I myself do not really view “What is to be Done?” as a great beginner work for Marxists, since it mentions a lot of obscure philosophers or groups that a modern audience (with their cursory knowledge of Russian history being from the lips of liberals, or worse, conservatives) would hardly know the context of, and I am reading a version that has notes on these people!
That is not to say that it is not an influential or essential work of Lenin (I think it might be up there with “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism” and “The State and Revolution” in terms of either factor), but one has to be willing to trudge through Russian names that you will likely never hear again.
not sure how unpopular this is, but i’m of the opinion that having a strong education in diamat is more important than any other political/philosophical education, because it is simply more fundamental in the sense that it itself can be applied to all spheres of knowledge and discovery. furthermore, a lack of interest or knowledge in diamat is one of the main problems i perceive from western ML orgs. there’s a lot of room for new theory here but i haven’t really seen anything major published, although i might just not have seen it.
Don’t know if it’s really unpopular but I certainly agree with that. Metaphysical and idealistic mindset being a “common sense” for people is one of decisive factors sustaining contradictions like workers defending the system actively exploiting them. Dialectic grounded in materialism is necessary for true understanding of how the material conditions shape us and how can we shape them back.
I do think that it should really be taught in schools (under socialism because capitalism will reject it) because idealist thinking (as Faux) mentioned is really harmful in many ways, like the propagation of harmful beliefs (anti-vaccination) to misinformed ideologies about how capitalism works (“free market” is capitalism). Thank you for mentioning that it applies to all spheres of knowledge because I kind of forgot.