>>2789576If 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 to be able to do class analysis and better understand it, so as to avoid the errors propagated by liberals, opportunists, and reformists.
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.pdfBefore 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.pdfTo 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.pdfIf 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.pdfA text that is important to read and understand the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Paris Commune, which had its errors that Marx criticized and which served as a lesson for carrying out a successful communist revolution, as was done by the Bolsheviks, based on what was learned in the text called "The Civil War in France." The lesson is the opposite of decentralization, fear of acting, or fear of appropriating banks and controlling them for the sake of the domination of the proletariat for fear of causing chaos:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/Another text that analyzes the class struggle in France with the 1848 revolution also helps to understand the dictatorship of the proletariat and what happens to the petty bourgeoisie when it considers itself superior to the proletarians, betraying them, not seeing their common interest, and what its reward is for wanting to identify with the bourgeoisie, which is to be discarded by the bourgeoisie. The text is called "The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850" with the link below:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/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/>>2789652The first sign that an opportunist has no revolutionary plan, no plan with the workers for the class struggle, and no solidarity with the workers of the world is when this individual resorts to identitarianism to deceive middle-class youth into serving the bourgeoisie; this I observed in my country in the Global South.
>>2789679The first sign that an opportunist has no revolutionary plan, no plan with the workers for the class struggle, nor solidarity with the workers of the world, is when this individual resorts to identitarianism to deceive middle-class youth into serving the bourgeoisie; this I observed in my country in the Global South.
The lumpenproletariat has no revolutionary interest; desperation leads to individualistic reactionism to be used by finance capital against the workers. The lumpenproletariat has a reactionary, not revolutionary, tendency; some of them can be used as soldiers if they accept the supremacy of the proletariat and are disciplined by the revolutionary communist party to minimize the individualistic narcissism they may normally possess. I do not tolerate the weakness of people who are unprepared for the chaos of revolution, who believe in superstitions about the bourgeois state, or who cling to the idea that they have some natural right (a fantasy that does not exist). Fear of confrontation, class struggle, and being hated is expected; clinging to the bourgeois state to save them means betraying the proletariat.
Scientific socialist theory is not based on the moralism and emotionalism of those who suffer most, but rather on recognizing the common class interests and the need to act collectively for the political supremacy of the proletariat, to socialize the economy, abolishing private property, anarchy of production, and social classes. Any minority of the working classes that is not the proletariat must act according to what they have in common with the proletariat, not their petty interests. Minorities that are bourgeois are enemies who will have to be re-educated or eliminated; their opinion is irrelevant. A proletarian who wants to be bourgeois or petty-bourgeois is also irrelevant to the communist cause, regardless of whether they are in the minority or not, because they will be treated as a liberal, reactionary, or reformist, and will be opposed.
Furthermore, the lumpenproletariat can be convinced to follow communists simply by presenting a program of guaranteed employment, wage equalization, and the typical political programs that Marx, Engels, and Lenin used for agitation in elections in bourgeois democracy.