Pre-Marx Communist texts?

[FieldHound]

What are some good/important ones from before the time Marx and Engels started writing about it.

[Zoroaster]

Check out Gracchus Babëuf. He was a communist revolutionary during the French Revolution.

Their's also groups like the Chartists, the League of the Just, and a few others that I forget.

[DDR]

Robespierre is a good one, specially "On subsistance goods" (http://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/robespierre/1792/subsistence-goods.htm)

[tuwix]

What are some good/important ones from before the time Marx and Engels started writing about it.

Proudhon's "What is property?". It criticize property. And alck of property is just communism.

[tuwix]

What are some good/important ones from before the time Marx and Engels started writing about it.

Proudhon's "What is property?" (http://web.archive.org/web/20080830074011/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html). It criticizes a property. And lack of property is just communism.

[Brutus]

This work (https://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/conspiracy-equals/index.htm) covers the Conspiracy of Equals, of which Gracchus Babëuf is the most known member. The book itself is written by Philipe Buonarroti, who was a member of the Conspiracy and a major influence of Louis Auguste Blanqui. Blanqui believed in organising cells- families, or societies, as he called them- to initiate revolution which would then cause the working class to revolt. The cells would provide leadership and install a provisional revolutionary dictatorship before handing power over to the working class as a whole.

It should be mentioned that these ideas were prevalent in pretty much all communists during the time which Blanqui got involved in politics, due to the repressive nature of the French state.

Tl;dr: Gracchus Babëuf, Philipe Buonarroti, Louis Auguste Blanqui.

Fun fact: Ol' Philipe was a descendant of Michelangelo Buonarotti (painter of the Sistine Chapel)

[Brutus]

The French pre-Marx communists were pretty much all influenced by the left wing of the Jacobins. They often labeled themselves Hébertist, after Jacques Hébert.

[theblackmask]

Xin Xin Ming

[Creative Destruction]

the Protestant Diggers from the English Civil War

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The Good Book

http://www.alquranclasses.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/al-quran-yang-mulia.jpg

[Creative Destruction]

Islam is the light!

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Islam is the light!

A beacon to the world. A heart for a heartless world.<333 :wub:

[Kingfish]

Is there any particular or aspect/feature you wish to learn about them? I ask this because outside of a bit of context there isn't much to be gained from reading their original works outside of personal interest.

In general though what you will be looking for will come under this category which Engels deals with quite well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism

Of these thinkers Owen and Fourier are probably the most important.

[Wht.Rex]

Most simple pre-Marx texts are bible and many other religion books. Religious figures were first communists, but religions always ended up contorlling society.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Feuerbach is an immediate intellectual predecessor of Marx who became convinced of the correctness of Marx's point of view when he read Marx's responses to his works. He might be an interesting place to start, especially if one wants to understand materialist accounts of Communism. Marx and Engels viewed his works highly and were influenced by him greatly, even if they differed with Feuerbach on particular issues.

He was also one of the early figures explicitly adopting the title "Communist"