this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2020
21 points (95.7% liked)

Communism

9641 readers
16 users here now

Discussion Community for fellow Marxist-Leninists and other Marxists.

Rules for /c/communism

Rules that visitors must follow to participate. May be used as reasons to report or ban.

  1. No non-marxists

This subreddit is here to facilitate discussion between marxists.

There are other communities aimed at helping along new communists. This community isn't here to convert naysayers to marxism.

If you are a member of the police, armed forces, or any other part of the repressive state apparatus of capitalist nations, you will be banned.

  1. No oppressive language

Do not attempt to justify your use of oppressive language.

Doing this will almost assuredly result in a ban. Accept the criticism in a principled manner, edit your post or comment accordingly, and move on, learning from your mistake.

We believe that speech, like everything else, has a class character, and that some speech can be oppressive. This is why speech that is patriarchal, white supremacist, cissupremacist, homophobic, ableist, or otherwise oppressive is banned.

TERF is not a slur.

  1. No low quality or off-topic posts

Posts that are low-effort or otherwise irrelevant will be removed.

This is not a place to engage in meta-drama or discuss random reactionaries on lemmy or anywhere else.

This includes memes and circlejerking.

This includes most images, such as random books or memorabilia you found.

We ask that amerikan posters refrain from posting about US bourgeois politics. The rest of the world really doesn’t care that much.

  1. No basic questions about marxism

Posts asking entry-level questions will be removed.

Questions like “What is Maoism?” or “Why do Stalinists believe what they do?” will be removed, as they are not the focus on this forum.

  1. No sectarianism

Marxists of all tendencies are welcome here.

Refrain from sectarianism, defined here as unprincipled criticism. Posts trash-talking a certain tendency or marxist figure will be removed. Circlejerking, throwing insults around, and other pettiness is unacceptable.

If criticisms must be made, make them in a principled manner, applying Marxist analysis.

The goal of this subreddit is the accretion of theory and knowledge and the promotion of quality discussion and criticism.

Check out ProleWiki for a communist wikipedia.

Communism study guide

bottombanner

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml
CaptCalhoun@lemmygrad.ml
fidel_castro@lemmygrad.ml
supercooper25@lemmygrad.ml
Magpieinthesky@lemmygrad.ml
AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml
21
I copied over the Marxism-Leninism study guides from r/communism in case the subreddit gets banned, should be a useful resource for beginners (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 4 years ago by supercooper25@lemmygrad.ml to c/communism@lemmygrad.ml
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Basic Marxism-Leninism Study Plan

Introduction

Historical Materialism

Scientific Socialism

Philosophy

Political Economy

How to Make Historical Materialist Analysis

Introduction to the method

Marx & Engels' Application

Other

Resources for Marxist Political Economy

top 13 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Zaratustash@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (3 children)

I don't want to be an ass, truly, but any foundational guide to ML should include marxist feminist texts, decolonization texts, and marxist influenced queer liberation texts.

ML is an evolving science and giving a reading guide that is fundamentally pre 1920 is not great. It's reminiscent of what trots do tbh.

Seeing Sakai, who is valuable, but memeified, but not Fanon? Really?

Atleast include Kollontai, also. Maybe also some Arruzza and Federici.

Disagree or agree with PSL, but their liberation school curriculum is on point.

IMO this list is filled with redundant texts and non necessary reads also. This is fully inadequate to beginners, and also runs the risk of beginners seeing necessary and crucial developments in ML thought as secondary. A lot needs to be scrapped.

I'd also recommend including Althusser and Gramsci.

[–] moss@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 4 years ago

would you be down to amend the reading list? i’d love to read more on marxist feminism and queer lib. i’m familiar with fanon and am currently working my way through wretched of the earth.

[–] frompeaches@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 years ago

Do you have any introductory texts you'd recommend for everyone after Fanon you talked about?

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Hey i remember you from chapo megathreads. First comment of yours I have seen here so a warm welcome, comrade.

[–] Zaratustash@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 years ago

Thanks comrade, glad to be here <3

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 years ago (1 children)

I feel this is too loaded for beginners. Should select five or so from this list for an introduction to beginners.

But I understand if you want copy the post verbatim as it was posted.

[–] BillionaireChowder@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 4 years ago (2 children)

Does that mean I shouldn't have started by reading Das Kapital? Because I started by reading Das Kapital.

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 4 years ago

I feel people should study Kapital at some point but I'd rather start with easier texts to get a general picture of MLism and then tackle Kapital. The reason is that the pamphlets are texts intended for the masses not accustomed to Marxism while Kapital is academic in nature.

That said, these are my personal beliefs and there is no single path to tread. As long as comrades are radicalised and educated, I am happy. :^)

[–] RandomSovietKid@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) (1 children)

There's nothing wrong about starting with Das Kapital. But most who are just learning about Marxism-Leninism will consider it too difficult and too hard to understand probably — I read the first 4 chapters of Das Kapital so far (then I had to delay further reading because I no longer had the time or energy, I should continue somewhen), and I had to really study it like some people study math, i. e. write out all the important information in points, draw some scheme to visualize it, etc., so not exactly an easy book to start with. I started with Imperialism As The Highest Stage Of Capitalism, it was much easier and still addressed important aspects.

[–] Provinto@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 years ago

I've found that it's best to read Capital in a group. That's how I did it in high school (although I left that group at some point) and college in an independent study.

Also, the discussion and writing cements some bonds in the reading group.

[–] LoomingMountain@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I tbink we also need a study list of current Marxist doing research. Economists (if you find them), philosophers, ecologists, and more because one of the critiques i always get is that the people I recommend are too old and we need stuff for this day and age. (I'd say we need to read both).

People like Graeber, Losurdo, and more.

[–] WeilaiHope@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Good Work.

That sub wont get banned though. It would be too mask-off for reddit to do that. Instead they're just transforming the sub into a fake commie lib sub. Recently there was a series of weird bans towards genzedong members, totally random for posts months or weeks ago, including myself, for things like "abusive behaviour" even though the comments were lacking that. My ban was changed to a week long mute when i simply replied with "What?". Seems to me like some kind of stealth attempt at purging the sub of proper leftists and just leaving it full of fake commie libs.

[–] TheimmortalScience@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago)

This is the list I personally used when I was getting into Theory but for the Political Economy section the Soviet Political Economy textbook I found to be very good

https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm

Edit: also the book 'fundamentals of marxism-leninism' is a pretty good book but I have found it to be littered with traces of Kruschevite revisonism

PDF:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;rct=j&amp;url=https://www.redstarpublishers.org/FundamentalsML.pdf&amp;ved=2ahUKEwja8o_vjuXqAhVxlXIEHQJqDfoQFjALegQIAxAB&amp;usg=AOvVaw1mjfmrfCuaf1sxnCXrp_KX