I was hoping some of y'all could recommend some marxist theory. I've read a lot of the well-known stuff (Marx, Engels, Lenin) and I plan on reading some Mao in the coming weeks. But I'm sure there's a whole lot more theory that I'm not aware of, perhaps some contemporary stuff.
Anyway, I'm open to all recommendations. Thanks in advance!
Edit: Thanks everyone. Lots of great new stuff to add to my reading list.
I think Blackshirts and Reds is an elementary enough ML reading while not being overwhelmingly famous at the same time. Definitely try it out if you haven't
this, this 100 times.
also OP, I don't recommend just "reading" theory, I recommend annotating it while you read. When you engage with the text you walk away with a much deeper understanding of what the author was saying, even though it feels like you're moving though the work at a glacial pace.
yup. If you bring a book, bring a pencil. Marginalia rocks even more than virginity
I haven't read much theory, but State and Rev by Lenin annotated by Todd Chretien was a lot more digestible than I thought it would be. Fair word of warning Lenin does spend a lot of time in the book shit-talking his contemporaries and other socialists and democratic socialists who aren't well-known today, but the annotations cleared everything up for me. Happy reading!
His shit talk also doesn't always line up when you go and read those other Socialists either. The gist is there though.
Don't be afraid, I'm here to snitch any nerd disrespecting left unity trying to be snarky .
I know shit about theory, tho
I'm personally a big fan of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed , its beautifully written and is about really useful, immediately applicable things.
It's from a marxist humanist point of view and does not require much prior knowledge/agreement with other ML theory, so it should be pretty digestable to an anarchist.
Yeah it's one of the most reccomended books of all time if you attend a pedogogy related program.
Also anarchist and interested in theory but more of Mao's stuff. Also when looking for mao stuff are there reputable translators to keep watch for?
There’s been a lot of bad popular fiction about Mao. There’s one book in particular that I steal from independent left wing book stores and burn whenever I find it
I absolutely love Julia Lovell’s Maoism: A Global History. It’s a rewrite of history, all the way up to Xi in 2019. Highly recommended if you want to learn about a lot of revolutions and revolutionaries.
I actually studied Chinese Politics & History but it was in U.S university so I take it with a grain of salt. So that book looks swell.
I have a ok understanding of event timeline but not on Mao's actual theories. Combined with first hand knowledge of how one translates Chinese can dramatically alter the meaning/context I seek comrades.advice!
Thank you
Marxists.org has the complete works. If you're not familiar with some pieces to start, I reccomend his shorter punchier articles like "Combat Liberalism". The infamous little red book, "Quotations from Chairman Mao" is fantastic. "On Contradiction" is worth it too.
Yea On Contradiction is what I've kinda flipped thru but it was a few years ago so I'll check those out thank you!
The agrarian focus of Maoism really resonated with me, as well as the concept of the Irom Rice Bowl, finally I personally feel that permanent revolution & peasantry as the vanguard albeit updated to modernity makes the most sense to me as an actual framework for change.
Thanks alot!
From a funky ancom perspective, I like to put people in touch with the autonomist movement, because it's kinda like what if Marx and Bakunin actually got along.
I'm not Italian though so it might all just be a buncha pizza pasta 🤷♂️ 🍝There might be - I haven't honestly read enough on either to be an authority.
From my limited perspective I would say syndicalism is focused more on the political organisation and representation of the proletariat via institutions such as unions or syndicates in the workplace, whereas autonomism is more spontaneous, holistic, and movement-based; and is concerned with society as a whole - both in and out of the workplace.That might be a good way to put it. As far as I understood it, syndicalism was a product of an era prior to the assembly line, with things like workers' self-management being a reasonable goal for enthusiastic workers employed in workshop-type roles, but less applicable to workers on an assembly line that couldn't care less about the mundane, tedious labour they were performing.
Autonomism plays a lot on the alienation and division of labour, as well as including other members of the underclass that are still acknowledged in Marxism such as the reserve army of labour or precariat.
Mario Tronti's workers and capital is the definitive work on this movement (at least in an Italian context) btw for anyone looking for material.
From the wiki:
Unlike other forms of Marxism, Autonomist Marxism emphasises the ability of the working class to force changes to the organization of the capitalist system independent of the state, trade unions or political parties. Autonomists are less concerned with party political organization than other Marxists, focusing instead on self-organized action outside of traditional organizational structures. Autonomist Marxism is thus a "bottom-up" theory: it draws attention to activities that autonomists see as everyday working-class resistance to capitalism, such as absenteeism, slow working, socialization in the workplace, sabotage, and other subversive activities.
Like other Marxists, autonomists see class struggle as being of central importance. However, autonomists have a broader definition of the working class than do other Marxists: as well as wage-earning workers (both white collar and blue collar), autonomists also include in this category the unwaged (students, the unemployed, homemakers, etc.), who are traditionally deprived of any form of union representation.
Early theorists (such as Mario Tronti, Antonio Negri, Sergio Bologna, and Paolo Virno) developed notions of "immaterial" and "social labour" that extended the Marxist concept of labour to all society. They suggested that modern society's wealth was produced by unaccountable collective work, and that only a little of this was redistributed to the workers in the form of wages. Other Italian autonomists—particularly feminists, such as Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Silvia Federici—emphasised the importance of feminism and the value of unpaid female labour to capitalist society.
Yeah, this is right up my alley. Thanks for the recommendation, I'm gonna try to find Tronti's Workers and Capital as recommended by @gammison.
This is where to buy it if you want, it should be on libgen too though.
I read a lot of newer Marxist writing that rexamines capital and Marx's political theory in its original republican framework, as well as how that relates to things like urban space and technology. Some stuff I really like is Moishe Postone's work and William Clare Roberts' work on Marx, as well as Nancy Fraser and Ursula Huws, and many many others. It's really changed how I view some of the older writers like Lenin and Luxemburg and Mao.
I'm also a fan of the Marxist humanists.
