Here are some more foundational writings for people looking into Marxism for the first time. It is not intended as a substitute for a thorough study of Marxist writings, biographies and group discussions but you may find them educating and enlightening.
1845: Theses on Feuerbach
1846: [A Critique of] the German Ideology
1847: Principles of Communism
1848: The Communist Manifesto
1849: Wage-Labor and Capital
1859: Preface to Contribution to critique of political economy
1867: Capital, Chapter One
1871: The Civil War in France
1875: Critique of the Gotha Program
1880: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
1884: Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State
1886: Ludwig Feuerbach
According to Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution, there are Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: materialist philosophy, critique of political economy and socialist politics.
Marx’s philosophy.
Just at the beginning of his political career, the following two works were written by Karl Marx, the founder of modern communism:
- Theses on Feuerbach, Marx’s philosophy in eleven short points.
- Idealism and Materialism from The German Ideology, an outline of Marx’s approach to history.
35 years later, Engels, Marx’s life-long collaborator, wrote Socialism: Utopian and Scientific in an effort to popularise Marx’s ideas.
- Chapter one: Utopian Socialism. An outline of Marx’s critique of utopian socialism.
- Chapter two: Dialectics. An outline of Marx’s critique of Hegel.
- Chapter three: Historical Materialism. An outline of Marx’s approach to history.
Marx’s Critique of Political Economy.
Value, Price and Profit is a speech Marx gave to leaders of the International Workingmen’s Association in 1865 which explains how he saw the workings of capitalism. But as mentioned elsewhere you should also try to read the Chapter 1 of Capital, Marx’s major book or even the rest of it if you have the time.
Marx’s Politics.
This is a speech by Marx on the Paris Commune (the first workers’ revolution in history), when workers seized control of Paris in 1871: The Paris Commune (chapter 5 from his book, Civil War in France).
And you absolutely must read The Communist Manifesto, the main document stating the principles of Marxism, published in 1848.
You may want to continue your studies by reading the biographies and main works of these writers:
- Marx and Engels works by date
- Marx and Engels works by subject
- Paul Lafargue
- Karl Kautsky
- Clara Zetkin
- Nikolai Bukharin (especially his ABC of Communism)
- Lenin works by date
- Lenin selected works
- José Carlos Mariátegui
- Paul Mattick
- George Padmore
- CLR James
- M. N. Roy
- Antonio Gramsci
- Che Guevara
- Georg Lukács
- Rosa Luxemburg
- Alexandra Kollontai
- James Connolly
- Fidel Castro
- Georgi Dimitrov
or browse the wide variety of Marxists and other revolutionaries listed on the Marxists Internet Archive Library which lists hundreds of Marxists who have worked at different times, in different countries and with different principles.
Many Marxists were involved in the beginnings of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and you can read more in our Subject Section on Women and Marxism. You can read more on many other topics in the Subject Section, or browse terms in the Encyclopedia of Marxism.