You don't have to read original texts from the 19th century to be a good communist. Not that you shouldn't ever read theory, but that isn't the only way to do it.

Like if I wanted to learn physics my first step wouldn't be Newton's Principia. I would do much better to learn from the efforts of all the talented authors of books intended to teach the salient lessons from Principia to everyday people.

Marx was a great thinker but not always the most clear writer (Engels was the better of the two at clear expression IMO). For instance, a comrade recommended The People's Marx to me, it's an abridged version of Capital that is 300 pages, by Julian Borchardt. In his intro he argues the Capital is fundamentally unreadable for most regular humans:

In the first place there is the enormous size of the work – not less than 2200 large printed pages filling three volumes. Who can be expected to read this, if he be not a specialist in political economy, and if he have professional business to attend to? Secondly, there is Marx’s manner of expressing himself, which is uncommonly, difficult to grasp. Sycophants, anxious to praise everything done by a great man, have maintained that Marx’s style is clear, precise, and easy of comprehension. This does not even hold good of his short essays destined for newspapers. And when such assertions are put forward in regard to his books on political economy, these assertions are absolutely false.

You can also just read modern theory. Read David Graeber, read Michael Parenti, read Andreas Malm - you might find them easier to read.

But you should probably try reading State and Revolution by Lenin - Lenin is easy to read and an electrifying writer.

deleted by creator

deleted by creator

please give David Graeber a try before diving into Das Kapital or some shit

I find Lenin much easier to follow than Marx. Helps with understanding Marx, too.

Start with a modern breakdown to get the ideas down before slogging through the old timey writing. I have ADHD and really liked the Das Kapital manga

It's definitely not just you. And sadly, I think it is for this very reason that many new leftists simply don't read much theory despite knowing it would be very beneficial to do so.

As others have suggested, using a guide or reading companion helps a lot. In some cases, you can pretty much just go entirely by the guide and just skim the actual text.

Here's one for Das Kapital that I first heard suggested as being exceptionally good on Revolutionary Left Radio: Reading Capital With Comrades

It gets easier the more you read regularly.

Before reading a dense text, I'd recommend reading a summary or review of the text by someone else.

Last, don't feel bad about taking it slow. Be aware of when your brain is mush and you don't understand what you're reading. When you notice this stop reading and do something else.

(Or do what others said and just read Engels lol)

If we talk about marx we have to consider it was written a hundred years ago in another language. It isn't going to work out well.

The math still checks out, ans with the exception of some cybernetic theory it is all really simple stuff we have simply been raised to be unable to understand

Reading og marx makes sense from philosophy standpoint, not economical one, as he circles around something inherently obvious in the world as it is now.

I would say read modern reinterpretations, as they still would spend less time arguing about correct translations, than marx arguing with half forgotten economists.

Luckily, leftist theory is probably the only theory that gets easier the farther you go down the rabbit hole. Not because the ideas become easier, but because the writers stop being terrible. After what everyone else said, read Mao afterwards. He’s probably the easiest writer to understand out of the big heads, because he was writing specifically for the largely illiterate peasantry.

deleted by creator

Read to yourself out loud if you have trouble focusing and following along. It's also fun.

Being able to apply it is helpful! I suddenly found a lot of stuff readable as it became relevant to my work. Likewise I've become a better writer since I've had to write propaganda. Starting to learn graphic design for the same reason! Of course it's going to be hard if it still feels cut off from your life.

its hard and its not just you, and this is not "kids these days with their iphone no attention span". theyre pretty heavygoing books discussing big concepts anyway, so theyre gonna be hard however theyre written. but then theyre written using old timey terminology that might have made sense then but isnt in common use now. and some of them were references to concepts that meant one thing then and something different now ("value" being an obvious one). and then tonnes of references to thinkers who were probably mainstream in the day but nobody remembers now, and events that were recent and everybody knew about, and even just assumptions about the general makeup of society and production and commodities etc etc that are very different from now, plus everything is measured in weird shillings and shit which is impossible to have a feel for how much any of that is etc etc. and they probably could have used some editors as well - marx in particular loves these ridiculous run-on sentences where by the time you get to the end youve completely forgotten what he was talking about at the start.

id maybe suggest trying to find a good youtube video by someone reputable to help walk you through some of them, and im particularly thinking of the excellent david harvey lecture series on capital, which makes it a million times more comprehensible even though its more time-consuming.