MARX for beginners

[R_P_A_S]

I’m working my way through the Manifesto. Such a little book! But filled with truth and sense! Im taking my time because I want to really understand it so I do lots of research on pages I read and look up lots of words in the dictionary! Which brings me to the following. I got this Booked called “MARX For Beginners” and it’s basically Marxism in cartoons, easy to follow and to understand. I really offers aid to the Manifesto and other stuff. Have any of you read or seen this book?
I think it’s perfect for anyone who wants to know about Karl Marx, with out all the complicated words and hard to read text.

I must say though. I wish it was in color and that the cartoon-ish writing was a bit more legible in some parts.

[Tekun]

Marx for Beginners (http://www.freepeoplesmovement.org/fpm/page.php?207)

The Communist Manifestoon (http://www.freepeoplesmovement.org/fpm/page.php?208)

Both good and both at the FPM

[The Grey Blur]

Yeah I've read it, it's a handy thing for undersanding some of the trickier economic aspects of Marxist analysis

[shadowed by the secret police]

You could read a little about historical materialism

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

Marxist beliefs about history
According to Marxist theorists, history develops in accordance with the following observations:

Social progress is driven by progress in the material, productive forces a society has at its disposal (technology, labor, capital goods, etc.)

Humans are inevitably involved in production relations (roughly speaking, economic relationships or institutions), which constitute our most decisive social relations.

Production relations progress, with a degree of inevitability, following and corresponding to the development of the productive forces.

Relations of production help determine the degree and types of the development of the forces of production. For example, capitalism tends to increase the rate at which the forces develop and stresses the accumulation of capital.

Both productive forces and production relations progress independently of mankind's strategic intentions or will.

The superstructure -- the cultural and institutional features of a society, its ideological materials -- is ultimately an expression of the mode of production (which combines both the forces and relations of production) on which the society is founded.

Every type of state is a powerful institution of the ruling class; the state is an instrument which one class uses to secure its rule and enforce its preferred production relations (and its exploitation) onto society.

State power is usually only transferred from one class to another by social and political upheaval.

When a given style of production relations no longer supports further progress in the productive forces, either further progress is strangled, or 'revolution' must occur.

The actual historical process is not predetermined but depends on the class struggle, especially the organization and consciousness of the working class.
This sketch is abstract - real historical understanding needed for developing political strategy and tactics must involve "concrete analysis of concrete conditions" (V.I. Lenin).