Lenin says that “without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” Taking this lesson seriously, I developed this introductory syllabus on revolutionary Marxist theory for Ithaca DSA’s Marxist Reading Group, which has been meeting for almost a year. The study group’s purpose is to sharpen our theoretical tools and collectively develop the knowledge that we need in order to build a new world. The syllabus provides a background in classical Marxist theory written by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Luxemburg, as well as select pieces by Trotsky, Gramsci, and Mao.
Participants are expected to do around 20 to 30 pages of reading for each session. We meet every other week on Zoom, although we hope to begin meeting in person soon (Covid permitting). This is not like a university class; we read and discuss the theory together, help each other understand it, and apply it to our own lives and political work.
Each session is led by two co-facilitators (rotating each meeting) who facilitate the conversation around discussion questions that they have developed—usually three main questions, ideally referencing specific points in the texts. They will sometimes give brief framing thoughts at the beginning of the session. The final discussion question typically relates the text to our own political work so that we can collectively draw out lessons from it.
Unit One: Classical Marxism (Marx and Engels)
All page numbers here are from the Marx-Engels Reader (2nd edition, edited by Robert C. Tucker) Link to PDF
Week One: Intro to Marx
- (Marx and Engels) The Communist Manifesto (1848) [472-500]
Week Two: Wage Labor and Alienation
- (Marx) Excerpt from Wage Labor and Capital (1847) [203-206]
- (Marx) Excerpt from Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1844) [70-84]
Week Three: Commodity Fetishism
- (Marx) Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 1: Commodities (1867) [302-329]
Week Four: Historical Materialism
- (Marx) “Marx on the History of His Opinions” (1859) [just read the long paragraph on page 4-5]
- (Marx) Theses on Feuerbach (1845) [143-145]
- (Marx) The German Ideology Part 1 (1846) [148-175 and 192-200]
Week Five: History, Anthropology, Proto-Feminism
- (Engels) The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) [734-59]
Week Six: The Paris Commune
- (Marx): The Civil War in France (1871) [625-642]
Week Seven: Scientific Socialism
- (Engels) Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1892) [683-717]
Unit Two: Revolutionary Socialism (Lenin and Luxemburg)
Week Eight: What Is To Be Done?
- (Lenin), What Is To Be Done? (1902) [I heavily excerpted this; I am happy to share the document I made, email me at emptyhands@protonmail.com. Alternatively, you could read this whole piece over the course of multiple sessions.]
Week Nine: Luxemburg’s Critique of Lenin
- (Luxemburg) “Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy” (1904) in The Rosa Luxemburg Reader (edited by Peter Hudis & Kevin B. Anderson)[248-65]
Week Ten: The Mass Strike
- (Luxemburg) “The Mass Strike,” (1906), excerpts in The Rosa Luxemburg Reader [168-99]
Week Eleven: Reform or Revolution, Part One
- (Luxemburg) Reform or Revolution (1899), excerpts in The Rosa Luxemburg Reader [128-46]
Week Twelve: Reform or Revolution, Part Two
- (Luxemburg) Reform or Revolution (1899), excerpts in The Rosa Luxemburg Reader [146-67]
Week Thirteen: The State and Revolution, Part One
- (Lenin) The State and Revolution (1917), Chapter 1, Chapter 2 (only section 3), Chapter 3 (section two and short part of section 5, beginning “Marx deduced from the whole history of socialism… and ending with “confirm Marx’s brilliant historical analysis) [email me at emptyhands@protonmail.com for the document I made with these excerpts]
Week Fourteen: The State and Revolution, Part Two
- (Lenin) The State and Revolution (1917), Chapter 5 “The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State”
Week Fifteen (Optional): Discussing DSA’s National Political Platform
- DSA Political Platform (2021) https://www.dsausa.org/dsa-political-platform-from-2021-convention/
Unit Three: Mini-Unit on Socialist Strategy (Trotsky, Gramsci, and Mao)
Week Sixteen: The Transitional Program
- (Trotsky) Excerpts from “The Transitional Program” (1938)
Week Seventeen: Hegemony and the Role of Intellectuals
- (Gramsci) “The Study of Philosophy and of Historical Materialism” [58-75]
- (Gramsci) “The Formation of Intellectuals” [118-25] (page numbers from The Modern Prince & Other Writings)
Week Eighteen: The Mass Line
- (Mao) Quotations from Mao Tse-Tung, “Chapter 11: The Mass Line”
- (Liberation Road) “The Mass Line: What It Is and How to Use It”
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