marxism

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For the study of Marxism, and all the tendencies that fall beneath it.

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Study Guides

Basic Marxism-Leninism Study Plan
Debunking Anti-Communism Masterpost
Beginner's Guide to Marxism (marxists.org)
A Reading Guide (marx2mao.com) (mirror)
Topical Study Guide (marxistleninist.wordpress.com)

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Kapitalism 101 on political economy
Marxist Philosophy understanding DiaMat
Reading Marx's Capital with David Harvey

Libraries

Marxists.org largest Marxist library
Red Stars Publishers Library specialized on Marxist-Leninist literature. Book titles are links to free PDF copies
Marx2Mao.com another popular library (mirror)
BannedThought.net collection of revolutionary publications
The Collected Works of Marx and Engels torrentable file of all known writings of Marx and Engels
The Prolewiki library a collection of revolutionary publications
Comrades Library has a small but growing collection of rare sovietology books

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[serious post, pls leave your icepicks unsheathed] Why is trots insistence on the fact that the workers have to drive the revolution constantly dismissed? (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 months ago by DivineChaos100@hexbear.net to c/marxism@hexbear.net

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I regularly see trots being memed about because "they do nothing apart from writing newspapers", but to me from their viewpoint (and as an anarchist) it totally makes sense and is a sympathetic view how it should be the workers leading the fight towards a revolution and the vanguard should stand aside and take the role of advisors (hence the newspapers) rather than leaders.

I feel like i'm missing something but i don't know what.

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[–] Mardoniush@hexbear.net 16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It isn't In fact, as a Luxemburgist, one of my critiques of Trots is that they want to maintain the hard control of a traditional Leninist party (which was, to be clear, the right choice for Russia and for China), rather than acknowledging the essential role and revolutionary potential of other leftist organisations in a developed, educated populace.

I'd like to note that "Trot" isn't even a useful term anymore, as neither the Sparts nor the Cliffites nor the other major factions resemble the late thought of Trotsky (Who unlike many trots I've had the pleasure of reading, smart guy with some pointed critique when he can stop being so butthurt.)

[–] DivineChaos100@hexbear.net 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hmm, that's interesting because my view on them is that they actually aren't that hard on control as Trotsky turned out to be in his own time.

[–] Mardoniush@hexbear.net 10 points 5 months ago

Depends on the tendency. Cliffites are often almost councilcom, and are many New Left trots who took some Maoist thought. But others are more Orthodox ML.

It comes from Trotsky's critique of the nomenklatura, but he himself was always firm about direct Party control of the Soviets. Partially because Stalin opening up the party to his Soviet supporters was what doomed him.

Charitably Trotsky, and some Trot groups, are converging on a proto mass-line strategy here, but I've rarely seen it properly cohere.