Where should I start in philosophy to get to the endgame (Marxism Leninism)?

Where should I start in philosophy to get to the endgame (Marxism Leninism)?

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This is quite a lot of reading to decide to tear off in one chunk - this is a lifetime's work to actually get involved.. I'm not a Leninist, but I am a Marxist, and lucky for you I've been engaged in this project myself for about five years now.

Greeks:
>Presocratic fragments, especially Democritus. Marx's materialism was part of a long running conversation starting with the presocratic thinkers. His PhD was "the Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature" so you might want to know this groundwork to see how it influenced Marx. Also Epicurus, therefore.
> Plato. Just some of the important dialogues. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo, plus Republic.
>Aristotle. Some people reckon Marx was a huge Aristotelian essentialist, others disagree. Read some Aristotle, as much as you can handle -- Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics.
Utopian Socialists etc. (only necessary if you want to really know what Marx was on about; wikipedia pages might just as well do here)
> Saint-Simon
> Fourier
> Proudhon, esp. "The Philosophy of Poverty"
German Idealists
> Kant - read the three Critiques, especially the Critique of Pure Reason. This is important to see where all this business of Idealism was coming from, and what was being done. Kant kind of kicked it off. Note: This is NOT a small task for faint of heart.
> Fichte, Schelling. More of the same.
And finally, and most importantly-- GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL.
>The importance of Hegel can't be underestimated. You don't need to open your mouth and swallow him whole, because reading Hegel is like eating a brick, but I recommend you get as much Hegel as you can.
> Easy mode: The Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit
> Moderate Mode: The Phenomenology of Spirit
> Hard mode: The Lesser, or Encyclopedia Logic
> O SHIT WAT R U DOIN: The Greater Logic/ The Science of Logic. I have read it, and it really was worth the read. Longterm influence on my thinking. That said, holy fuck it's not easy.
> GIVE ME DEUS EX: any other Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right, etc.etc.). Only if you really like Hegelianism and want to know more.
Contemporaries, enemies, anarchists:
> Max Stirner, The Ego and His Own. Marx spent more words rebutting this book than Stirner did writing it, so you can see that it's important to get an understanding of it.
> Bakunin, Kropotkin. Not essential, but good to know what the other lefty thinkers in the Internationale period were saying. I like anarchism, but you'll soon learn that the anarchist big-brains don't really have anything to compare to the Marx-Engels corpus.
> Blanqui, Sorel, etc.

cont.

Hegel is the single most important modern philosopher

The answer is always Plato

The journey to Marx is really long. Not only that, but then you’ve got all the post-Marx bullshit too to deal with.

>mfw only read post marxist literature

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Marx and Engels:
> The Communist Manifesto, obviously. It's not the be-all end-all but its well written, and it is a meaningful building block of Marx's thought.
> Wage Labour and Capital and Value, Price and Profit. These are cut-down pamphlet length explanations. Reading them will get you quite a way to understanding the rudiments of Marx's economy.
> The German Ideology. Huge indepth shitpost about how bad German Idealist philosophy was.
> Critique of the Gotha Programme. Marx getting down to brass tacks and doing a line-by-line attack on a political manifesto of socialdemocracy that he thought failed to cut to the heart of what needed to be done
> Capital, Vol I. This is the main one. Feel free to take big breaks between reading this and anything else.
> Capital, Vols II and III. Really rounds it out and provides an exceedingly comprehensive view of his economics. I'm almost finished Vol III at the moment and I cannot recommend it enough. Just pace yourself. The Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall (and why it does so) is a huge, invaluable concept.
> Theories of Surplus Value. A three-volume set that has been called 'the fourth volume of Capital". Obviously only read this if you're deep into Marxist scholarship.
> A bunch of other Marx -- 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Civil War journalism, etc. Worth reading but only when you get time.
> Engels, The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State. A bit scientifically dated now but the arguments still hold up quite well -- it's a document of attempting to discover, not declaring ultimate truth once and for all.
> Engels, Anti-Duhrung. Philosophy and materialism again.
> Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific. Worth a read, succinct explanation of why Marxism is scientific socialism, how it tries to avoid utopian delusion, etc.

After Marx
> Rosa Luxembourg. Good Marxist thinker, actually wrote economics, The Accumulation of Capital I found quite worth the read.\

cont.

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Lenin, Trotsky, Mao
> Lenin, What is to be Done. This is the book, written I think in 1903, where he lays out elements of what became Leninist strategy -- the newspaper as the scaffolding of the party, the need for political campaigning instead of purely unionist 'economist' struggles.
> Lenin, Capitalism the highest stage of Imperialism. Lenin's analysis of imperialist capitalism, also has long discussion of monopoly forming behaviour and the way capitalism captures the state which is still very very relevant today.
> Lenin, The State and Revolution. Lenin goes into his theory of the state, how it will end up withering away, etc. I see it kind of as an attempt to cozy up to the anarchists during the revolution.
> Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution. How Trotsky saw revolution.
> Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed. How Trotsky thought Stalin ruined everything. Everything!
> Trotsky also wrote a pretty good, big, long history of the Russian Revolution, although obviously it's very friendly on Trotsky and has some passages which boil down to "Trotsky was cool and manly and Stalin from school was a megga ass faggot don't @ me".
> Mao, Four Essays on Philosophy. I'm not anything like a Maoist now, but this was a huge influence on me when I was just starting to get political, before I was active or engaged. "On Practice," "On Contradiction," "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People," and "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?" are all worth a read, and short.

You might also want to consider reading some Marxist Ecology - John Bellamy Foster is the big name in the field.

Also googlle Murray Bookchin. Don't read Bordiga.

Well that's an effortpost I know never to bother with again.See you at the bottom of the catalog!

>Also googlle Murray Bookchin
Welp, there goes all your credibility.