on Marxist thought is just silly since they only want to produce wage slaves.
I definitely plan on breaking up the readings lol. What I think makes this stuff extra hard is that I get stuck on the things I don’t know and go down research rabbit holes when really I should be taking the text in then maybe going back to it. Like I got stuck on Engels’ introduction because I wanted to look up all of the wars of 1848 because I was unfamiliar, and and then i wanted to look up Ricardian economics because he mentions it and I don’t know what that is… then i forgot where I was…
I think I’m going to try to start off with:
- wage labor and capital
- people’s guide to capitalism (or another “kapital for dummies” type book)
- Caliban and the Witch
- State and Revolution
I’m having a hard time figuring out what order I want to read in but I have so many books on my list so idk if it’s just worth it to wing it or order them somehow
I actually am adding Caliban and the Witch to my list. Engels wrote a similar piece called The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State that might pair well with Caliban.
If you are prone to rabbit holes, I would recommend skimming this or the Wikipedia page if you are inclined to just have a basic understanding of it. You don’t need an in-depth knowledge of it or even some of the people Lenin mention to follow the book but knowing a few dates and what exactly the Commune was might help. Maybe read the Manifesto of Principles first to have a baseline when going into Lenin’s analysis of Communism. That was what I did and I think it helped.
But again, take it slow and don’t get overwhelmed. Some of the text is worth further analyzing and if you get stuck you can ask on hexbear or grad and I know someone will be able to help lol. Heck, even the socialism_101 subreddit has been a worthwhile tool to help with some things.
