Short texts are ideal, but larger ones can be divided across several weeks if there’s enough interest.
Whether you’ve read the text or not, feel free to include a short description or reason for suggesting it.
If you want to be notified when threads for new texts are posted (by including your username in a comment on upcoming posts), you can comment here or DM me.
Nikolai Bukharin’s Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology.
The best text I’ve ever read.
Edit: I made this post yesterday, but I just want to say that this, I think, will be a longer work, though it’s about 200 to 300 pages long (the Cosmonaut Classics edition had citations on the bottom, if I recall correctly).
So if you’re fine with doing this weekly or bi-weekly, then I do suggest this book, but it’s up to you.
It’s honestly a banger.
It may be the best up-to-date reading of Plekhanov’s thought and contribution to Marxism-Leninism, but also, central tenets of Marxism-Leninism.
It was originally published by International Publishers, which is still around, but is out-of-print, and was unfortunately represented by Cosmonaut Classics (Trots and “ortho” Marxists, etc.) who are not Marxist-Leninist and think that Bukharin was some Trotsky stan or adjacent to him or “would’ve been good friends” or some such.
The Foreword by the Trot at the beginning of the reprint by Cosmonaut Classics highlights this myth lol but it’s worth either skipping, skimming, or maybe just reading out of curiosity, but nothing more.
If you liked the Chinese work I suggested a while back (How To Be a Good Communist) then you will like this one.
i voot for this book!
Voot book no matter… who? idk
Ok, one more to my never ending reading list.
Real
PDF: https://annas-archive.org/md5/bc8749b9ea71641ff654737172a17696
This web version appears to be the same translation: https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1921/histmat/index.htm
Yes, the one published by International Publishers in the 1920s in America, I believe.
Thank you for the recommendation. You sold me at Plekhanov. If I saw this comment before I probably would not have replied the way I did for your youtube query, which may look more patronising in hindsight (I will leave it there for others lurking though).
It’s fine, I’m used to it, somewhat lol
Don’t worry, don’t feel guilty at my expense.
Suggested in one of the previous threads: Marx’s Wage Labour and Capital and Value, Price and Profit
Slightly unconventional, but On the Method of Theoretical Physics by Einstein could be interesting for a broader perspective on the scientific method. Also Feynman’s lectures on differences between mathematics and physics are interesting. Both the paper and videos are very short.
For the same reason On the Structure of Scientific Revolution by Thomas Kuhn could be good, though it’s a bit longer.
IDK how useful/interesting that would be to the people in this group, but those helped my understanding of the world and epistemology a lot.
These are all good suggestions, and I’ll think you like mine as well, since it also deals with epistemology.
Yeah, good suggestion. Side note: I was confused for a minute cause I confused the author for Bakunin and thought ‘Wasn’t he an anarchist?’
lol I get confused by his name too.
Oh yeah, and I genuinely would not mind reading Einstein’s work.
Anybody have some good Dengist literature? Or some good analyses of China post-Mao in general? It’s tough out here in the west trying to sift through all the China smears and I really want to gain a better understanding of more modern Chinese history.
Thank you!
“Dengist”
I prefer the term “Marxist-Leninist.”
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Touché comrade!
Oui oui
Hi, although I can’t recommend anything specific, here you can find the selected works of his, maybe it helps: Theory
Very helpful! Thank you
I will recommend (and it’s on my reading list) Socialist Economic Development in the 21st Century: A Century after the Bolshevik Revolution, written by a Brazilian geographer/economist who lived in China and worked on the BRICS bank. The bad news is that it is a recent book and it is paywalled. But there’s always information available for those brave enough to ride on the high tides…
Problems of war and strategy - by Mao Zedong
If you haven’t studied it yet, Mastering Bolshevism by Stalin
Party Discipline and the Fight Against the Pro-Cadet Social-Democrats, because I think it’s relevant since we’re in interesting times.
“Where to Begin?” (possibly leading into “What is to Be Done?”, though that one is a hard read) because I feel ML parties all over the world are being too lax with their agitation and treat the “party newspaper” as secondary.
When do we start reading whatever text wins?
A lot of these texts mentioned here are great; I especially like the ones having to do with epistemology, like the Physics ones.
Shameless plug-in, but I hope my own recommendation wins because it is also about epistemology and summarizes Plehhanov and Lenin’s thought well, though Bukharin may say some noticeable stuff that you’ll agree or disagree with, depending on your point of view, but it’s nothing sneaky or offensive; referring to his views on determinism.
That said, if we do Einstein’s work, for example, like one person suggested here, I wouldn’t mind that, along with Mastering Bolshevism by Stalin.
