Reading list

A general reading-list of books and other texts for new revolutionary activists. This was developed initially for students of the Red Spectre Academy.

Unit 1: The Basics

General Socialist Introduction

• Principles of Communism — Friedrich Engels^{(more information)}
• Why Socialism? — Albert Einstein
• On Authority — Friedrich Engels
• Anarchism or Socialism? — Josef Stalin
• The Party Before and After Taking Power — Josef Stalin
• Critical Remarks on the National Question — Vladimir Lenin

Marxist Foundations

• Manifesto of the Communist Party — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

• Socialism: Utopian and Scientific — Friedrich Engels

• The German Ideology — Karl Marx

• Dialectical and Historical Materialism - Josef Stalin^{(reading guide)}

• Critique of the Gotha Program — Karl Marx

• Three Components of Marxism — Vladimir Lenin

• Foundations of Leninism — Josef Stalin^{(more information)}

• Collapse of the Second International — Vladimir Lenin

• Materialism and Empirio-criticism — Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism and the State

• The State and Revolution — Vladimir Lenin

• The Civil War in France — Karl Marx

• Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism — Vladimir Lenin

Economics

• Wage Labor and Capital — Karl Marx

• Value, Price and Profit — Karl Marx

• Capital, Vol I, Ch. 1 — Karl Marx

• The Tax in Kind - Vladimir Lenin

• Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR — Josef Stalin

Political Economy

• Political Economy — Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R
• The Poverty of Philosophy — Karl Marx
• Anti-Dühring - Part II: Political Economy — Friedrich Engels
• A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy — Karl Marx

Organizing/Party Building

• What is to be Done? — Vladimir Lenin

• How a Communist Club Functions — Daniel Rubin^{(audio version)}

• Draft and Explanation of a Program for the Social-Democratic Party — Vladimir Lenin

• The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats — Vladimir Lenin