/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Here you go anon. This should suffice.

>>2285349
Soyjacks are not allowed, read da rules
I will assume you are genuine and let it slide this tims

>>2285355
>>2285355
Isn't Lenin a bit controversial?

>>2285359
Didn't have any other imagens to post.

>>2285360
His contributions are still necessary ones to check out I'd argue, given his substantial wealth of knowledge on and his exemplary understanding of Marxist theory, and the importance of his own theories building upon it like the vanguard party, democratic centralism, and the role of the state itself when it comes to a revolution.

>>2285373
I thought people here hate with passion Marxism-Leninlism

Is r/communism101 reading list good, people?

>>2285376
Are you kidding? If anything you tend to be shouted down here if you dont consider Marxism Leninism to be perfect

>>2285385
What? I literally saw a bunch of thread and people here couple of time ago shitting on ML for being "fascistic" or something.

>>2285386
because libs and ultras can't handle reality.

>>2285376
Oh that is so so so so far from the case.

>>2285387
What's a "ultra"?

>>2285386
There's occasionally pushback against self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninists who are really just cheerleaders for bourgeois states and think that communism is when you do capitalism but more efficiently, yes. But even then that tends to be met with derision, as it's much easier to reduce the world into a battle between good and evil rather than apply actual class analysis

>>2285390
"Ultra" is a pejorative that's short for "ultra-leftist", which in itself is a pejorative for left-communists
<But isn't communism already left?
Well yes, but back in ye olden days when Leninism was in its infancy there were others like Pannekoek who criticized Lenin from the left. Lenin rebuked them in Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, which in turn was rebuked by Herman Gorter but nobody talks about that.

Basically if someone calls you an "ultra" it just means "you're the wrong type of communist"

>>2285401
Then, who's is right?

>>2285408
Unfortunately there's no easy answer to that, because no one person or tendency has a monopoly on the truth. Fortunately Marxism is more than a simple dogma, but a product of scientific analysis that takes into account lessons from previous communist movements and the material conditions of their location and adapts accordingly.

Be skeptical of anything that put Grundrisse in "essential" reading. It's a book of rough notes for Capital, formatted in a way that makes it unreadable that was never intended for publishing. If you're interested in political economy, just read Capital because that's the fully realized critique.

If you see it, it's most likely a ML/Bordigist (guy who claimed Stalin was too democratic, who also had an excuse to reject any sort of resistance against fascism) pretending to read theory and putting the "greatest hits" together in what they "think" is correct. Also, era-specific politics are hardly "theory", and it leads to this brainrot where you're in a reddit community debating Trotsky vs Stalin 100+ years after its relevance. Anyone that puts "infantile disorder" in required reading is a similar ideologue who doesn't live in reality. Most of Lenin's stuff is just statesman political debates that he contradicted a million times, or glorified pamphlets summing up other people's work (Imperialism), with his only real work of theory being State and Revolution, which he also contradicted once he got in power. Historicists try to defend it saying it's "lessons" but they ironically prove they don't know the history enough to see how volatile the "lessons" actually were.

Some other stuff that gets called "essential" is pretty silly too. Theses on Feuerbach is a few sentences long. Critique of the Gotha Program is a private response to a program you haven't read which basically sums up into "you can't get another country to build socialism for you" which is almost entirely irrelevant today.

>>2285446
Any genuine good reading list then?

>>2285449
What is your goal? What exactly do you want to know/understand?

Personally, i'd say 'Wage, Labour and Capital / Value, Price and Profit' is a good start.

>READ TO GET INTO COMMUNISM
how about getting a job and joining a union lmfao

>>2285461
Personally I would recommend everything written by Richard Wolff. That's how I stopped being a liberal and actually got interested in economics
Maybe other anons can give you more reccs and authors but I am tired af rn

P.S. you should still read Capital

>>2285475
>I stopped being a liberal and actually got interested in economics
whats the difference lmao

>>2285355
>buncha philosophy shit completely unrelated to science or communism
lol

>>2285477
I don't know. You tell me

>>2285386
>>2285376
Mods have been inactive and now more and more anarkiddies are coming out of the cracks (that itself wouldn't be an issue if it meant actually good faith discussions happening but that's not the case) The bigger issue are straight up anti-marxists, samefaggers, threads made by literal ai and weird anti-ziggers impersonating supposed "ziggers" have been shitting up the board in the last few months. Im not even ML myself and mostly either lurk or just respond to some anons but the strawmanning of ideological opponents has gotten so far that it honestly looks artifical and I am using leftypol since atleast 2020 (aka Bunkerchan) MLoids and anarkiddies dunking on eachother is normal of course but the recent months have been weird

>>2285482
marxism is a critique of political economy and youre here presenting political economy as marxism rofl

>>2285475
>muh democracy
Average academic parasite. The only good thing Wolff did was deboonking Mao's bullshit.

>>2285484
In order to critique it he has to understand that it even is. Again I am tired af rn so by all means give him reccs

I am not being passive aggresive btw if you have any good introductory material for him please share

>>2285485
Did you look at the name of the publisher and sperged out?

>>2285493
From my post it's pretty obvious I've already read him, retard. He actually pushes for "workplace democracy" shit.

>>2285485
>>2285494
>democracy le bad!

Found the leninlist-maoist-third worldist-tankie

>>2285477
>>2285479
>>2285484
>>2285485
>>2285494
See this guy? Dont listen to this guy, he's what some would call a pedant. They do nothing but endlessly nitpick over word choices as if saying the right words in the right order and vaguely alluding to "the real movement" is all you need. He's not interested in communism as anything other than an intellectual exercise wherein he can be the smartest person in the room by virtue of being so insufferable that everyone else gives up.

>>2285498
I mean to be fair, "tankies" are far from the only leftists who criticize democracy. PDF related is from an anarchist perspective

>>2285349
>Hello, people, I'm creating this thread to know if anyone here has a good reading guide to get into communism
I have an audiobook playlist for you, if you're OK with that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOAII71GaFY&list=PLXUFLW8t2sntNn5jQO8vF7ai9x0fna3PV

>>2285483
good post. rest of the thread proves your point. sad state of affairs.

>>2285483
ive been here from 2016 and your post accurately describes the state of this board.

>>2285783
>>2285775
epic samefagging bro

>>2285775
>>2285783
As a separate and distinct person, I agree with the sentiments expressed by these two brilliant individuals.

>>2285798
Whose the samefag now? :^)

>>2285355

where's plekhanov

>>2286141
Beats me. I'm not the one who made it, it's just something that I saved from here.

My best advice is Read Marx, simple as. I've gone down this communism 101 rabbit hole before when I started and made the mistake of reading others before starting with Marx. Don't read anyone before Karl Marx, don't read any modern interpretation of him or modern guides/remakes of his works, or marxist reading lists. Just jump straight into Capital if you can. Read Chapter I over and over again until you can understand it.

>>2285349
Marxism: for and against by Heilbroner
Marx-Engels Reader
Lenin Anthology
Karl Marx's theory of history by Cohen

Communist bump

>>2286152
Then any good "how to get into Marx" reading list?

Plato's Republic

>>2285349

https://www.marxists.org/subject/india/cpi-maoist/s01-basic-course-revised-14th-printing.pdf

Here is the “Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Basic Course”, published by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which is currently waging a Maoist PPW against the Fascist Indian State, and provides a thorough introduction to the Immortal Science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the highest Stage of Marxism, ✊😜🇨🇳🇰🇵🇨🇺🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🚀☢️!

>>2285446
>Grundrisse … a book of rough notes for Capital
>era-specific politics
>a private response to a program you haven't read
I dont know why this is supposed to be bad they can give you good insight on Marx's method of analysis. Obviously you aren't supposed to dogmatically apply his conclusions universally in different material conditions but it can be helpful for someone new to see what types of things he considers in his analysis and his explanation for why he does it. You could also read the gotha program before its critique if you really want to but really the point in reading it as i just said isn't about the program itself but the thinking behind Marx's critique of it. Just reading political economy by itself will only help you understand how capitalism works which is only half the equation, as the point is to change it.

>>2285494
hes way more based than he lets on. his workplace democracy shit is tailored specifically to appeal to people who watch youtube all day, that is people on the edge of labor aristocracy.

>>2285446
>glorified pamphlets summing up other people's work (Imperialism)
any good works on imperialism?

>>2285360
Lenin is controversial but he still made important insights. Disappointing that the list includes State and Rev but not Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism which should absolutely be on any beginner list.

>>2285446
Trotsky vs stalin and infantile disorder are still relevant because western leftism hasn't progressed in 100 years, and demonizing stalin while upholding orwell's trotsky is the main form of western left-anticommunism today

100 year old debates are once again relevant because during the 100 years the internet was invented and western leftists who have been living in an anticommunist bubble for a century can now be counter-propagandized from their brainrot

https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm
This Stalin approved Communist State published proletarian political economic textbook. All proletarian's questions are answered in this. The shorter length (5 or 600 pg.) makes easy reading for proletariat. This textbook is the easiest way to firmly grasp Marxism and destroy liberals. You can know nothing and learn everything quickly and easily. You can have read all of Marx and still learn because this book is the manifestation of strictest Marxism and concretizes Marxist theory such as simplifying capitalist and socialist mode of production into objective material laws. This book smashes all liberalism. This book is supreme text for overall understanding of scientific socialism.

>>2291800
Mogged by the shanghai textbook
https://archive.org/details/FundamentalsOfPoliticalEconomyShanghaiTextbook

Lenin is a bit outdated these days, particularly because his theory on Imperialism describes a world that no longer exists

John Smith- Imperialism in the 21st Century is a modern Marxist work that really tackles the issue well.

In terms of revolutionary theory, Gramsci

>>2285355
for some reason nobody else is willing to say thank you for this except me

>>2297030
>his theory on Imperialism describes a world that no longer exists
in what way? his analysis was pretty dynamic and seems to describe things just fine

>>2297714
The problem with lenin if that if you read him you will think class struggle is important and that russia and china are imperialist, John Smith correct his mistake by recentering the debate around the north/south geopolitical and civilizational fight between ptoletarian nations and bourgeois nations

>>2297737
>you will think class struggle is important
but it is?
>russia and china are imperialist
yeah that can be a problem but only if you read him as some kind of static dogmatic list of the eternal universal features of imperialism instead of understanding the method of analysis. if you actually read it instead of just skimming the 5 point definition one can see how he came to that list and can update it accordingly

i think
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm
is shorter more direct and harder to bastardize than imp hsc since he is critiquing those kinds of distortions, where imp has more concrete analysis of the particular conditions of his time

>>2285349
If you're serious about actually understanding Marxism—not the liberalized, toothless version that treats worker co-ops as the end goal—you need to ground yourself in foundational theory, not vague market-friendly nonsense.

Start with Engels for a solid orientation:

"Principles of Communism" lays out the basics in Q&A format: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

"Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" helps contrast real scientific socialism with moralistic daydreams: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_Socialism_Utopian_and_Scientific.pdf

Before diving into Capital, it's worth getting a grip on Marx’s political economy:

"Value, Price and Profit" — dissects surplus value and wages under capitalism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/value-price-profit.pdf

"Wage Labor and Capital" — earlier and simpler, good to pair with the above: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/wage-labour-capital.pdf

To clarify the transition from capitalism to socialism and the current stages of communism (hint: socialism is not “co-ops in a free market in competition”), Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Programme” is essential: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critque_of_the_Gotha_Programme.pdf

One cannot forget to read the text talking about the Paris Commune in the text "The Civil War in France" to understand Marx's criticisms of it and its limits in installing the dictatorship of the proletariat that the communists during and after Lenin and with the October Revolution were successful in completing the revolution and a practical example to be done in other bourgeois states:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/

If Engels' intro texts speak to you, level up with "Anti-Dühring" — it covers philosophy, political economy, and socialism in a comprehensive Marxist framework: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/anti_duhring.pdf

Then there’s Lenin — essential for anyone who doesn’t want to be co-opted by reformists afraid of revolution:

"The State and Revolution" — the real Marxist theory of the state and dictatorship of the proletariat: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

"Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" — explains monopoly capital and financial domination: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

"What Is To Be Done?" — revolutionary organization and building a vanguard party: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/

"Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder" — a guide to dealing with pseudo-left idealists and opportunists: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/

don't read anything just have Agent Kochinski as background noise while playing Fortnite

V A U S H