Books on Marxism-Leninism?

[etiennel]

Best, easy to understand, not too long, books on Marxism-Leninism?

[mushroompizza]

The State and Revolution By Vlad Lenin
OF COURSE!

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

[anteafa]

As the question is posed; are you wanting books on Marxist and Leninist thought? or there own thoughts?

[The Idler]

A Look At Leninism by Ron Taber (1988)

[Tim Redd]

"The Foundations of Leninism" by Joseph Stalin.

Despite my ambivalence about Stalin (tending toward the mostly negative) this is an excellent intro to the development of the Leninism viewpoint by Lenin including historical context.

edit: Upon rereading the OP, I see that person wants an intro to Marxism-Leninism as a whole, not just Leninism. But perhaps the material Leninism will at least fill the Leninism part of the OP'ers question.

In the spirit of understanding Marxism-Leninism as whole ideology and school of practice, I also recommend reading this material by Mao Zedong. http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/Index.html

[VivalaCuarta]

The Revolution Betrayed (https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm) by Leon Trotsky. Also try The Stalin School of Falsification Revisited (https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/misc/wv.htm). From the introduction to the latter:


In their tireless efforts to betray the struggles of the workers and peasants, the Stalinists must continue to maintain a pretense of revolutionism. Yet their doctrines stand counterposed to the line of Marxism. This presents them with a dilemma, which they can only resolve by resorting to systematic lies about the Trotskyists. This goes from distortions of the political positions of Trotsky (as well as Marx and Lenin), to denying Trotsky’s leading role as the military organizer of the October Revolution and accusing him of carrying out espionage for the Mikado! While many of the specific charges leveled against Zinoviev, Bukharin and other leading Bolsheviks accused of Trotskyism during the Moscow Trials were admitted by Khrushchev in 1956 to be total fabrications, the method remains. Today we are witnessing a widespread revival of the “Stalin School of Falsification” especially on the part of the various Maoist groups. Just as Stalin in his day needed a cover to justify his crimes against the working class, so today must the Maoists resort to vicious slander in order to cover for their counterrevolutionary policies in Bangladesh, Indonesia and elsewhere. This series is intended as a reply to these lies and an introduction to some of the basic concepts of Trotskyism, as they have developed in the struggle against Stalinist reformism during the past fifty years.


The struggle between the reformist line of Stalinism and the revolutionary policies of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky is no academic matter of interest only to historians. The counterrevolutionary policies of the “Great Organizer of Defeats” (Stalin) led not only to the assassination of Trotsky by an agent of Stalin’s GPU and the murder of tens of thousands of Russian Left Oppositionists in the Siberian concentration camps, but also to the strangulation of the Chinese (1927), German (1933), French (1936), Spanish (1937), Indonesian (1965) and French (1968) revolutions as well as the sellout “peace agreements” of the Vietnamese Stalinists in 1946 and 1954. The struggle between Stalinism and Trotskyism is literally a matter of life and death for the revolutionary movement and must be given the closest attention by militants who are seeking the road to Marxism.

[John Nada]

Lenin:The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm)
Imperialism and the Split in the International (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm)
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/index.htm[/url)
"Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm[/url)
Three Components of Marxism (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/x01.htm[/url)
State and Revolution (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm)
The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/index.htm)

Stalin:Marxism and the National Question (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03.htm)
Foundations of Leninism (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/index.htm)
Concering Questions on Leninism (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1926/01/25.htm)
The National Question and Leninism (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1929/03/18.htm)
On the Final Victory of Socialism (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm)
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/index.htm)

[Tim Cornelis]

I'm guessing OP wants a more outsider perspective? So not Stalin's or Trotsky's or Lenin's writings. Not sure though.

[Tim Redd]

Lenin:The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm)
Imperialism and the Split in the International (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm)
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/index.htm[/url)
"Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm[/url)
Three Components of Marxism (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/x01.htm[/url)
State and Revolution (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm)
The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/index.htm)

Stalin:Marxism and the National Question (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03.htm)
Foundations of Leninism (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/index.htm)
Concering Questions on Leninism (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1926/01/25.htm)
The National Question and Leninism (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1929/03/18.htm)
On the Final Victory of Socialism (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm)
Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/index.htm)

Good Leninist based theoretical works by Stalin, despite the fact that he betrayed and failed to follow the Leninist line in actual life for the most part.