Below is a comprehensive, structured reading list that will give you the theoretical grounding needed to answer every question in the ProleWiki application. I am assuming you want coverage across Marxist theory, history, national liberation, gender, decolonization, and modern socialist states.
I have grouped the readings by topic so you can identify which texts correspond to which questions.
CORE MARXIST THEORY (FOUNDATION FOR NEARLY ALL QUESTIONS)
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
- The Communist Manifesto
- Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
- Critique of the Gotha Programme
- The German Ideology (especially the chapters on historical materialism)
- Capital, Volume I (at minimum Parts I–III)
Vladimir Lenin
- What Is To Be Done?
- State and Revolution
- Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
- The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
- Marxism and Revisionism
Joseph Stalin
- Foundations of Leninism
- Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Mao Zedong
- On Practice
- On Contradiction
- On New Democracy
- Selected Works on socialist construction and agrarian revolution
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM (FIRST SET Q1, Q4, SECOND SET Q1)
Primary Texts
- Engels – Dialectics of Nature
- Engels – Anti-Dühring (especially Part I)
- Lenin – Philosophical Notebooks (selections)
Secondary Texts
- George Novack – An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism
- John Bellamy Foster – Marx’s Ecology
POLITICAL CURRENTS, STALIN, MAO, SOCIALIST STATES (FIRST SET Q5–6)
History & Evaluation of Stalin and the USSR
- J. Arch Getty – Origins of the Great Purges
- Domenico Losurdo – Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend
- E. H. Carr – The Bolshevik Revolution (multi-volume)
Mao, China, Vietnam, DPRK, Cuba
- William Hinton – Fanshen; The Great Reversal
- Han Suyin – The Morning Deluge (Mao biography)
- Dongping Han – The Unknown Cultural Revolution
- Che Guevara – On Guerrilla Warfare; Socialism and Man in Cuba
- Ho Chi Minh – Selected Writings
- Charles K. Armstrong – The North Korean Revolution
General Analyses of Socialist Construction
- Ernest Mandel – Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory
- Samir Amin – The Future of Maoism
- Martin Hart-Landsberg – Capitalism on a Ventilator (China discussions)
GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND MARXIST FEMINISM (FIRST SET Q4, SECOND SET Q3, Q4)
Foundational Texts
- Engels – The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
- Alexandra Kollontai – Selected Writings; The Social Basis of the Woman Question
- Evelyn Reed – Woman’s Evolution
- Silvia Federici – Caliban and the Witch (materialist analysis of reproduction)
Gender & Liberation Theory
- Sherry Wolf – Sexuality and Socialism
- Leslie Feinberg – Transgender Warriors (historical materialist, trans-affirming)
- Maya Gonzalez & Jeanne Neton – Communization and the Abolition of Gender
SETTLER COLONIALISM, DECOLONIZATION, LAND BACK (FIRST SET Q7, SECOND SET Q2)
Foundational Anti-Colonial Texts
- V. I. Lenin – Imperialism (essential grounding)
- Frantz Fanon – The Wretched of the Earth
- Amílcar Cabral – Unity and Struggle
- Walter Rodney – How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Settler Colonial Studies
- Patrick Wolfe – Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz – An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
- Nick Estes – Our History Is the Future
National Liberation Movements
- Ho Chi Minh – On National Liberation
- Kwame Nkrumah – Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism
PALESTINE, ANTI-IMPERIALISM, OCTOBER 7 (FIRST SET Q8)
Historical Background & Anti-Imperialist Theory
- Rashid Khalidi – The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine
- Ilan Pappé – The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- Edward Said – The Question of Palestine
- Ghassan Kanafani – Palestine’s Children; On Zionist Literature
Imperialism & Global Power
- Samir Amin – The Law of Worldwide Value
- Vijay Prashad – The Darker Nations; The Poorer Nations
IMPERIALISM, IMF, WORLD BANK, BRI (SECOND SET Q7)
- Lenin – Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
- Rosa Luxemburg – The Accumulation of Capital
- Samir Amin – Imperialism and Unequal Development
- Michael Parenti – Against Empire
- Eric Toussaint – The World Bank: A Critical Primer; Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank
For the Belt and Road Initiative:
- Deborah Brautigam – The Dragon’s Gift (African development context)
- Peter Nolan – Understanding China
PRESSING ISSUES FOR COMMUNISTS IN YOUR COUNTRY (SECOND SET Q5)
Because this depends on your country, theory more than history is helpful:
- Antonio Gramsci – Selections from the Prison Notebooks
- Lenin – Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder
- Jodi Dean – Crowds and Party
GENERAL MARXIST HISTORY & SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS
- David Harvey – A Companion to Marx’s Capital
- Maurice Meisner – Mao’s China and After
- Eric Hobsbawm – The Age of Extremes
- Perry Anderson – Considerations on Western Marxism