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Dialectical and Historical Materialism - Stalin

Such a great introduction to diamat

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

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.

I haven’t actually read a whole thing besides Engels’ origin of family, I tend to read snippets I find from online discussions or essays/video essays. But when I read Lenin’s definition of imperialism it blew my damn mind because it just made so much sense. I was already anti-imperialist before becoming a communist because of where I’m from but it just solidified it and cleared up a lot of things for me. I should really read more lol but it feels like a slog for my brain despite being interested in the material.

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.

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

Fundamental principles of philosophy by politzer, obviously.

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.

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

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

This first happened to me when I read “Elementary Principles of Philosophy” by Georges Politzer. Was sold on Marxism ever since. Here’s the link if you want to check it out.

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.

Parenti

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.