You don't have to understand everything. Some people do and really want to dive deep, maybe you're one of those and that's cool, but most people don't need to.
It's an array of things, and obviously the more you learn the better you are, but in most cases you can afford to focus on a specific topic and fill the rest with praxis and experience. Theory NEEDS to be fueled with praxis and experience anyway, otherwise you don't understand the process of how those previous marxists got to those conclusions.
Hard to say where to start on getting the basics, it's kinda wide and if I'm honest a TON of people in the leftist sphere (especially online, and even more especially on places likes twitter) don't really have that. They sort of grok it, they're better on a particular topic, a topic that directly affects them or that they've had to learn about because they can't avoid it (job, identity..), but most wouldn't really able to cite you a great definition of dialectics of whatever. And to be honest I can't either, I'm still learning and the more I read about it the more I realise how hard the topic is.
That's another thing about leftist theory, it's not just "deeper", it's literally still being written constantly. So you can go back and read authors like marx, lenin and mao and understand how they saw and understood things then, but things have changed and the theory has progressed! Sometimes it's moved down wrong paths with some people, sometimes good ones (which is why it's important to link it with its context, its results, etc..), and most of the time (if we're talking about the present or really recent stuff) nobody really knows for sure who's right or wrong, we're still exploring, still testing.
I think starting from the past is easier, you can have a more "set in stone" understanding of things, then gradually read back up to now with a great understanding of the history and the gradual process of how the theory got where it is. Because depending on who you ask now, you'll still have different theories and interpretations of what materialism is, what dialectics is, etc.. especially in the philosophy realm because a ton of stuff has happened since then.
I wish I remembered the first thing I read on that path but I don't. A lot of my early understanding wasn't a particular book but a ton of discussions and articles with a lot of different viewpoints. If I just randomly grab stuff I think is good, I'd recommend stuff like https://redsails.org/, youtube channels like democracy at work (I basically only watch Prof Wolff), or like bayarea and luna oi (and a lot more in that sort of sphere of people), the affiliated discord communities can be great info-gathering places even as a lurker (like Tankie Bunker and such but your mileage may vary on discord servers).
I recently read End of the Megamachine (I really liked the overall look at history through a different narrative, but from around chapter 9 it gets shit, the author has this weird an-prim angle and almost everything from the 20th century onwards is complete radlib trash), The Society of the Spectacle (very nice and important but fuck me is it annoying to read, Debord wrote in a cryptic way on purpose because he's an asshole). I'd recommend Federici on marxism + feminism she's great, and someone on hexbear recommended Beyond Pink or Blue: Trans Liberation by Feinberg and it's great too. Uuuuuh I've been reading a book on paris commune and I just finished Capital Is Dead by McKenzie Wark and I'm gonna read more from her because her stuff is fascinating and very approachable. I'm planning on reading stuff about the french revolutions, the Anti-Duhring and a book-club reading of Capital because it really is a tough read. There ya go that's all I can remember right now.
deleted by creator
Honestly I've struggled with Marx as well but have learned a lot about dialectics from Mao, who's work is much more readily digestible.
You don't have to understand everything. Some people do and really want to dive deep, maybe you're one of those and that's cool, but most people don't need to. It's an array of things, and obviously the more you learn the better you are, but in most cases you can afford to focus on a specific topic and fill the rest with praxis and experience. Theory NEEDS to be fueled with praxis and experience anyway, otherwise you don't understand the process of how those previous marxists got to those conclusions.
Hard to say where to start on getting the basics, it's kinda wide and if I'm honest a TON of people in the leftist sphere (especially online, and even more especially on places likes twitter) don't really have that. They sort of grok it, they're better on a particular topic, a topic that directly affects them or that they've had to learn about because they can't avoid it (job, identity..), but most wouldn't really able to cite you a great definition of dialectics of whatever. And to be honest I can't either, I'm still learning and the more I read about it the more I realise how hard the topic is. That's another thing about leftist theory, it's not just "deeper", it's literally still being written constantly. So you can go back and read authors like marx, lenin and mao and understand how they saw and understood things then, but things have changed and the theory has progressed! Sometimes it's moved down wrong paths with some people, sometimes good ones (which is why it's important to link it with its context, its results, etc..), and most of the time (if we're talking about the present or really recent stuff) nobody really knows for sure who's right or wrong, we're still exploring, still testing.
I think starting from the past is easier, you can have a more "set in stone" understanding of things, then gradually read back up to now with a great understanding of the history and the gradual process of how the theory got where it is. Because depending on who you ask now, you'll still have different theories and interpretations of what materialism is, what dialectics is, etc.. especially in the philosophy realm because a ton of stuff has happened since then.
I wish I remembered the first thing I read on that path but I don't. A lot of my early understanding wasn't a particular book but a ton of discussions and articles with a lot of different viewpoints. If I just randomly grab stuff I think is good, I'd recommend stuff like https://redsails.org/, youtube channels like democracy at work (I basically only watch Prof Wolff), or like bayarea and luna oi (and a lot more in that sort of sphere of people), the affiliated discord communities can be great info-gathering places even as a lurker (like Tankie Bunker and such but your mileage may vary on discord servers). I recently read End of the Megamachine (I really liked the overall look at history through a different narrative, but from around chapter 9 it gets shit, the author has this weird an-prim angle and almost everything from the 20th century onwards is complete radlib trash), The Society of the Spectacle (very nice and important but fuck me is it annoying to read, Debord wrote in a cryptic way on purpose because he's an asshole). I'd recommend Federici on marxism + feminism she's great, and someone on hexbear recommended Beyond Pink or Blue: Trans Liberation by Feinberg and it's great too. Uuuuuh I've been reading a book on paris commune and I just finished Capital Is Dead by McKenzie Wark and I'm gonna read more from her because her stuff is fascinating and very approachable. I'm planning on reading stuff about the french revolutions, the Anti-Duhring and a book-club reading of Capital because it really is a tough read. There ya go that's all I can remember right now.