Books I'm trying to read

[Dante666]

I'm trying to get through the manifesto but its hard to read can anyone help.

I also am reading a book called the romance of blithdale which my history teacher. Does

anyone here have anyother sugestions for reading meterial.

I'm also going to draw up a che stencil if anyone is interested

[Tekun]

Keep reading bro, the manifesto is hard the first couple of times you read it
I've read it 5x's and some parts are still a lil shady

I wouldn't suggest a reading guide, just for the simple fact that the reading guide is a summary and an interpretation of the author

Rather than reading and getting the manifesto in its raw form, you're getting an the interpretation of another person's take on the manifesto

Read it many times, its not that long
And by the 3rd time, you'll start to understand it

A dictionary is always handy ;)

[Hiero]

I disagree with Tekun. I think i read the Communist Manifesto two years ago, maybe a bit les. I read and thought wow what a wonderfull book and was inspired. It was only sometime earlier this year i actually re-read the book and realised how i never really comprehended the book.

The problems i found when i read the book was 1) I didn't understand the context. It is a brief analysis of soceity, and i did not comprehend what it was talking about. Basically i was reading empty words, they had no meaning to me.2) The langauge is first of all 1800's and it is Marxist. Many terms are hard to understand in their full meaning. 3) At the time my current logic was shaped by the capialist world. Very individualist and liberalist, i could not comprehend the Marxist analysis of such things as class or society. It is very different to the naive mode of thinking.

Now i don't know if you will have this problems, but i find it hard to believe that many young people can jump from bourgioes thinking to Marxist thinking and can fully understand Marxist works just by a re reading the text. I think this is evident in this forum the amount of people who claim to have read Marxist books yet are very liberal and do not take a class position on everything.

If you do not have access to a good Communist Party that has a good level of cadre( people in a party who spend the majority of their time studying Marxism and doing party work) then that can be a problem.

If you must do it on your own, i would read other author's comments on the book, this can give you varies interpretations and put in a todays perspective. A Marxist book isn't a novel, so that means you need to fully understand it and can't have a unique view on the book. So it's good to see how varies people interpret the book.

Also have this website handy. It's an Enclyopedia of Marxism, so you can look up words, terms and notions.

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/frame.htm

Also you should read this first


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

Much better and easier read then the Manifesto.

You can also check regular enclyopedias or the Wikipedia site or post specific question about the book on here. Just always be aware that people distort things or revise Marxist basicis. You will encounter alot of liberal trash.

[Lev]

I think the manifesto is well worth doing in a reading group if you can find a group of activists willing to tackle it with ya.

I think i read it and thought I understood it and was definately inspired but the manifesto is something that should be read and reread and reread, I found that whenever I have revisited the manifesto I have found something that throws light on contempory situations.

In some passages I recently found myself thinking that it was more and more relevant today.

Marx talks of how the world is increasingly divided into two camps bourgois and proletarians, in the world of 1848 the division of society into two great contending classes was first formulating. Today the working class of south korea is bigger than the working class of the entire world when the manifesto was written.

Also the stuff on how the bourgoisie force open new markets and refashion the world in their own image speaks to me of the relentless march of neoliberalism and global capitalism today, he also mentions how all freedom is subordinated to the one freedom recognised by the elite: free trade

All of the manifesto is relevant and refreshing, and the problems that people have addressing it are not only to do with language and context but the sheer volume of ideas presented in the miniscule text.

One particular section that I think is magnificent and can help inform the anti-capitalist movement perhaps is the following:

"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."

cant speak for every other proletarian in the world but to me this quote tells us everything about revolution in the 21st century. It is in the dynamic, the destructive logic of capitalism which lead ordinary men and women to address "with sober senses" the reality of social relations in capitalism.

In Bolivia the traditional centres of production, especially tin miners, were decimated and neoliberalism reforged Bolivian society in the new model of contempory capitalism. A new working class was created, traditionally middle-class professions (like teaching) were subjugated to the same pressures and relations and "proletarianised" etc. 20,000 tin mining jobs were destroyed after tin mines were privatised and capitalism restructured itself and organised new centres of capital accumulation. All fixed, fast-frozen relations... become antiquated before the can ossify" the free-market agenda changed, "modernised", production and Bolivian workers were organised into new productive spheres whilst the same brutal social relations were maintained. The number of manufacturing workers in the major cities rose from 117,000 in 1986 to 231,000 in 1995, with 38 percent in workplaces of more than 30 workers. These figures were matched by growing numbers of construction workers and of miners. By 1997 there were nearly as many wage earners - 1,400,000 - as there were peasants.

The working class does not go away, as some would have us believe, with the further development of capitalism, new centres of production and methods of production are developed and the amount of wage-labourers increases and the very nature of the rapid revolutionising of production, the destruction of welfare, the drive towards war, all these inherent in capitalisms logic create the potential for revolutionary situations. Whilst europe verges on the brink of a major confrontation as the ruling elite try and push the destruction of all forms of nationalised industries (even eductaion), with the destruction in Iraq and the massive movement against imperialism and also the fightback in Latin America the question of revolution is always relevant.

The recent bolivian revolution showed that the manifesto is as relevant as ever, mass demonstrations, strikes, the teachers union and tin miners throwing dynamite at the security forces, new forms of democratic organisation organically created from below...

The endless agitation and uncertainty of capitalism, the seemingly endless war and terror, the destruction of national ownership by profit hungry multi-national corporations, the handing over of jobs and services to the private sector etc. etc. that day to day realities of the destructive nature of capitalism leads people to fight, win confidence, challenge the system over specific issues and then generalise and take it on as a class in realisation of its own power. as marx puts it, the proletariat by engaging in struggle merely declares the secret of its own existence.

This movement of the immense majority in the immense majority seems more relevant now than ever and the contemporary movements against imperialism, poverty, capitalist globalisation and racism etc. can be understood better and strengthened by the clarity of the politics in marx's most influential work.

oh boy did i just get too excited

[Dante666]

wow interesting. I need a bigger vocabulary though... this is what u get when u spend have ure life infront of the TV then relise it all amounts to nothing

[Jacob]

Other reading material; George Orwells '1984', though the National Bolsheviks' ideas came from this book, it is a very good read [I have read this a multiple number of times], or many other Orwell's books/essays.

[FreePalestine-SmashIsrael]

i believe ive read it 7+ times, and each time i read it, i still get more out of it, just keep on keepin on

[anomaly]

I'd recommend anything by Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Bakunin, Orwell, Marx (of course)....well anything! Just don't torture yourself by reading any capitalist literature...I tried reading Ayn Rand...worst decision ever. It was 1000 pages of bullshit.

[Dante666]

I tried reading Ayn Rand...worst decision ever. It was 1000 pages of bullshit.

lol

[Simotix]

Should read Che by John Lee Anderson and Malcom X. Malcom X in his later days (after his visit to the Holy City of Mecca) was on a very good track to trying to achieve equality.

[FalceMartello]

I assume that you are just getting into Marxism and you are reading the Manifesto as a sort of introduction to it? This is what a lot of people reccommend, however I don't. The best thing to do, before you dive into any of Marx's works is to read introductory books to Marxism, which use vernacular easy to read language, and also read just any essays on socialism, communism, marxism etc you can. Once you feel you have an understanding of Marxism and some of his terms, then you should start to read his works. A really good introductory book (the one I used) is by Rius (http://www.akpress.org/2004/items/introducingmarx). Also, Engel's "Principles of Communism" defines things that may be unclear in the Manifesto. Whatever works best for you. What I described is how I did it, it all depends on the person, really. And always ask questions, if anything is unclear ask someone, don't ever be hesitant.