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They always will, they serve the same donors and bourgeois powers. Marx and Lenin are vindicated by the passage of time. They were not clairvoyant, they just accurately analyzed the systems around them and saw what necessarily follows from their directions.
Everyone, get organized, read theory, learn self-defense and self-sufficiency. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. Defend yourselves and protect each other.
Great recommendation. Blackshirts and Reds is a great place to start. I’ll add on Principles of Communism https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm as a great place to go from there.
“Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement.”
- Vladimir Lenin, What is to be Done? | Audiobook
It’s time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, “Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.” Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
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Dialectical and Historical Materialism
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Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx’s Law of Value
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Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let’s get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
- Friedrich Engels’ Principles of Communism | Audiobook
The FAQ of Communism, written by the Luigi of the Marx & Engels duo. Quick to read, and easy to reference, this is the perfect start to your journey.
- Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the “left” and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous “Yellow Parenti” speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
Ugh, philosophy? Really? YES!
- Georges Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy | Audiobook
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don’t be intimidated!
- Friedrich Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific | Audiobook
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous “Utopian” Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That’s right, it’s time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it’s mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
- Karl Marx’s Wage Labor and Capital | Audiobook as well as Wages, Price and Profit | Audiobook
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
- Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism | Audiobook
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
- Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution | Audiobook
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn’t possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
- Vladimir Lenin’s The State and Revolution | Audiobook
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
- Vikky Storm and Eme Flores’ The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto | (No Audiobook yet)
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of “gender.” Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
- Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth | Audiobook
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism’s dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
- Leslie Feinberg’s Lavender & Red | Audiobook
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It’s not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
- Mao Tse-Tung’s On Practice and On Contradiction | Audiobook
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice.
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Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to us to protect ourselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there’s an org you like more near you and join it.
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Read theory. Don’t think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn’t mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don’t speak on it! Don’t speak nonsense, but listen!
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Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody be forgotten or left behind. There is strength in numbers, when one marginalized group is targeted, many more are sure to follow.
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Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well.
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Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must save each other.
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Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of the Grand Canyon. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
“Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.”
- Mao Tse-Tung
wow great list!Thanks comrade!
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Anarcho-NATOist detected
Hey quick question, can you tell me where fascism arises from, and why?
Fascism arises from a state apparatus.
End the state.
Fascism arises from Capitalist decay. Fascism is the self-defense mechanism of the bourgeoisie deployed against rising revolutionary undercurrents from the working class as the contradictions within Capitalist society sharpen.
You really should read Blackshirts and Reds, at least the first few chapters.
And you really should read CoB if you think everybody does not have a natural right to life, and that we need oppressive top down systems to control us.
Direct action, mutual aid, build up from the grassroots to empower people not politicians.
Sounds great, can you grassroots me some air defense systems so my grassroots mutual aid non-state can stop getting bombed by the USAF? Thanks.
We can’t reeducate or shoot the reactionaries because that would make us evil authoritarian tankies
Oh no, the reactionaries we didn’t reeducate or shoot instituted an armed takeover and now they’re torturing and killing us along with countless innocent people! It was worth it to preserve our moral purity, though
The Bread Book is good, if more people read it I think the world would be a better place. However, I firmly disagree with your analysis on the merits of Marxism. I find it insulting that you claim I don’t believe everyone has a right to life, and it’s disingenuous to say that a publicly owned, centrally planned, democratically run government is the same as a Capitalist State.
I can recommend Marxist theory, if you’d like an intro list.
That sounds great, but you can’t get there from here, at least not directly, because the capitalists will always kill it in its crib. That’s one of the reasons that such a configuration has never lasted more than a few months. If you had read Blackshirts and Reds, you might understand this.
But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.
The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
The pure socialists had a vision of a new society that would create and be created by new people, a society so transformed in its fundaments as to leave little opportunity for wrongful acts, corruption, and criminal abuses of state power. There would be no bureaucracy or self-interested coteries, no ruthless conflicts or hurtful decisions. When the reality proves different and more difficult, some on the Left proceed to condemn the real thing and announce that they “feel betrayed” by this or that revolution.
What’s a state? And does that mean every state is a fascist state?
A state is an authoritarian organisation bent on maintaining its control over an area or peoples.
Every state is authoritarian, not every authoritarian is a fascist.
People > country lines.
What prevents someone from calling your anarchist collective that arms up to defend their class interests, a state?
What prevents ppl from labeling your actions “authoritarian” when you start to dismantle capitalist power structures?
If not every state is fascist, then the conditions for fascism must be more specific than the presence of a state
If you think “authoritarianism bad” is a coherent anarchist ideology, you’re ignorant. Whatever fantasy world you have in your head of an anarchist society will still have authority wielded for various purposes within that society
Okay chud.
Authoritarian? What’s that?
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I think it’s important to read Blackshirts and Reds to see why “red fash” is a gross misunderstanding of Marxist movements. You don’t have to agree with Marxism, but you must understand that Marxist movements have served the working class, and fascist movements the Capitalist class.
Myself, I am a Marxist-Leninist. There are good Anarchists that do good practice and good work, don’t get me wrong, but in this moment sectatian nonsense like “red-fash” splits and divides what should be a more solidified movement.
100%. It wasn’t just the genocide though. They alienated the progressives. Kamala was scared to actually talk outside of mostly scripted messaging and interviews. They didn’t provide and explain strong progressive policies. To me, Kamala was pretty indistinguishable from Joe Biden and other corporate Democrats. Her picking Tim Walz was a great move and she was way up in the polls. Had she leaned into him more, broke from Joe Biden (even thrown him under the bus a bit), and turned to other progressives for advice rather than the DNC corporate consultants, she would have won.
The Dems will always alienate their leftward sections, they serve monopolist capitalists just like the republicans do. It’s time for liberals to be radicalized and read theory, join orgs, and join leftists.
If anyone wants a good intro list on Marxist theory, I can provide one.
To me, Kamala was pretty indistinguishable from Joe Biden and other corporate Democrats.
But Joe Biden beat Trump. Seems like she could have won by being more like Joe Biden.
Male. And white.
Biden beat Trump during COVID and when Trump was the incumbent. Being, “not the other guy” works a lot better when you aren’t currently the president when the bad things are happening.
Given high inflation that was never balanced by wages or deflation and an ongoing sponsored genocide, “more of the same” and a near complete lack of major policy positions means hewing close to the unpopular incumbent.
Also she literally never won a primary. She lost to Yang lmao. This was donors shoving a pro-gemocide empty suit candidate down peoples’ throats. “Winning” is a secondary goal to choosing the candidates.
They would literally, unironically, genuinely lose 100 times to republicans before they elect anybody who would appease anybody left of Clinton.
If liberals had brains they’d want the entire leadership of the DNC thrown into a pit for this and other colossal failures. Instead they’re brainless and will just blame us for not voting
So you’re saying that you didn’t vote?
I completely understand your frustration. It sucks knowing that things are going to get worse and it could have been much better if those who didn’t vote, voted for Kamala. And we’re all definitely going to need time to fully process this.
In my opinion though, and I’m not saying that I’m definitely correct - but the feeling I get the reason that the democrats lost is because lots of people felt completely disillusioned with the democratic party. I want to be really clear: Fuck Trump, he’s a fascist in a party of fascists doing fascist things. they will undoubtedly cause death and harm. If there was any justice in this world they’d be on trial for crimes again humanity. But the democrats did not offer enough hope for people to get out and vote. They basically ran on a campaign of “vote for us because you have no better option, the other guy is the worst”, and that is just not an inspiring campaign. Their ongoing support for the genocide in palestine, their lack of interest in fighting for the rights of trans people, all of these things and more left many people, myself included, feeling absolutely abandoned by the democratic party.
I still think that leftists should vote, and they should vote with their heart and with thoughtfulness and think about harm mitigation. But I also cannot blame anyone who just couldn’t muster the energy to go out and queue for hours to express their support for a candidate that they felt very little love for.
I really hope that my love and compassion comes through. It’s hard to express over the internet, and it sometimes feels a little silly, but it’s what we have left. Our love for each other and our hope that the future can be better, even if we may not live to experience that better future.
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Trump IS genocide.
Trump cares about Trump. That’s the long and short of his ideology. He only cares about genocide to the extent that it might benefit him, otherwise he’d rather play golf.
Ah, so the choice was between genocide or genocide.
I guess if both sides are evil then people just rationally choose the side that’s at least honest.
I thought Trump was garbage.
¿Por que no los dos?
This cycle the DNC, for the first time, could get the upwardly mobile suburbanite Reagan voters they’ve been salivating over my whole life. They don’t care about winning, they’re just happy that hippies don’t vote for them anymore while Cheneys do. The DNC is not a political party now, it’s a North Virginia cocktail party.
