How many of you have read books by Marxist authors?

[Laika]

Ok. let's face it. RF is over-run by pinkos and reds, and I have a list of 50 Soviet agents operating here on the forum built on heresay and rumour to prove it!

Only joking comrades.

I started a poll to find out how many people have read books by marxist authors. By this I mean anything ranging from a one off like reading the Communist Manifesto in your young, student radical days when it was deliciously subversive or maybe you've more read widely accross various authors and topics.

This isn't necessarily a reflection on whether you agree with them, simply where you have actually read them and have some familarity with them. I have tried to pick authors who will be more familiar but left an extra box for less common ones. (multiple choice is allowed). If there are enough responses, it may be intresting to see which authors have been read more than others.

Of the major ones listed, I haven't read Che Guevara (but have glanced at his motorcyle diaries once) but have read Karl Kautsky, Kim Jong il, Gorbachev and quite a few others over the years- though a handful of books by obscure authors have proven really useful.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I once owned the complete collected works of Lenin plus a substantial number of books and articles by the likes of Marx, Engels, Feuerbach, Kautsky, Luxembourg, Trotsky, Bukharin, Preobrazhensky, Shachtman, Novack and, of course, two little red books - one with quotations from Mao and the other with songs from the Wobblies. Heck, I've even read Das Kapital (in English of course).

 

[Jumi]

I have read some, including Lenin. I've gladly forgotten most of it though. I have some books from the Soviet Union on theory of science, they are really Marxist thought instead of being about science.

 

[Tumah]

I read a lot of books, but how am I supposed to know if the author is Marxist if its not a book on socio-economics?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I certainly have not read everything by every one of those I marked (Marx/Engles, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Che). And some things were excerpts rather the entire works. A number of books about Marxism that extensively quote from many of the above, and others. I did read several works by Kropotkin and some other anarcho-syndicalists and non-statist types.

 

[Laika]

I read a lot of books, but how am I supposed to know if the author is Marxist if its not a book on socio-economics?

If it's published after the 1930's it will be fairly obvious as Marxism was codified under Stalin and a propagandistic official style was adopted. So there will be lots of mention of phrases like; class struggle, productive forces, property or production relations, base and superstructure, mode of production, dialectical materialism, historical materialism, bourgeoisie/capitalist, proletariat, etc. Marxists have their own set of terminology which gives it away fairly quickly and were required to use it to demonstrate ideological orthodoxy to their respective communist parties. Certain publishers are also a dead give away: in the UK Lawrence and wishart ltd was part of the Communist Press, and the left book club in the 1930's and 1940's featured communist authors.

(If you know what you're looking for, You can actually read a text without those clues and figure out if it's Marxist too as in its most philosophical forms it produces distinct thought patterns built on the use of dialectics and materialism and certain key ideas which are unique to it. These are very unusual in non-Marxist writers so It has a sort of intellectual signature.)

Marxist books written before that time and from more unorthodox western Marxist traditions not related to communist governments like Stalin or Mao will be less obvious but generally better written. So they are harder to spot.

 

[YmirGF]

I read enough until my eyes were crossed.... It took ages for my vision to get back to normal.

 

[Laika]

I once owned the complete collected works of Lenin plus a substantial number of books and articles by the likes of Marx, Engels, Feuerbach, Kautsky, Luxembourg, Trotsky, Bukharin, Preobrazhensky, Shachtman, Novack and, of course, two little red books - one with quotations from Mao and the other with songs from the Wobblies. Heck, I've even read Das Kapital (in English of course).

A Very impressive list. I had to look up Preborahensky and Novak.

Lenin, Marx and Mao are the only one's i've read that are marxist.
Proud owner of a little red book though

I am still yet to own a copy of the little red book so I'll try not to be too envious.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

A Very impressive list. I had to look up Preborahensky and Novak.

The former dealt with the NEP and, to the best of my recollection, I barely understood it. Folks like Novak and Shachtman were fairly well known within the fractious Trotskyite world of young anti-Stalinist radicals.

I am still yet to own a copy of the little red book so I'll try not to be too envious.

Which one?

Sadly, I gave away all of these books and pamphlets decades ago.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

We have probably all read books written by Marxists.
Mainstream Authors are often to the left in politics, and quite a few have flirted with Marxism.
However I have never read a book because it was by a marxist.

 

[Laika]

The former dealt with the NEP and, to the best of my recollection, I barely understood it. Folks like Novak and Shachtman were fairly well known within the fractious Trotskyite world of young anti-Stalinist radicals.

Which one?

Sadly, I gave away all of these books and pamphlets decades ago.

Mao's little Red Book. I have read bits of it on Marxists internet Archive but don't have a copy myself.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I was amused, in my younger days--and I really don't know what the truth of the matter is--but the John Birchers and others in the 1960s-70s kept quoting things "right out of Lenin" and/or Stalin about the aims of the Soviet Union and their efforts to infiltrate and undermine the US. I remember readings someone who was supposed to be an expert who noted that if you put all the Bircher quotes together, it would be somewhat longer than all the actual materials written by Lenin and Stalin...I'm doubtful about that...but I could never find any of the quotes the JBS attributed to L/S...

 

[metis]

Beside "The Communist Manifesto", I have read two other books, one by a priest who was eventually murdered in South America probably because he was actively for "liberation theology", and also a book written by modern-day Marxist economist Richard Wolff entitled "Capitalism Hits the Fan", which is an excellent book, btw.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I voted for all the options just to screw up your poll. You're welcome.