Are there any good Marxist biographies and memoirs?

[Blanquist]

I love reading memoirs and biographies, I think Trotsky's book on Stalin is amazing. How come no Marxist has written a similar biography for someone like Mao or Deng?

Maybe a Trotskyist should take the time out and write a quality bio of Mao? Maybe I should...

I also enjoy memoirs of people who have something to say, like Nixon's memoirs, and Khrushchev memoirs.

I look at some parties, or tendencies, and I say "ok, what have you written" and there is nothing, some have existed for decades. What is so hard about writing a quality 500-page biography of important figures.

I have to guess what some think of Mao based on articles here and there, articles that only scratch the surface, I think it is laziness.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Well, here are 3 that I currently read on the Cuban revolutionaries. Really good and interesting.

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson is great.

Fidel: A Critical Portrait by Tad Szulc and Fidel Castro:My Life by Fidel

[Art Vandelay]

my life by troysky. boy could the man write, as a writer some of his prose is breathtaking.

[Blanquist]

Well, here are 3 that I currently read on the Cuban revolutionaries. Really good and interesting.

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson is great.

Fidel: A Critical Portrait by Tad Szulc and Fidel Castro:My Life by Fidel

I read this book as a kid and yes it is very good, even though the writer is far from a Marxist and doesn't understand certain things.

Actually it was the first book I read.

[Grenzer]

You make an extraordinary amount of topics..

Why would a Trotskyist have written a biography of Mao? Trotsky was able to write extensively about Stalin because he knew him. There were few to no Trotskyists in China.

[Blanquist]

You make an extraordinary amount of topics..

Why would a Trotskyist have written a biography of Mao? Trotsky was able to write extensively about Stalin because he knew him. There were few to no Trotskyists in China.

Only people who personally knew Mao are capable of writing biographies? Should everyone stop writing about Napoleon because they never knew him?

And there were plenty of Trotskyists in China but that's beside the point.

[daft punk]

There is a later bio of Trotsky by his wife and Victor Serge.

[The Idler]

Marx by Francis Wheen
Engels: The Frock-Coated Communist by Tristam Hunt
Daniel DeLeon by Stephen Coleman
Julius Martov by Israel Getzler
The Bending Cross: Eugene V. Debs by Ray Ginger
Haven't read them yet myself

[x359594]

Karl Marx: The Story of His Life by Franz Mehring published in 1918 is the first Marxist biography of Marx. Next is Karl Marx: His Life and Work by Otto Ruhle published in 1929, also from a Marxist perspective.

More recently David McKellen has written a comprehensive biography of Marx, Karl Marx: A Biography (4th edition 2006.) McKellen is not a Marxist, but this is the latest comprehensive biography, and it complements Mehring's and Ruhle's biographies.

[The Idler]

I think there's a political one of William Morris too.

[Mr. Natural]

Idler, x359594, Thanks for your worthwhile information. I'm going to get The Bending Cross, the Eugene Debs bio.

I have the Wheen bio of Marx. It is an easy read and unpacks two Marxian myths: that Marx wanted to dedicate Capital I to Darwin, and that late in life Marx renounced Marxism. However, this book ignores theory in the main, and is too light.

The Tristam Hunt bio of Engels is titled Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels in the US. I decided the author's Labor Party liberalism would probably fatally taint this work.

Are there decent works on Gramsci and Bordiga?

My red-green thanks and best.

[The Idler]

I wouldn't dismiss Hunt's biog of Engels out of hand, it seems to be well-regarded (and Labourism isn't the same as Liberalism in the UK - see the film Taking Liberties for example). Although John Keracher wrote a pamphlet on Engels life which could be worth a look.

If you like Wheen but want more theoretical work, his biog of Marx's Capital might be of interest to you, but again I haven't read it.

I read a Rebel's Guide to Gramsci recently but neither Gramsci nor Bordiga really interest me much. Have you tried going to leftist bookshops online and clicking on biographies? Anarchist ones I would find interesting.

[Bronco]

Kropotkin's Memoirs of a Revolutionist

[kong]

The Prophet's Children - Tim Wohlforth
9 Letters to Our Comrades - Mike Ely, et al
The Party Vol. 1 & 2 - Barry Shepard
Bounded Choice - Janja Lalich (actually about cults but details her experience in DWP)
Reflections of An American Political Prisoner - Micheal Billington (a larouchite but i added because he talks about activity in NCLC)
Outsiders Reverie - Leslie Evans
Revolution in the Air - Max Elbaum
NorthStar - Peter Camejo

The PLP history on MIA mentions a book by Phil Luce that I haven't been able to find the title to.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The Unbending Cross bio of Debs is very good.

Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Victor Serge is very good.He was a Russian/Belgian anarchist who joined the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution and witnessed the degeneration of the revolution.

Not to saturate this thread with Trotskyist oriented material but the autobio of Barry Shepherd is fascinating. Shepherd was a US SWP member and rose to the leadership of that organisation in the 1960s. He witnessed its deterioration and confesses to having had a hand in this.Vol I is free on his website, you have to pay for vol. 2 (its a bit expensive as well, thats why vol 1 is free I guess)

http://barrysheppardbook.com/

I haven't read it yet but Bryan Palmer's bio of James Cannon is supposed to be good.

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/60/palmer.html

The Sparts sponsored his work but I'm not sure if they were super happy with his conclusions.

Paul Frohlich's bio of Rosa Luxemburg is first rate and fascinating.

[Brosip Tito]

Rosa Luxemburg by Paul Frolich

[Astarte]

Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, wrote a biography of Lenin actually called "Reminiscences of Lenin" - its been a while since I read it, but I remember enjoying it.

Lunacharsky also wrote an interesting book with his brief impressions of some of the leading Russian revolutionaries, including Lenin, Trotsky, Plekhanov and even Kalinin - also a good read, its called "Revolutionary Silhouettes".

There are, frankly, tons of primary source writings written by Marxist and anarchist revolutionaries about themselves and their contemporary comrades, just do some digging.

[kong]

Steve Nelson, American Radical - Steve Nelson

[kong]

Come the Revolution: A Memoir - Alex Mitchell

[kong]

Love and Revolution - Signe Waller (People's History of the Greensboro Massacre, Its Setting and Aftermath

[Teacher]

Black Bolshevik by Harry Haywood

[The Idler]

Jack London: The Man, The Writer, The Rebel by Robert Barltrop.