I agree with chimx. Marx purposedly made the "post-revolutioanry epoch" vague, because he realized socialism/communism is a movement, not some sort of political blueprint. We don't know post-revolutionary society is going to look, otherwise we would fall in the same trap the Utopian Socialists did. We are going to organize ourselves in ways depending on our setting, and such modes of structuring and organization would only come out after extensive arguing between post-revolutionary militants.
^^^ If I have things my way with both having the time to write a lengthy The Class Struggle Revisited and having that published by Canada's Socialist Project, I should hope by then that said work will become a must-read. [Why hasn't anybody commented on my outline yet? ] Marmot, regarding the trap of utopian socialism, what do you make of Lenin's Left-Wing Childishness (I know you're a left-communist, but I also know that you're one of the Italian tradition and not of the German and Dutch traditions)? Introduction excerpt (the only work I've done so far within the introduction): "A spectre is haunting the working class and its revolutionary vanguard the world over – the spectre of crises. Yet these crises pertain neither to the business cycles in Karl Marx’s theory of crises, nor to the economic poverty associated with said theory, but rather to crises in theory. In fact, there are at least two such crises."
Yes. But I think it is important to be clear what that difference is. Works by Lenin such as S+R and WITBD? are not a significant divergence from 19th century communist politics. WITBD? advocates a political vanguard of professional revolutionaries to push class struggle beyond trade union struggle. This very easily fits into the longer history of communist praxis. From Babeuf and his conspiracy of equals, to Blanquist conspiractors, to Bakunin's "invisible dictatorship". The necessity of a vanguard of committed revolutionaries has been emphasized for a century before Lenin. Sorry for the late rebuttal, but isn't WITBD? using what you said above as mere cover for tihe real inspiration: Kautsky and the SPD? [This is even more pronounced in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.] Anyhow, you haven't commented on "One Step Forward" (link).
I've never read it.
To get this back to being about recommended reading, I have a couple recommendations that are not related to Marxism (horrors!), but that are interesting and are good food-for-thought: Misquoting Jesus: The Story of Who Changed The Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman God's Problem: How The Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer by Bart Ehrman Few of us here, if any, are religious, so this won't be anything surprising, but particularly in the first case, it is good history, and it is interesting. I'm also going to go ahead and recommend a film: The Wind That Shakes The Barley directed by Ken Loach Ken Loach is a socialist whose films are always very good and emphasize the plight of the working class. The Wind That Shakes The Barley is historical fiction about the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. It essentially tells the Irish Republican side of the story (in my opinion, the correct side of the story), and it follows the character Damien O'Donivan, a socialist and Connollyist, through the experience of the conflict and his struggle against Britain and the "free-staters," those who supported the "Anglo-Irish Treaty," which made Ireland a "free state" but still subbordinate to Britain as part of the Commonwealth. Damien believes that the war with Britain was evidence of class struggle, and that the treaty was not what the War was fought for. He allies himself with the Anti-Treaty IRA and participates in guerilla warfare, while continuing to agitate for socialist ideals. All in all, it's a very good film that's worth watching.
In addition to most of what I've said above, comrades are strongly advised to read as much socialist material, past and present, that EXPLICITLY mentions the need for some form of merger between Marxism and the workers' movement. I don't care if I have to sound like an evangelical "born again" Protestant here, but ingraining this merger formula into one's head is absolutely crucial: I have already mentioned Parts 11 and 12 of Chapter 5 of Karl Kautsky's The Class Struggle (hence my work-in-progress, The Class Struggle Revisited), but here are a few others: Our Immediate Task by Vladimir Lenin New Realism, New Barbarism: Socialist Theory in the Era of Globalization by Boris Kagarlitsky Fuse workers' movement and Marxism by Boris Kagarlitsky
I'd like to add these additional works: http://www.revleft.com/vb/karl-kauts...533/index.html ^^^ Well (now that you've come around ), I'm doing a study thread on The Class Struggle (Erfurt Programme) in the Study Groups thread. There were six other (pre-renegade, of course) works in my own work that I mentioned: Our American Reports by F.A. Sorge (since you're in the US, this is especially important, and I quoted the real founder of "Marxism" a la "Left-Wing Communism" at the beginning of my work ) The Social Revolution To What Extent is the Communist Manifesto Obsolete? The Road to Power Sects or Class Parties War and Peace: Thoughts for the May Day Festival Although NOT on MIA (and I haven't read these works, either ), I strongly suggest you consider The Agrarian Question and especially The Slavs and Revolution.
