Basic Marxism-Leninism Study Plan
Introduction
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Lenin. The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism
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Lenin. Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism
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Marx, Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party
Historical Materialism
- Marx, Engels. The German Ideology, chapter I
Scientific Socialism
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Lenin. What Is To Be Done?
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Lenin. The State and Revolution
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Lenin. Opportunism, and the Collapse of the Second International
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Lenin. Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism
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Lenin. Marxism and Revisionism
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Lenin. Marxism and Reformism
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Stalin. The Foundations of Leninism
Philosophy
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Mao. On Contradiction
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Engels. Anti-Dühring, part I: Philosophy
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Engels. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy
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Marx. Theses on Feuerbach
Political Economy
How to Make Historical Materialist Analysis
Introduction to the method
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Marx. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, preface
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Marx, Engels. The German Ideology, chapter I
Marx & Engels’ Application
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Marx. The Civil War in France
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Engels. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
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Engels. The Peasant War in Germany
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Engels. Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science
Other
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Plekhanov. Historical Materialism and the Arts
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Plekhanov. The Materialist Conception of History
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Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai
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Divided World, Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism by Zak Cope
Resources for Marxist Political Economy
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The Law of Worldwide Value by Samir Amin
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Luxemburg. The Accumulation of Capital
Does that mean I shouldn’t have started by reading Das Kapital? Because I started by reading Das Kapital.
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. :^)
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.
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.