Cowbee

Great post! And this sounds like it originated with a certain pug, going by the social fascism in meme form.

Have a great week, everyone! Keep up with whatever it is you're trying to do, steady progress yields steady results!

As always, communism will win.

Relaxing on a day off! Mostly doing chores with my spouse.

As @CommiePoutine@lemmygrad.ml said, my favorite source is comrade @Edie@lemmy.ml's Comrade's Library, which I use as a top priority in the basic ML study guide I made.

Thanks, I'll give it a read! Understanding the limitations, of course. And I totally agree, what little of Losurdo I've read in contrast to his whole canon makes me enormously frustrated, especially as his work is valuable in combatting western Marxist defeatism.

Analyzed metaphysically, ie stripping it of the context for why this happened, can make it seem pretty bad. But when viewed dialectically, ie placing it in its correct moment in time and as a response to China's gross underdevelopment, it has paid off enormously. New contradictions arose, of course, but with it socialism has been maintained and we are now witnessing the era of imperialist decay and rising socialism.

I recommend this conversation I had with another user, one opposed to "Dengism" (initially, perhaps not by the end). Both of us flesh out our points and speak from a place of trying to understand one another, which was quite productive compared to liberal debate-as-bloodsport.

What do you mean by the term? Clarifying that helps a lot, most of us don't consider "Dengism" to be an ideology in itself.

This is fantastic critique, thank you comrade! Genuinely, this is what I've been seeking, some genuine teardown of my list so I can patch weakpoints and holes. Before continuing, I do want to say that my goal is to keep it under 20-25 hours of reading, specifically because anything longer than that and people start to skim or lose momentum unless they have a study circle. This is the biggest obstacle to making a "comprehensive" guide.

Response

That out of the way, you asked for feedback, not praise. Keep in mind some of my feedback is based on my own experience of learning, which is probably very different from native-English-speakers in the Imperial Core, which are probably the intended target.

To be clear, my target is primarily native-English speakers, but my intention is to be internationalist and flexible in application. As such, where I can bring in more applicability to the global south, I want to do so.

Seems to me that this is too heavy on the “Marxism” side and too light on the “Leninism”. There’s a lot of really good texts on theory and developing a Marxist understanding of the world, but very little regarding party work and praxis.

Fair point! My intention to keep reading time low enough is the crux of my issue, here. My "advanced section" was my original guide, but it was so long hardly anyone finished it. My goal instead is to get more completions for the basics, to prevent burnout. That being said, I think you're right, adding more works on party organization would indeed be worth it.

whereas WitbD is a really messy read without context and frankly Roderic Day’s text is extremely lacking by portraying Lenin, in his words, as “a world-class observer and theoretician” rather than a dedicated party builder.

Interesting criticism, and on that note, I'm not opposed to swapping it for more works on party building.

I'm not sure what would be good inclusions here. Huey’s “The Correct Handling of a Revolution”, maybe? I see that in the advanced study guide you have included texts from Liu Shaoqi, which I haven’t read so can’t opine much, but maybe one of those could be included here? Besides that the best I can offer is Mao’s “Rectify the Party’s Style of Work” and “On the Correct Handling” as shorter texts exemplifying Leninism

Excellent suggestions, especially Huey P. Newton's text as it's only 10 minutes long. I enjoy Liu Shaoqi's work, but need to revisit them before inclusion. I love both of the Mao texts you picked out, so I'll see how long they are.

On that note, on cultural hegemony. I’m quite biased due to heavily disagreeing with him lately, but I’d just scrap Jones Manoel there and replace him with something from his actual sources. His video essays naturally end up being very verbose while saying very little, which is fine for daily youtube videos but not for theory learning. And this is not even close to being his best video essay, so I don’t understand why it got picked up so hard by the Anglosphere. I’d go with Losurdo’s “Flight From History” or even “Western Marxism” if length is not an issue. “La Sinistra Assente” (“The Absent Left”) would actually be perfect here, but I only realised now by trying to find the English name that it has only been translated to Spanish and Portuguese, but never English.

Unfortunately, both of Losurdo's works are several hours long each. I'm very curious about La Sinistra Assente, is this an article or a full book? For now, Jones Manoel's essay serves the quite important role of helping de-brainworm the westerners reading my list, who overwhelmingly despise AES countries. If I can successfully replace it with a work of similar length, then I may do so.

Section 4’s checkpoint question on “level of development” makes little sense today without an understanding of imperialism and/or combined and uneven development, which is a section that would only be read afterwards. In those texts (and in general) Marx wrote about industrialising European countries which followed primitive accumulation, but today for most countries the trajectory is different due to the uneven development of imperialism.

Point well-taken, I'll scrap it and replace it.

In section 2, I’d swap the order of Biographical Sketch and Three Sources, as they deal with the same subject and the latter is much shorter and summarised. Three Sources serves as a neat introduction, but if one read and understood the entirety of Biographical Sketch beforehand it won’t add much.

I disagree here, actually. The utility of Three Sources is in refocusing the reader on the coming sections, summarizing the key points they just learned. Biography lays out a story of Marx and his method, while Three Sources re-centers the reader on the coming sections. Just my reasoning for it.

I feel like Part I of Capital Vol. I should be in either this or the advanced guide. It’s self-contained enough to be read by itself, lays out the fundamentals really well and I don’t think Inferno does a good enough job of summarising it considering the reader is already going through other complex texts through these guides.

All 3 volumes of Capital will be in the advanced guide. You can think of the current "advanced guide" as the progenitor of the current basic guide, as a stripped down and simplified version of it, and the future, actual "advanced guide" as a fully comprehensive, modular list meant to be pursued as a collection of topics, each topic having its own order, but the order of the topics depending on what the reader needs. This is the utility of An Extremely Condensed Summary of Capital in the basic guide.

Section 5’s first checkpoint question opens the can of worms of “Socialism in One Country” that I think would be counterproductive given the texts in question are only from before the Soviet Revolution.

Interesting point, do you have any suggestions on what could help flesh that out? If not, I'll take the question out and let the sleeping dog lie, so to speak.

I actually sat down to read redsails’s MER in order to give credence to my kneejerk rejection of it, but it surprised me by getting me to agree with most its claims. From the way I’ve seen people talk about it, I always assumed it was some typical first-world defeatist essay about how even the most lumpen of proletariat in the imperial core is metaphysically counter-revolutionary due to some supposed personal benefit from imperialism and settlerism. Instead it’s a pretty fair critique of the elitism of “free thinking rebels” who see themselves above the “brainwashed masses”. It’s right there in the title, damn it! I think the checkpoint question about it could be more leading in pointing away from first-world defeatism, but in reality I really just wanted to comment on how you really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover lol.

Agreed! It's useful in eliminating the defeatism of fighting "brainwashing" as a concept. I rely on it pretty heavily when trying to engage with people on Marxism-Leninism.

And lastly, it feels odd that the Social-Liberation section has nothing from the BPP.

I actually had a work from Huey P. Newton in there originally, concerning the intersectionality, but it mainly focused on alignment with gay and queer communities, not black liberation. That's why I swapped it out for the Combahee River Collective Statement, as despite not being Marxist inherently, it still provides that valuable layer to the discussion. I may add back in something from the BPP if I can find one of suitable length.

Thanks for the feedback!

Edit: Made some simple tweaks based on this feedback, looking at potentially fleshing out Leninism and party work more.

My original had Value, Price, and Profit left off, actually! It's the only one I'm seriously considering re-trimming. I added it back because it helps provide a firmer base for economic understanding, making sure the Political Economy section isn't under-developed. I'm 50/50 on taking it out.

I agree, if there were more abridged versions of texts like Imperialism, The State and Revolution, and Foundations of Leninism I'd be very satisfied with cutting ~3 hours out of this list and bringing it back down to 20 hours, while still keeping the additions.

Big fan of Piranesi, it was the last book I truly devoured.

Thanks! That's indeed a goal, I usually check tankie.tube first, and then YouTube as a fallback. Some don't have any recordings though, sadly, so a playlist isn't on the table just yet. It is planned to move the YouTube works over to Tankie.Tube eventually, though!

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer the checkpoint questions, comrade!

I had 20 hours originally, but felt it necessary to include the topics of cultural hegemony and social progress. Is there anything you can recommend trimming? It's around 22-23 hours right now, not 25.

Good point. I do include Why Marxism? as this also directly confronts the question of AES (even Iran and the Russian Federation), which was the primary purpose of including it alongside Why Socialism? When viewed as a back-to-back contextualization of AES and an explanation of support and critical support, I feel that it's stronger than just "Tankies" on its own.

If the reader makes it to Stalin and actually reads Dialectical and Historical Materialism, then this helps dramatically in humanizing the soviets. By the time they make it to the section on Cultural Hegemony, they will be well-equipped to confont the brainworms of Western Marxism Jones Maonel rightly attacks.

Do you agree with this assessment, or do you think I need to add something more? I was at most considering adding "Yellow Parenti" to the intro section, as Blackshirts and Reds is far too long to keep the list under the 25 hour limit I increased to.

ayy! That's pretty cool, may overhaul the questions to include answers as well!

That's a good idea, adding answers! I can't do nested spoilers in Lemmy's markdown (I think), but that might be something to consider. Thanks!

That's really sweet of you to share, and to say! I really like that drawing, it really gets across how beloved Lenin was and how gentle he was. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts, even if it was a "ramble" as you say they were still valuable to read. I don't mind at all, and hope you have a wonderful day!

I don't know if I would consider myself a "good agitator," I stick with Lemmy.ml, Lemmygrad.ml, and Hexbear.net, but some rules I try to follow:

Debate is largely useless, and most of the time people looking for one are unwilling to change their mind. Use that to your advantage, and treat their argument as a springboard for you to make a compelling argument to the audience, like Lenin with Kautsky.
Don't let the hatred and slander of reactionaries get to you. They are almost certainly wrong, and you can discard their "critique" as a meteorologist would the opinion of a Flat Earther.
Try to speak only on what you know. Don't argue for the sake of it, if you aren't solid in your knowledge it will backfire. At best you'll be misleading others, at worst a reactionary will catch your mistake and have a free soapbox.
Try to have a dialectical approach to education and knowledge. You can learn more via practice, and by seeking a multi-sided view. Don't view yourself as an infallable teacher, but as a fellow student in a study circle.
Try to agitate among the most willing to hear new ideas. If it's for Lemmy, agitate in communities opposing Reddit decisions. If it's for communism, do so among disaffected liberals disappointed or outraged by their current conditions and seeking radical change.

I want to say that no amount of development is "wasted," it teaches and changes us into who we are today. We do not exist outside of that context, even if things don't work out the way we want or plan. Hope that helps!

Cowbee [he/they]

General Discussion Thread - Juche 115, Week 9

Social Democrat apologist claims that the German Communists did ‘nothing’ to stop Fascism

General Discussion Thread - Juche 115, Week 9

General Discussion Thread - Juche 115, Week 9

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What are the best places to get theory ebooks that are formatted correctly

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

General Discussion Thread - Juche 115, Week 8

General Discussion Thread - Juche 115, Week 8

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

General Discussion Thread - Juche 115, Week 8

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

YouTube deletes profile of the “Let Cuba Breathe” campaign

YouTube deletes profile of the “Let Cuba Breathe” campaign

Seeking feedback on my new "Basic Course" for Marxism-Leninism

The intro ML reading list I made at the beginning of the year hit 300 upvotes!

Favorite scientific/space podcasts?

Anyone use Matrix, Pixelfed, Mastodon, Funkwhale, Friendica, etc? Recommendations on instances to join?