How should I read Marx & Engels?

[know2b]

Or how would you read them?

Suppose you awake to find yourself floating in an endless void. An ethereal voice tells you that you have one month to live. To pass the time, the voice offers you the complete works of Marx and Engels, and nothing more. You set a goal for yourself, to understand them before you die.

Where would you start, in what order would you proceed, and why?

(Suppose you can read 10,000 pages in a month.)

[Adil3tr]

Try Socialism Utopian and Scientific. That shows the Philosophical development of socialism and why is is here now and possible now. Marx for Beginners and Marx's Kapital for Beginners are also great too.

[fa2991]

The Communist Manifesto - 70 pages
+ The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte - 122 pages
+ Critique of the Gotha Programme - 24 pages
+ Capital Vol. 1 - 817 pages
+ Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 - 312 pages
+ Origin of Family, Private Property, and the State - 182 pages
+ Grundrisse - 824 pages
+ On the Jewish Question - 32 pages
+ The Germany Ideology, including Theses on Feuerbach - 571 pages (they're sold together)
+ Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 - 128 pages
+ Wage Labour & Capital - 58 pages
+ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - 142 pages
+ The Poverty of Philosophy - 220 pages
+ Dispatches for the New York Times - 325 pages
+ The Holy Family - 300 pages
_________________________

3301 pages

Actually, with a 10,000 pg. limit, you could probably read everything Marx & Engels have in print.

I know such a long list probably isn't that helpful - maybe just buy the Marx & Engels Reader.

EDIT: I italicized the selections by Engels.

[Lolshevik]

how should you read them? well, in english, you'd probably read them from left to right. :D

er, seriously though, start with the manifesto. Fa's suggestions are great, but I would prioritize them as follows: Manifesto, Critique of the Gotha Program, 18th Brumaire, The Holy Family, and so on.

[know2b]

Long lists do help. More, please! I'd like to know the reasoning behind the lists as well.

I went to the Works of Marx and Engels In Date Order (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/date/index.htm) and noticed that some of the works with red stars have their titles written in capital letters as well. I assume they applied that combination to the absolutely indispensable works.

I wonder if I could read all the starred works in a month.

[Lolshevik]

Are you interested in reading Lenin as well? Trotsky perhaps? for either of those two I could provide a more detailed list w/ reasoning.

Oh! check out Marx's "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844." it's sort of difficult to follow at times, and some parts require re-reading (or at least for my dumb ass they did), but it is an -excellent- insight into the Marxist theory of alienation, which explains how humans are alienated from themselves and their fellow humans by the divorce between their labor and the product of their labor. In fact, according to Marx, everyone is alienated under capitalism... even capitalists.

[fa2991]

Long lists do help. More, please! I'd like to know the reasoning behind the lists as well.


The Communist Manifesto - 70 pagesThe quintessential text on Marxist theory - a great overview of Marx's thought, not to mention that it's his most widely read piece of work.


+ The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte - 122 pagesMarx's theory of history put into practice - also the best prose he ever wrote


+ Critique of the Gotha Programme - 24 pagesContains the seeds later strains of communism would spring up from, notably Bolshevism. This is one of the few times Marx actually talks about what socialism would be like, so, naturally, everyone borrows from this in some way..


+ Capital Vol. 1 - 817 pagesThe only volume of Capital Marx ever finished, and the one that gives you the best general overview of capital's various functions. A rich and essential piece of literature.


+ Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 - 312 pagesEngels' stomach turning account of capitalist England's effect on the proletariat. A vivid read that exposes how low capital will sink in the name of profits.


+ Origin of Family, Private Property, and the State - 182 pagesEngels comes out as a feminist!


+ Grundrisse - 824 pagesThis collection of Marx's notebooks touches on every topic you can imagine.


+ On the Jewish Question - 32 pagesMarx's very controversial and interesting sociological study.


+ The Germany Ideology, including Theses on Feuerbach - 571 pages (they're sold together)An indispensable exposition of historical materialism.


+ Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 - 128 pagesMarx comments on an array of topics, and with relative brevity.


+ Wage Labour & Capital - 58 pagesMarx's summary of the workings of capitalism.


+ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - 142 pagesEngels promotes Marxism as a science and attacks its utopian ancestors.


+ The Poverty of Philosophy - 220 pagesMarx's brutal attack on Proudhon, etc. It's probably not essential, but it's damn entertaining.


+ Dispatches for the New York Times - 325 pagesMarx comments on an assortment of contemporary issues with incredible style and ability.


+ The Holy Family - 300 pagesM&E's first real collaboration - a revealing attack on the Young Hegelians.


I went to the Works of Marx and Engels In Date Order (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/date/index.htm) and noticed that some of the works with red stars have their titles written in capital letters as well. I assume they applied that combination to the absolutely indispensable works.

I wonder if I could read all the starred works in a month.No, you probably couldn't. I certainly couldn't, anyway, and I'm a pretty fast reader. Even if you could speed through them all in a month, comprehension is half the battle, and understanding what you read could be a real *****.

[Paulappaul]

Or how would you read them?

Suppose you awake to find yourself floating in an endless void. An ethereal voice tells you that you have one month to live. To pass the time, the voice offers you the complete works of Marx and Engels, and nothing more. You set a goal for yourself, to understand them before you die.

Where would you start, in what order would you proceed, and why?

(Suppose you can read 10,000 pages in a month.)

If I were to start all over again, I'd probably begin with the Humanist Marxists and the Situationists because they deal with more of philosophical background of Marx rather then the Political or Economic.

Philosophy is base of Marxism. Alot of people like myself, jump into reading Communist Manifesto or Critique of the Gotha Programme, without understanding the nature or Marxism.

With that said, I'd suggest you start with the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.

After that, Raya Dunayevskaya, a famous Humanist Marxist and Libertarian Socialist explains the use of Dialectics in Class Struggle and explains alot of Hegal's work - which inspired Marx - which is really hard to understand. Also her explanation of Capital volume 1 is very good too.

Her archive is here. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/)

I'd recommend her "Notes on Hegel’s Logic", to begin with.

Another good Marxist Humanist is C.L.R James, who talks extensively about Trotskyism in America, Hegal's Logic and Lenin's Philosophy. He himself is not really a Leninist (more of a Libertarian Marxist) but he speaks pretty well of Lenin when talking about the Russian Revolution.

He and Raya Dunayevskaya were the creators the "Johnson Forest tendency".

His archive is here. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/)

Another JFTer was Martin Glaberman who also writes some good stuff (http://www.marxists.org/archive/glaberman/index.htm).


The Situationists, who were are heavily influential in Left Communist, Autonomous Marxists and Anarchists groups today, have alot good insight in Marx's theory of Commodity Fetishism. They were in many ways, the spark of May 68.

Their archive is here (http://libcom.org/library/internationale-situationiste)

Reading this will kinda get you in the feel of nature of Marxism.



If you want skip Philosophy - which is very boring sometimes - Civil War in France, which is detailed analysis of the Paris Commune (often called the first workers government) is very good start for understanding what Marxists strive for. Conspectus of Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy shows how popular conceptions of Marxism are wrong.

[know2b]

Are you interested in reading Lenin as well? Trotsky perhaps?

No, just Marx & Engels for now. I don't want to get confused by anyone's interpretation of them before I get a firm grasp of them in their own words.


comprehension is half the battle, and understanding what you read could be a real *****.

So true!


Humanist Marxists and the Situationists

I will keep them in mind for the future, but not right now.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions so far.

[Tablo]

Manifesto is overrated. The later works written by Marx and Engels are much better.

[mikelepore]

Oh! check out Marx's "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844." it's sort of difficult to follow at times, and some parts require re-reading (or at least for my dumb ass they did), but it is an -excellent- insight into the Marxist theory of alienation, which explains how humans are alienated from themselves and their fellow humans by the divorce between their labor and the product of their labor. In fact, according to Marx, everyone is alienated under capitalism... even capitalists.

Thanks for mentioning that.

The manuscripts of 1844 are special because there we see the young Marx who was still in the phase of saying that "democracy" is the cure-all, and he had not yet decided that he was a communist. At this point he has no economic theory, and no theory of history. Marx is alone in an apartment in Paris -- he was recently married to Jenny but he left her at home and traveled to Paris to do some work on a political journal that he was supposed to produce with collaborator Arnold Ruge. Marx begins writing in notebooks to gather his thoughts. He draws it out of himself that the social problem isn't only caused by kings and churches -- the problem is the relationships of capitalism. In some places his new realization is just slightly more sophisticated than saying that money is the root of all evil, but now the ball is rolling fast. He takes a humanistic approach -- a social system is miserable when it denies people an environment that would let them fulfill their human potential, and it is considered normal for people to treat each other as things, to use each other.

It's also interesting that these lost notebooks were unknown to Liebknecht, Bebel, Bernstein, De Leon, Kautsky, Lenin and others. We don't even find an indication that Marx told Engels about the existence of these notebooks. We may wonder how others might have been influenced by these thoughts.