Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

What Is To Be Done?

Start with Philosopher's Stone, then move on to Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and Order of the Phoenix.

read the first 3 chapters of the conquest of bread and then have the audacity to style your account names after kropotkin

The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State is a work from Engels which is not necessarily complex. It's almost a history text, in fact, and is a fascinating read. Most editions have a preface which goes over the since -corrected 'facts' on which Engels based his conclusions (He was writing just after of the industrial revolution after all).

This work will allow you to draw simple straight lines from historical trends to current phenomena in ways you may have never thought before.

What is the relationship between the monogamous (for the woman, at least) family, private property, and in return the enslavement of women?

I should read it again

I really like Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. It's short and it introduces you to historical materialism very gently by contrast with utopian thinkers. It's 3 chapters from the Anti-Dühring, which follows the same line but much more in depth and I also greatly recommend it.

• Das Capital Volumes 1-3. Core theory on the basic nature of capitalism and familiarity in the core terminology among anti-capitalist nerds. You get to choose whether this counts as 1 or 3.
• Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by our good friend Lenin. Good for understanding the core ideas of imperialism and a verified theoretical extension to Das Kapital.
• Blackshirts and Reds by our good friend Michael Parenti. A good overview of the 20th century that agitates for questioning dominant liberal media narratives on the nature and history of socialist movements.
• Blood in my Eye (George Jackson). Good balance for understanding the internal colonization framework useful for the Black Panthers et al. Valuable for an American perspective in particular as well as challenging your own ideas on what counts as adventurism vs. valuable direct action. Also elucidating on the military-industrial complex and the ties between capitalism and anti-blackness.
• Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink and Blue by comrade Leslie Feinstein. Comrade Feinstein exhibits a model for imperial core organizing that includes liberation struggle, is/was cool as shit, and was a member of a precursor to the PSL.
• Superimperimpeeralism by Michael Hudson. A reasonable political economic argument as to the self-serving nature of US foreign policy, including its international financial and military tools.

Of course there's much more to read and talk about, but these are a good foundation for any imperial core commie.

Edit: Fanon, so hot right now. The Wretched of The Earth is required reading right now.

Edit 2: I made 7 recommendations lol sorry

Yo how did you ask for a reading list and I didn't think to link the one I use??

https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Category:Crit%27s_absolute_beginner_reading_list

Related to Kissinger (US imperialism) or just theory in general?

If the former, Michael Hudson’s Super-Imperialism should be essential reading for every leftist at this point given the recent global events.

If latter, Lenin’s State and Revolution and Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism are a good start.

If you’re into this kind of thing, I’d also suggest Mao’s Selected Works (whom I’ve come to appreciate recently) when it comes to anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggle in the developing world, which fills a gap less developed by the Russian theorists.

For a more recent work, I highly recommend Clara Mattei’s The Capital Order (2021), which is probably one of my favorite books in recent years. This is only her first book, and a sequel is in the work, but I have a feeling that she’ll end up being one of the best theorists of our generation. I am that impressed.

I'm a big fan of Lenin's, What is to be Done?

I'm decently sure I want to start with Reform or Rev and State and Rev, but I'm interested in other suggestions. Also I have been warned away from starting with Kapital lmao

Disclaimer: I've read a ton of theory over the last year.

My recs for an easy intro are Principles of Communism, Blackcoats and Reds, State and Revolution, and of course, the Manifesto(but Engels is easier to read than Marx and the Manifesto is heavy on Marx-speak). Toss in Wage Labor and Capital, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and maybe Reform or Revolution. That will probably give you a well rounded idea of what socialism really is, why we need to be revolutionaries, why the nuclear family is essentially an arm of capitalism, and also you get a sprinkling of what praxis looked like in the past.

These are all shorter books and even if you aren't a heavy reader, I think they are fairly easy to digest, save for Luxemburg and Marx. Parenti is especially easy to read since his stuff is more recent.

Eventually it might also do you some good to read a bit of Mao or Stalin's stuff on Material and Historical Dialectics. It was hard to understand at first for me but the more I worked it out, the easier it was to learn and now I even find myself looking at a lot of things happening around us from a dialectical lens, so to speak.

read wretched of the earth its good, and maybe like the fundamentals of leninism if you are an ML

i just recently finished 'what is to be done' and despite not knowing really anything about late 1800's social democratic movements it made a decent amount of sense to me.

Value price and profit, probably something on social reproduction, revolutionary suicide, what it is to be done, wretched of the earth, state and revolution

Reform or Revolution, State and Revolution, Imperialism:highest stage of capitalism, Wretched of the Earth.

Combat Liberalism is really short if that's any help. Freedom is a Constant Struggle would be timely.

The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics

A Thousand Plateaus

The Birth of the Clinic

Image/Music/Text

Speech and Phenomena

The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures

Speculum of the Other Woman

Epistemology of the Closet

bookmarking this thread so fast.

random, user-friendly, surface level stuff:

Lenin, State and Revolution and April Theses. Imperialism is very good, but it's not user-friendly and I'd just recommend a youtube video on it instead.

Pannekoek, Worker's Councils

Kropotkin, Conquest of Bread

Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent

The fifth book is reader's choice:

Brady, Spirit and Structure of German Fascism

Rodney, How Europe Undeveloped Africa

Klein, Shock Doctrine

Graeber, Debt

Bukharin, ABCs of Communism

Berkman, ABCs of Anarcho-Communism

Peck, Washington's China

Anwar Shaikh's Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises

No matter what anyone says, Capital is an absolute must, if you're time strapped chapter 1 is usually enough to provide immunity to most forms of liberal foolishness

"Anarchism and Other Essays" is a pretty good first read on Anarchism. It's not particularly long, and the language it uses is simple, in a good way.

Principles of communism by Engels, as an introductory/glossary text for marxist jargon.

Next is, Utopian and scientific socialism by Engels

And ultimately, Historical and dialectical materialism by Stalin

I think these 3 books give you the preliminary tools to understand marxism, all of marxist theory is built using the dialectical materialist outlook, so it is fundamental to understand it first before diving into dense works like Capital.

Has no one recommended fucking capital by karl marx????

Like I know it isn't an easy read but it is quintessential no?

Ok there's a few recommendations after a closer look but seriously it is important

Just started a couple days ago, finished ~~Value Price and Profit~~ Wage labour and Capital, VPP is next up. Good listen very basic language if a bit too slow at times for my taste.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

Yeah this thread is definitely going in my bookmarks.

Going to encourage you to read something recent: Health Communism, published by Verso and written by the hosts of the podcast Death Panel. It discusses in detail the role which health status certification plays in the bourgeois management and disciplining of the western proletariat, and has the only contemporary account I'm familiar with of the West German Socialist Patients Collective,.

In addition to what others have said, the first part of the German Ideology is really good. The rest isn't as important unless you want to read 100+ pages of Marx dunking on Stirner.

The Secret Gospel of John is essential reading for anyone interesting in improving/understanding the world we live in.

A very misunderstood piece of theory but even a somewhat flawed understanding of it can illuminate the structures that form both capitalism but human society in general.

One book you have to read is Marx's 18th Brumaire.