What is the optimal mixture of literature for a learning socialist?

[Black_Rose]

This is directed towards Marxist-Leninists:

My question concerns how much should I read from primary literature of the Marxist-Leninist canon (e.g. Marx, Engels, Mao, Lenin) or even libertarian-communist, Trotskyist, or anarchist polemics of Marxism-Leninism.

However, I currently mostly read the writings of Henry CK Liu and Stephen Gowans, which focus on contemporary events and world history . They do not directly quote primarily literature or even discuss their ideas thoroughly, but they are clearly Marxist-Leninist.

For any scientists out there: it seems like I am relying on reading review articles on a particular scientific domain to derive my knowledge instead of the research papers themselves (and at most only the abstracts of the research papers) that reported the empirical and experimental results that comprise the corpus of knowledge in that field.

What motivates me is my concern that I do not have enough exposure to the primary literature of Marxism-Leninism. However, even an ardent Marxist-Leninist does not regard the primary literature as sacrosanct (perhaps with the exception of Maoists, especially during the Cultural Revolution, where one had to carry The Little Red Book), so it seems the familiarity with the original literature is not essential but supplementary and complementary.

[Parvati]

For me, the most important is to understand the current situation in which we live, understand well enough to be able to articulate it to other proletarians around us and how we should intend to fight capitalism in these conditions. The fundamental contradictions of the country, major contradictions found among the people.

This could be done by various ways, including classical litterature but it's not required to be a communist. I still think that if reading is something easy for you, then it's probably a good thing to read a few texts from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao. In my experience, we focus on the study in groups or cells, because we can learn, discuss and read together, while linking these texts with current situations.It also provides assistance to those who have problems with reading. Having good comrades is the best thing ^.^!


For The Little Red Book, as it's a quotation book, it has a different value for me. It can learn you a lot about everyday life, take time to think about ourselves and others. Of course, it does not work if you do not want.

We should be modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness, and serve the people heart and soul....

[kashkin]

Read everything. Except Mein Kampf. Obviously start with Marx and Engels, and then work your way from there.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Read anything and everything, including shit you know you wont like or find absurd.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Read everything. Except Mein Kampf. Obviously start with Marx and Engels, and then work your way from there.

Thats not true, Id encourage you to read Mein Kampf. It outlines, by Hitlers own accord, the pillars and policies of national socialism, the principal ideology that led to the deaths of 60 million people. Do read it.

[kashkin]

I have read it (hey, it was only 15 rupees) and aside from the racism, genocidal fantasies, and rants about eugenics, it is terribly boring.

[Black_Rose]

I have read it (hey, it was only 15 rupees) and aside from the racism, genocidal fantasies, and rants about eugenics, it is terribly boring.

Genocidal fantasies? It is argued by some "Functionalists" that although Hitler was an anti-semite, he did not delineate any plans of eliminating Jews in Mein Kampf.


Only once in Mein Kampf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf) does Hitler ever refer to killing Jews when he states that if only 12,000 to 15,000 Jews had been gassed instead of German soldiers in World War I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I), then "the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain." Given that Mein Kampf is 694 pages long, Dawidowicz's critics contend, she makes too much of one sentence.

wiki

[B0LSHEVIK]

I have read it (hey, it was only 15 rupees) and aside from the racism, genocidal fantasies, and rants about eugenics, it is terribly boring.

Well, yea, it has that too.

But, its a must read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Contents

[MarxSchmarx]

I'm not really what one would call a "Marxist-Leninist", but I've read quite a few of the "cannon" and I can say you can probably skip about 95% of it at this stage.

How do I arrive at this number?

It is extremely difficult for someone starting out to not get bogged down in a lot of the minutia of early writings. Marx, Engels and Lenin were writing at a different, for a different audience. Some of their ideas are as true today as when they were written, some are not. The problem is it's nearly impossible for someone starting out to to separate the wheat from the chaff in these works, sort of speak.

What I'd recommend is finding a core of their works that you think are particularly appropriate. My personal votes would be

the german ideology
state and revolution
wage, labour and capital

others probably disagree, but if you've read these and given them the attention they deserve, even though they are a minute fraction of the total writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin, I wager you would have enough of a working knowledge of the classics to more than adequately function.


Obviously start with Marx and Engels, and then work your way from there.

I see where you're coming from, and I respect it, but I think that few of us really "started" with Marx and Engels and the idea that you can some how "move on" once you've understood them never worked for me. These are rich, difficult works and people devote their lives to studying them, that it can be well nigh impossible to catch up on 150 years of reading in a lifetime.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

This is directed towards Marxist-Leninists:
Why limit the question to M-Ls?

[Tim Finnegan]

Thats not true, Id encourage you to read Mein Kampf. It outlines, by Hitlers own accord, the pillars and policies of national socialism, the principal ideology that led to the deaths of 60 million people. Do read it.
Nah, Hitlerve was a largely peripheral figure in the early development of fascist ideology, and his book is really just a mish-mash of borrowed ideas and romantic clichés. If you want to understand fascism, you're far better off with some decent literature on the topic (and not just Marxist stuff, which even at its best tends to be quite poor in how addresses fascism-as-ideology, rather than fascism-as-movement).

[Black_Rose]

Why limit the question to M-Ls?


I've been "catechized" into revolutionary leftist mainly by two M-Ls. Of course, these two have the attitude of Cold Warriors, and I often emulate that, since I feel obliged to defend aspects of the USSR and the PRC from the anarchists and Trotskyists here. To me, I believe that I have to defend at least some aspects of their economy in order to deflect attacks from aplomb capitalists (for instance those who read The Economist) on those systems.

Acknowledging that those former communist states were economically incorrigible (and that their collapse was primarily due to endogenous errors instead of exogenous belligerence) is synonymous with capitulating with the capitalist arguments that socialism cannot be modified into a functional economy.

----

I guess the M-Ls are the Arians here that espouse the heterodox doctrine of authoritarian communism or defend the act of former M-L states. It seems like I am some heretic in this assembly of Nicene Christians.

[The Idler]

Read primary sources for knowledge. Read secondary sources for fun.

[ComradeOm]

To be honest, you do not need to read much of the primary literature. It's good if you can but it is not necessary. We do not live in the 19th C and if you are interested in the specific events that Marx/Lenin wrote on then I would/can recommend history books

What you do need to get from the literature is an idea of how Marxism actually works; an understanding of what a Marxist class analysis is and how to apply it. I'm not going to provide a reading list because there are plenty out there. It should however be relatively short - maybe half a dozen works by Marx and 2-3 by Lenin (Imperialism, State and Revolution and some of his last letters). In fact, in State and Revolution you have the basic Marxist approach to the state laid out

So don't worry about how much you're reading, just be sure that you're covering the basics. Anything after that is a plus

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Most "Marxists" will steer you away from reading the stuff Marx actually wrote because they don't want you to see how distant they are from his method, how they contradict so much of what he wrote, of what he did, of what he fought for.

Instead of starting with the bastard offspring and reading what they say about the source, start at the source itself.

Read Marx's:

The Communist Manifesto
Value, Price and Profit
Wage Labor and Capital
The Civil War in France

Don't forget Capital.

The rest is valuable too, but those are good places to start,

Most useful from Engels are:

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

Once you get through that there are a ton of modern works as well. But it's a bad idea to ignore all of these key texts.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Nah, Hitlerve was a largely peripheral figure in the early development of fascist ideology, and his book is really just a mish-mash of borrowed ideas and romantic clichés. If you want to understand fascism, you're far better off with some decent literature on the topic (and not just Marxist stuff, which even at its best tends to be quite poor in how addresses fascism-as-ideology, rather than fascism-as-movement).

I disagree, in it Hitler uses the 'cliches' that won over the German worker. Yes, it is unsubstantial, but it gives you great insight in to the rhetoric and ideas that national socialism held.

[kashkin]

Genocidal fantasies? It is argued by some "Functionalists" that although Hitler was an anti-semite, he did not delineate any plans of eliminating Jews in Mein Kampf.

wiki

Ah, my apologies, it has been a while since I read it.


I see where you're coming from, and I respect it, but I think that few of us really "started" with Marx and Engels and the idea that you can some how "move on" once you've understood them never worked for me. These are rich, difficult works and people devote their lives to studying them, that it can be well nigh impossible to catch up on 150 years of reading in a lifetime.

Yeah, catching up on all that reading would take a lifetime. I just meant that as communists, we all want the same end and Marx is the best way to understand the system and to break it. Everyone (as in Lenin, Luxembourg, etc) starts from there so I figured it would be the best place to start.

Re The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, I've heard that large parts of the anthropology has been shown to be false since. However it does sound really interesting.

[Tim Finnegan]

I disagree, in it Hitler uses the 'cliches' that won over the German worker. Yes, it is unsubstantial, but it gives you great insight in to the rhetoric and ideas that national socialism held.
Firstly, Hitler never won over the German workers, not in numbers substantial enough to be sociologically significant. He won over the middle class, killed the militant workers, and left the rest in a state of grumbling apathy; that is how fascism comes to power. Fascism as something born into power by the swinish multitude, against the plaintive cries of the helpless liberal middle class, is Cold War bullshit of the most rank and absurd variety.
Secondly, not very many people outside of the established Right ever read Mein Kampf in the first place, and I can't imagine that any read it in isolation. It's importance should really not be laboured too heavily.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You're probably better, given the current world context, to get out there and check out many of the movements around your region, be they occupy, party events, anti-war/anti-fascist/anti-cuts marches and days of action etc. There you'll get a flavour for how ordinary people view the left, what the different left parties/sects do in practice (compared to the big talk they all give) and what works/doesn't work in practice.

I myself haven't really read that much first hand stuff, aside from obvious necessities for a communist like the manifesto, a bit of Kapital and The Russian Revolution and The Mass Strike from Luxemburg, and the odd piece here and there from the marxists.org archive. By keeping an open mind, you don't need to steer some elitist-academic course through the 'greats' of the left's historical texts, just keep your ear to the ground when you're out on the street, and as I say, keep an open mind when on places like Revleft and you'll soon form a coherent set of ideas for yourself, regardless of what some philosophers said in the past century or the century before that.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Firstly, Hitler never won over the German workers, not in numbers substantial enough to be sociologically significant. He won over the middle class, killed the militant workers, and left the rest in a state of grumbling apathy; that is how fascism comes to power. Fascism as something born into power by the swinish multitude, against the plaintive cries of the helpless liberal middle class, is Cold War bullshit of the most rank and absurd variety.
Secondly, not very many people outside of the established Right ever read Mein Kampf in the first place, and I can't imagine that any read it in isolation. It's importance should really not be laboured too heavily.

I largely agree with you, but, Hitler never won over 'any substantial number of workers?"

You sure about that?

[Ocean Seal]

A quarter tablespoon of Lenin
A pinch of Bordiga
A dose of Kropotkin
A teaspoon of Mao
Sprinkled in with tons of Marx and Engels.

[CommieTroll]

I largely agree with you, but, Hitler never won over 'any substantial number of workers?"

You sure about that?

Tim Finnegan is right, Hitler won his support with the middle class, mostly the petty bourgeois and disillusioned right-wing nationalists. I'd say that any support he won from the working class is not substantial. The middle class flocked towards Fascism because of growing Communist support in Wiemar Germany after WWI, why would the workers turn away from a movement that sought to liberate them?

[Tim Finnegan]

I largely agree with you, but, Hitler never won over 'any substantial number of workers?"

You sure about that?
Fairly sure, yes. As CommieTroll says, his support was primarily among the middle classes, and to a limited extent among already right-wing workers, mostly in small towns and rural areas, and very little among the urban or industrial working classes. There's no real evidence for the NSDAP drawing more than a small number of votes away from the established left-wing parties, which is to say the SPD and KPD (although Commie Troll's claims as to the obviously messianic character of the KPD are exaggerating things, to say the least), and those which were transferred do not seem to have been stable to begin with, but part of a shifting demographic drawn to populist rhetoric. The simple fact is that Hitler, despite the popular mythology, did not gain power by usurping the SPD and KPD, by somehow outflanking them on the left even as he outflanked the DVP and DNVP to the right, but in direct opposition to it, by attacking them in a direct and fundamental manner.

[ComradeOm]

Here's an old graph (and accompanying words wot I wrote) that I did up for a previous thread on this topic. These are pre-1933 federal elections results in Weimar Germany:


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/GreaterDCU/Misc/WeimarElections.gifYou can see here how the combined SPD and KPD share of the vote remains pretty static across the 1920s. Where there is a change its in the KPD eating into the SPD support base. The same is true at the other end of the spectrum where almost all of the NSDAP's gains come at the expense of other rightist parties. That is, the percentage of people voting for right-wing parties (from the national liberals through reactionaries to fascists) was roughly the same in 1932 as it was in 1924. At no point do the Nazis break out of this conservative milieu and start to make inroads into the socialist or centrist electorate. This rubbishes the idea that the Nazis attracted pan-German support or held any real attraction to the working class. What happened was that the existing middle class parties collapsed in the face of competition from the right

[Mr. Natural]

Black ,Rose, I've just ordered a half-dozen books from recommendations of RevLeft members.

Comrade OM, I found your book list, posted in a Theory thread, to be most valuable and I ordered several books from it. I thank you, and suggest you re-post your list here.

As for primary Marxist works, I agree that they can be difficult to investigate on one's own, and I strongly suggest the classics be supplemented with reliable secondary sources from scholars whose job it is to unpack difficult texts for the rest of us.

The Manifesto is essential, of course. I would also add Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which is, in effect, a joint project of Marx and Engels in which the origins of Marxism and their view of historical materialism are explored.

The above primary sources immediately point to a comprehensive and most valuable secondary source: Robert Tucker's Marx-Engels Reader. It contains the classics and provides brief summaries of their content.

The other, up-to-date secondary source I always recommend is Joel Kovel's Enemy of Nature (2003). Kovel is a Marxist (leader of American ecosocialists) who brings green sensibilities into the Marxist analysis of capitalism and introduces an ecological/ecosystemic revolutionary organizing process. This may sound exotic, but Kovel's Marxism is strong.

I also just ordered Paul Frolich's Rosa Luxemburg, which was recommended by several RevLefters. I need to engage her politics, which appeal to me, and I'll bet her life story and great strength and commitment (what ovaries she had!) will grab you.

Finally, I've only been at RevLeft for a half-year and could well be missing something. But where are the revolutionary feminist discussions?

[B0LSHEVIK]

Here's an old graph (and accompanying words wot I wrote) that I did up for a previous thread on this topic. These are pre-1933 federal elections results in Weimar Germany:


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/GreaterDCU/Misc/WeimarElections.gifYou can see here how the combined SPD and KPD share of the vote remains pretty static across the 1920s. Where there is a change its in the KPD eating into the SPD support base. The same is true at the other end of the spectrum where almost all of the NSDAP's gains come at the expense of other rightist parties. That is, the percentage of people voting for right-wing parties (from the national liberals through reactionaries to fascists) was roughly the same in 1932 as it was in 1924. At no point do the Nazis break out of this conservative milieu and start to make inroads into the socialist or centrist electorate. This rubbishes the idea that the Nazis attracted pan-German support or held any real attraction to the working class. What happened was that the existing middle class parties collapsed in the face of competition from the right

Correct, in the years leading to 1932, you are correct. However, you forget the Nazi agenda within Germany proved highly successful which swelled his support base over time of course. Ive read accounts of fathers, one time card carrying communists who eventually were won over and gradually fell in line. Think about June 1940, France was conquered and 4-5 million showed up for the victory parade in Berlin, a city that was by all measures very un-nazi. Im not saying at all this was the majority, but it did frequently happen. And while the Nazis didnt have working class support in urban areas, they definitely had it in the countryside and rural areas of Germany.

Nazi PR was also geared toward egalitarianism, of Hitler eating with his troops in a mess hall in Russia, and all that bullshit. The Party's rhetoric was filled with bourgeois/proletarian talk, and against class conflict, instead, preaching of collaborating for the betterement of Germany. EG, it recognized class divisions and did attempt to attract proletarian working class people to its party.

nELSMXjaxnw

[Geiseric]

I read perminant revolution by trotsky, (very important, especially with your ML friends), Imperialism by Lenin, and i'm reading something called Leninism Under Lenin by Marcel Liebman, which I think is pretty cool. Read stuff about pre marxian socialism by a guy named Alex Kallinicos (can't get the name right) which was very interesting.

[ComradeOm]

Correct, in the years leading to 1932, you are correct. However, you forget the Nazi agenda within Germany proved highly successful which swelled his support base over time of courseI do not consider support built after a decade of intense state-led propaganda to be a true indicator of popularity

[IndependentCitizen]

Read anything and everything, including shit you know you wont like or find absurd.
^^^this, know your enemy.

[Zealot]

Mein Kampf was basically a flop when it was released, it failed to sell very much which some claim prevented Hitler from releasing the second volume of Mein Kampf (it has since been made available). Their support grew massively after The Great Depression, Hitler using his oratory skills to prey on the misery of people.

[B0LSHEVIK]

I do not consider support built after a decade of intense state-led propaganda to be a true indicator of popularity

Oh PUHLEASE Comrade!

Also, about Nazi support being the petty-bourgeoisie, leading up to 1932, just how big was the German middle class? I mean, wasn't there a deep (much deeper in Germany) deep depression slamming the world? I doubt that Hitler's main goal was to attract a minority demographic within Germany (the middle class). Sure he had their support, but Hitler also managed to win over many workers. Its not their fault either, in 1933-38, one could never tell where exactly National Socialism would lead them.

Like Khad said, 'hindsight is 20/20."

[ComradeOm]

So if you're assuming that the German petit-bourgeoisie was tiny and yet up to 70% of the NSDAP membership was drawn from this class... wouldn't that suggest that the middle classes were highly disproportionately represented in the Nazi ranks?


...but Hitler also managed to win over many workersExcept that he didn't, for any real value of "many" at least. As I've shown above, before 1933 the Nazis made almost no progress in breaking into the socialist and communist electoral strongholds. After 1933 they did so only through the use of state power to break all political opposition and an unprecedented programme of propaganda. Even then the working class's attitude to Nazism was always ambivalent at best

[Tim Finnegan]

Correct, in the years leading to 1932, you are correct. However, you forget the Nazi agenda within Germany proved highly successful which swelled his support base over time of course. Ive read accounts of fathers, one time card carrying communists who eventually were won over and gradually fell in line. Think about June 1940, France was conquered and 4-5 million showed up for the victory parade in Berlin, a city that was by all measures very un-nazi. Im not saying at all this was the majority, but it did frequently happen. And while the Nazis didnt have working class support in urban areas, they definitely had it in the countryside and rural areas of Germany.
The point isn't that the NSDAP never gained the support of individual workers, which it self-evidently did, but that it didn't gain that support in a sociologically significant way. It appealed to nationalist sentiments which pre-dated it entirely, rather than to class interests, and so only succeeded in attracting in a small number workers who habitually voted in favour of bourgeois reactionaryism anyway; it appealed to workers-in-themselves, but not to workers-for-themselves, as it were.


Nazi PR was also geared toward egalitarianism, of Hitler eating with his troops in a mess hall in Russia, and all that bullshit. The Party's rhetoric was filled with bourgeois/proletarian talk, and against class conflict, instead, preaching of collaborating for the betterement of Germany. EG, it recognized class divisions and did attempt to attract proletarian working class people to its party.
So what? Unless it expresses itself as concrete support for the NSDAP, a few egalitarian flourishes, however much of an insight they may provide into Nazi propagandising, don't say anything about their actual success among the working class.


Oh PUHLEASE Comrade!

Also, about Nazi support being the petty-bourgeoisie, leading up to 1932, just how big was the German middle class? I mean, wasn't there a deep (much deeper in Germany) deep depression slamming the world?
Surprisingly big, actually. One of the main arguments of Bernsteinism against Orthodoxy was that the German middle classes grew considerably during the Imperial era, rather than shrinking as had been predicted. While a lot of them had lost a pot in the Depression, that doesn't mean that they are going to spontaneously adopt a proletarian political perspective; that's something born of lived experience, not proceeding automatically from your immediate economic conditions. They were still what you might call "politically petty bourgeoisie".


I doubt that Hitler's main goal was to attract a minority demographic within Germany (the middle class).
Fascism held society to be a naturally unified entity, and viewed class conflict as an alien phenomenon imported by ideologues- this applies to "left-Fascists" as well, who simply placed the blame on bourgeois conservatives rather than exclusively on socialists- and so fully expected their ideology to appeal to all members of the nation, who would recognise it as the true articulation of the national character and national interests. The fact that it didn't simply reflects the fact that their view of society was bullshit.

[B0LSHEVIK]

So if you're assuming that the German petit-bourgeoisie was tiny and yet up to 70% of the NSDAP membership was drawn from this class... wouldn't that suggest that the middle classes were highly disproportionately represented in the Nazi ranks?

Except that he didn't, for any real value of "many" at least. As I've shown above, before 1933 the Nazis made almost no progress in breaking into the socialist and communist electoral strongholds. After 1933 they did so only through the use of state power to break all political opposition and an unprecedented programme of propaganda. Even then the working class's attitude to Nazism was always ambivalent at best

Except, Im not contesting that the Nazi party was a petit-bourgeois organization. Im contesting that no working class proletarians supported it. And wouldn't you agree, that if the middle class was so small, it couldn't have possibly accounted, alone, for Nazi victories in national elections?

Besides, the country's electorate took a big swing EVEN before Hitler was in power, in July 32. And to be both honest and fair, there was a lot of violence going in that period that most likely affected the parliamentary election in July. But this violence was mutual, being acted out by the left and right, so I wouldn't say it discouraged one side more than the other in casting their votes.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Surprisingly big, actually. One of the main arguments of Bernsteinism against Orthodoxy was that the German middle classes grew considerably during the Imperial era, rather than shrinking as had been predicted. While a lot of them had lost a pot in the Depression, that doesn't mean that they are going to spontaneously adopt a proletarian political perspective;

So, are you agreeing that it big or saying that it was small?

But, you are right about them jumping ships politically. But, Im not disagreeing with that. And of course, the Nazi's never won over left communists (he won Stalinists over for 2 yrs), thats why7-9 million 'left radicals' were killed in the holocaust.