How much Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky etc have you read?

[Blanquist]

If you have only read a little, what is stopping you from reading more? Time constraints, laziness, or just an indifference?

[Caj]

Ironically, school is my main obstactle to reading more.

[NewLeft]

Ironically, school is my main obstactle to reading more.
This, school robs 90% of my time.

[Yuppie Grinder]

M&E: Principles of Communism, The Communist Manifesto, Conditions of the Working Class in England, Origin of the State, family, private property, Wage Labor and Capital.
Working on Das Kapital right now.
Lenin: The State and Revolution, Left Communism: An Infantile Disorder
Trotsky: nothing

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Marx and Engels: Critique of the Gotha Programme, Wage Labor and Capital, Origin of the State, Family, and Private Property, and random shit from MIA. I am working on the first volume of Capital as well.

Lenin: The State and Revolution, What Is To Be Done, and random writings on MIA

Trotsky: Terrorism and Communism and random shit on MIA. I plan on reading The Revolution Betrayed soon though.

[Leonid Brozhnev]

Not enough, it's never enough. What's stopping me? We'll, I'm generally pretty busy and a bit of a slow reader. My mind wanders when I read as well, so I'll be reading a page, then I'll think I could really do with a coffee, then I'll think about putting Rum in that coffee, then I'll think about how nice it would be to go to the Carribean... by the end of it, I'm booking a flight to Kingston and I have to start the page again because I wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention what I was reading. It's not just Marx, it's all books.

[Luc]

I can't understand Marx's language so the ones I have read I need to read many times to under stand it (ex. I read Manifesto 4 times)

Engels is easier to understand so I've read more of him

and I've read alot of Kropotkin who is understandable

so I'de say the main thing preventing me from reading more Marx (which I really need to :() is the old language, references and complexity

[Brosa Luxemburg]

so I'de say the main thing preventing me from reading more Marx (which I really need to :() is the old language, references and complexity

I would reccomend getting Marx's works with footnotes explaining such references.

[Bronco]

Marx & Engels: Principles of Communism, the Manifesto, Wage Labour and Capital, Value, Price and Profit, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

Lenin: Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism

Trotsky: Nothing

I've often started reading other texts but honestly a big thing that stops me reading more is just that I find a lot of it fucking boring, as well as being difficult and feeling that it often goes in one ear and out the other

Plus when I do decide to read leftist writings I normally head over the Anarchist Archives and just start reading any text that takes my fancy from over there. I quite enjoy Kropotkin and Malatesta's writings, they feel less dogmatic to me and more accessible

[Ocean Seal]

Enough to make me a leftist nerd.

[gorillafuck]

I've read a fair amount of Marx, a small amount of Lenin, and almost no Trotsky. for Engels I've just read what he wrote with Karl Marx plus Family, Private Property, And The State

[Blanquist]

I've read a fair amount of Marx, a small amount of Lenin, and almost no Trotsky. for Engels I've just read what he wrote with Karl Marx plus Family, Private Property, And The State

Why have you decided to not read anything by Trotsky? Just doesn't interest you enough?

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Marx: The CM, Principles of Communism, The German Ideology, The Civil War in France, The 18th Brumaire of Bonaparte, The Poverty of Philosophy, Critique of the Gotha Program, parts of Capital Volume 1, and various articles and letters he wrote on the U.S. civil war and other stuff.

Engels: Anti-Duhring, The Peasant's War in Germany, The Role of Force in History, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, The Origins of the Family, the State, and Private Property, and various articles and letters he wrote on religion and science.

Lenin: The State and Revolution and Imperialism.

Trotsky: The Russian Revolution and Fascism: What it is and how to fight it.

Truthfully Lenin and Trotsky just aren't my type. And you'd think I was a genius by now with all that I've read...

[Geiseric]

I've read a shit ton of Trotsky, including the transitional program (which is his most important work) The Revolution betrayed, parts of My Life, his works on China and the rise of Fascism in Germany, Perminant Revolution, What Socialism in America would look like (a joke that he wrote when he lived in Mexico for the SWP newspaper) The Russian Revolution, and a bunch of his other stuff.

His military writings are great too, I read some of those a while ago when I was interested in the Red Army.

From Lenin I've read Imperialism, Left Communism, What is to be Done, State and Revolution, and a few of his other works on how the Russian economy worked because it was part of my understanding on the N.E.P. and the conditions post civil war.

From Marx/Engels i've read the familly, the CM, Principles of Communism, most of Capital v.1, Wage Labor and Capital, some of Engels military writings... Honestly just a bunch of stuff that I find on Selected Works on MIA, I've read all of that in about a year.

[Prometeo liberado]

Oddly enough I've read a crap load of trotsky. The only thing keeping me from reading more is that all that laughing hurts after a while.
Lenin: Rereading What is to be done? Amazing.
Marx & Engels: The Holy Family. Tsk, tsk young ones.

[Deicide]

I should have another 60 - 70 years of reading, hopefully.

[Rusty Shackleford]

mostly just marx and engels and some lenin

trotsky on culture and some of his stuff on fascism in germany

some stalin: proletarian class and the proletarian party(loved this one), socialism or anarchism

some bukharin and a brief overview of a bunch of different anarchists (by an anarchist)

other than that, some more recent publications.

[gorillafuck]

Why have you decided to not read anything by Trotsky? Just doesn't interest you enough?I only read political stuff if there is stuff in it that I want to know, not just for the sake of reading it. so I just don't have interest.

[Rooster]

I've read pretty much every key Marx and Engels texts that I can get my hands on. That's the hard part. I've managed to get at least complete versions of their main works. There's some other stuff I have that are incomplete from selected works. I haven't gotten around to read the Grundrisse yet though and most of the letters. I've read about half of Lenin's Collected Works and maybe a dozen or so of Trotsky's. I've read stuff by other people and I'm currently working my through a Luxemburg selected works. I've read quite a few history books and a couple of economic ones from other Marxists. I haven't read most of these for years so I'm going over some of them again to refresh my memory. I don't have the patience to list every single thing I've read. I'm probably a lot older than a lot of you and I don't have problems such as education to fill my time with so I'm able to spend more time reading. I used to travel a lot with the job that I had so I could just spend the time reading then. There's a lot of other stuff that I want to read, mostly from anarchists which is an area that I haven't gone over, and left communist texts which are hard to find. As a result from all this, I'm probably a lot more boring from before I got into all of this because I'm no longer reading any novels or other philosophical works :(

[Brosip Tito]

No time to list, but what I havent read is due to time constraints, and other things I want to read as well.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Marx: The German Ideology, The Civil War in France, the 18th Brumaire, Value, price and Profit, The CM, The Poverty of Philosophy, Anti-Duhring, Critique of the Gotha Program

Lenin: What is to be done, Imperialism, Left-Wing Communism, The State and Revolution (Lots of articles and shorter pieces)

Trotsky: The History of the Russian Revolution, The Lessons of October, the 3rd International after Lenin, Trotsky on China, The Balkan Wars, In Defense of Marxism, The Transitional Program, Tasks and Prospects, The Rise of Fascism in Germany, My Life, Terrorism and Communism

Isaac Deutscher's Trilogy on Trotsky, The Prophet Armed, Disarmed, Outcast

Cannon: The First Ten Years of American Communism; Speeches to the Party, Speeches for Socialism

Bukharin: The ABCs of Communism

Gramsci: Prison Notebooks

Luxembourg: Socialism or Reformism?

Lots of books by various and sundry historians or participants (e.g., Ten Days that Shook the World, The Bolsheviks come to Power)

I believe that I have read quite a bit more than that, but it has been a while since I had time to do this and I've forgotten some of the titles.

My recommendation to the younger comrades: READ. You cannot be useful to the revolution if you do not understand what has happened over the last 150 years or so. And you cannot understand that without a great deal of study (and arguing and teeth gnashing). And for goodness sake, do not omit Trotsky. He is, for one thing, the best writer of all the great revolutionaries of the 19th and 20th century. His nickname in the Russian party for a long time was, "The Pen." If you struggle with Marx and his neo-hegelian language, you will really appreciate the clarity and relative directness of Trotsky's works.

[Railyon]

I read Bakunin's "God and the State", does that count? :)

No seriously, uni is taking away most of my time so reading is slow, still on Capital Vol 2 but most of my Marxist reading is through secondary sources like Rubin, Mandel, Tomberg, etc. Am also reading the Grundrisse and soon Capital Vol 3, read no Engels yet, no Trotsky, of Lenin only State and Revolution though I have just ordered his collected works vol 5 with What is to be done in it.

[Nox]

None.

inb4 "we can tell"

[Robespierres Neck]

I've read quite a bit of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. The Communist Manifesto (over 3 times), Das Kaptial, The German Ideology, The State and Revolution, What Is to Be Done?, and many more writings/essays.

Trotsky... not so much. I've read a few essays, but none of his novels like My Life, Revolution Betrayed, or anything like that. He doesn't interest me, but I do plan to read more of his work for historical sake.

I've also read quite a bit from Kropotkin, Mao, and others. The Ten Days That Shook The World (John Reed), Guerrilla Warfare (Che Guevara)... I've read more, but this is all that's coming to mind.


I read Bakunin's "God and the State", does that count? :)

This too.

I'm working on ABC of Communism by Bukharin and Preobrazhensky.


Gramsci: Prison Notebooks

Do you know where I can find this in its entirety online? They only have two sections available on Marxist.org.

[Koba Junior]

What's kept me from reading more Trotsky than I have has been, of course, Trotsky himself. I find him wholly unimpressive, but that I think so shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

[Yuppie Grinder]

None.

inb4 "we can tell"

I hope you've at least read some important anarchist literature.

[Revolution starts with U]

How much have I read directly?

Scatterings of Capital. :lol:

I prefer to stay current, so I mostly just read other's critiques of it.

[Le Penseur Libre]

I am too busy at the moment, but I am looking forward to read more on Lenin... very soon!

[Doflamingo]

I've read bits of Trotsky's A Revolution Betrayed. I'm planning on reading the Manifesto too.

[Invader Zim]

Too much, especially when I was a teenager. But thankfully I then discovered sex.

[Welshy]

M&E: Communist Manifesto, Principles of Communism, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Civil War in France, the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Wage Labor and Capital, Value Price and Profit, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and random stuff off of MIA. Currently working on Das Kapital but I'm horrible at reading so it is taking me forever to get done with the first Chapter.

Lenin: What is to be done, State and Revolution, and Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder

Trotsky: Some of his stuff on Fascism (but couldn't more than 30 pages as like half of it was him complaining about Stalin).