The classic one is probably good for a well rounded revolutionary, but it’s kind of long for a beginner, and there’s also newer theory that’s not included, but is necessary for understanding todays material conditions. It feels weird sending baby leftists a long list of old dense texts. I’ve been sending people Principles of Communism, five essays on Philosophy, Blackshirts and the Reds, and the Red Deal. Is this a good idea? I feel like it’s important to inform modern MLs of socialist history, and also I should probably add some works on imperialism. Any thoughts?
Principles of communism is just a good work for beginners to know “what is communism?” “What is capitalism?” “What is the proletariat?” And so on. I recently finished “what is to be done” and I think it is very important to avoid bowing to spontaneity, but there’s also a lot of very context specific things that are often dogmatically copypasted. I’ll have to read those works of lenin. Five essays on philosophy is a compilation by foreign languages press of ‘on practice,’ ‘on contradiction’ and some other important works of Mao. The red deal is a US specific work about decolonization.