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As a non communist, should i read the manifesto? (Plus other Marx and Engels stuff) (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by curious_beetle@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I am interested in politics, and even tho i am not a communist, i am interested in what can be learned from it and i also want to learn more about political ideologies as a whole, instead of speaking out of my ass whenever someone mentions communism and potentially say some bullshit. What do you think?

Edit: thanks for all the answers! I swear i read them all, i just don’t know how to answer to each of them, but thanks for all the recommendations!

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[–] pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Honestly, I find almost everyone who reads the Manifesto and nothing else does not understand it at all. It relies on a lot of complicated ideas which it doesn't go into detail on, and the popular English translation also has misleading translation errors. People who read it end up filling in the gaps with preconceptions that they have been primed to interpret it as from liberal society, and thus end up interpreting it in a silly way that is not how it was intended at all.

It is better to start with lengthier, more in-depth works that try to actually build out their worldview, like Critique of the German Ideology, The Poverty of Philosophy, and Anti-Durhing.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago

For a one-and-done, while it's no substitute to dedicated study of in-depth works, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific does a much better job than Manifesto at conveying diamat, histmat, and the underlying process of socialist construction in a digestible way quickly. That's why Marx and Engels themselves noted how effective it was as an agitational pamphlet.