FROM MARX TO MAO

A Reading Guide

The following Reading Guide is only an initial attempt at beginning to organize many of
the texts scattered among the various "Collections" into broad topical areas. It is my hope
that this may assist not only readers who are unfamiliar with the basic texts of Scientific
Socialism and the Communist movement, but those who have gone beyond the basics and
wish to deepen their knowledge of specific areas. Needless to say, these "topical areas" do
not exhaust the subject matter contained in the Collections, nor are they exclusive of each
other. As always, your comments, suggestions, and criticisms are always welcome, and most
especially in regard to developing this Reading Guide.

• Basics for Beginners

• The Agrarian Question
• The Communist International
• The National Question
• The National and Colonial Questions
• Issues of Organization
• Political Economy
• The Economics and Politics of Imperialism
• Socialism
• The State
• Strategy and Tactics

Texts followed by (*) indicate that Netscape 2.0 or higher should be used.

Basics for Beginners:

The following texts are recommended to for those who have very little, or, in this day and
age of reaction, absolutely no, familiarity of with the basic tenets of Scientific Socialism.
Most of these texts offer broad brush strokes, and others provide a little more detail. This
material is barely the "tip of the iceberg" and only include texts contained in this website.

Historical/Intellectual Background
Engels:
• Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880) (210k)
Lenin:
• Frederick Engels (1895) (38k)
• The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (1913) (17k)

The Materialist View of History

Marx and Engels:
• Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) (168k)
Lenin:
• Karl Marx (A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism) (1914) (127k)
• What the "Friends of the People" Are (1894) (Part I) (287k)
Stalin:
• Anarchism or Socialism? (1907) (194k)

Political Economy
Marx:
• Wages, Price and Profit (1865)

The State
Lenin:
• The State (1919) (48k)
• The State and Revolution (1917) (292k)

Dialectics
Lenin:
• On the Question of Dialectics (1915) (16k)
Mao:
• On Practice (1937) (44k)
• On Contradiction (1937) (106k)

Socialism
Marx:
• Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875) (includes letters by Engels) (159k)
Lenin:
• Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1919) (30k)
 Mao:
• On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (1957) (105k)

The Agrarian Question:

Lenin:
• The Economic Content of Narodism (1894) (463k)
• The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899) (1.9MB)
• Capitalism in Agriculture (1899) (138k)
• The Agrarian Question and the "Critics of Marx" (1901) (350k) (*)
• The Agrarian Programme of Russian Social-Democracy (1902) (123k)
• The Agrarian Question and the "Critics of Marx" (1907) [cont. from 1901] (139k)
• The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-07
(1907) (605k)
• The Agrarian Question in Russia Towards the Close of the Nineteenth Century (1908) (236k)
• The Capitalist System and Modern Agriculture (1910) (64k)
• New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture. Part
One. Lenin/Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America (1915) (270k)
• Preliminary Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question. For the Second Congress of the
Communist International (1920) (34k)
Stalin:
• The Agrarian Question (1906) (33k)

The Communist International:

Lenin:
• First Congress of the Communist International (1919) (65k)
• The Third International and Its Place in History (1919) (P) (24k)
• Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions. For the Second
Congress of the Communist International (1920) (25k)
• Preliminary Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question. For the Second Congress of the
Communist International (1920) (34k)
• Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Communist International (1920) (52k)
• The Terms of Admission into the Communist International (1920) (27k)
• The Second Congress of the Communist International (1920) (125k)
• Third Congress of the Communist International (1921) (128k)
• Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922) (44k)

The National Question:

Stalin:
• Marxism and the National Question (1912) (164k)
 Lenin:
• Critical Remarks on the National Question (1913) (114k)
• Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914) (167k)
• The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (Thesis) (1916) (44k)
• The Junius Pamphlet (1916) (42k)
• The Discussion of Self-Determination Summed Up (1916) (111k)

The National and Colonial Questions:

Lenin:
• Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions. For the Second
Congress of the Communist International (1920) (25k)
• The Second Congress of the Communist International (1920) (125k)
Stalin:
• Concerning the Presentation of the National Question (1921) (18k)
• The Prospects of the Revolution in China (1926) (OTO) (37k)
• Questions of the Chinese Revolution (1927) (OTO) (23k)
• Talks with Students of the Sun Yat-Sen University (1927) (OTO) (60k)
• The Revolution in China and the Tasks of the Comintern (1927) (OTO) (64k)
• The National Question and Leninism (1929) (49k)

Organizational Issues:
Lenin:
• Where to Begin? (1901) (31k)
• What Is To Be Done? (1902) (543k)
• A Letter to a Comrade on Our Organizational Tasks (1902) (51k)
• One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (The Crisis in Our Party ) (1904) (598k)
• Notes of a Publicist (1910) (169k)
• The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party Stuggle in Russia (1910) (56k)
Stalin:
• A Reply to Social-Democrat (1905) (37k)
Mao:
• On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party (1929) (35k)
Comintern:
• Thesis on the Organization of the Communist Parties (1921) (92k)

Politcal Economy:
 Marx:
• Wages, Price and Profit (1865)
• Capital, Vol. II (*) (1885)
Lenin:
• A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism (1897) (376k)
• A Note on the Question of the Market Theory (1898) (31k)
• Once More on the Theory of Realization (1899) (62k)
• Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) (317k) (*)

The Economics and Politics of Imperialism:

Lenin:
• The Collapse of the Second International (1915) (150k)
• Socialism and War (1915) (131k)
• Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) (317k) (*)
• The Nascent Trend of Imperialist Economism (1916) (45k)
• Reply to P. Kievsky (Y. Pyatakov) (1916) (19k)
• A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism (1916) (141k)
• Imperialism and the Split in Socialism (1916) (45k)

Socialism:
Marx:
• Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875) (includes letters by Engels) (159k)
Lenin:
• On the Slogan of a United States of Europe (1915) (12k)
• The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution (1916) (43k)
• "Left-Wing" Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality (1918) (81k)
• Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1919) (30k)
Mao:
• On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (1957) (105k)

The State:
Lenin:
• The State and Revolution (1917) (292k)
• The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1918) (286k)
• A Contribution to the History of the Question of the Dictatorship (1920) (68k)
 Strategy and Tactics:
Politics
Lenin:
• The Agrarian Programme of Russian Social-Democracy (1902) (123k)
• Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution (1905) (347k)
• On the Two Lines of the Revolution (1915) (17k)
• Letters from Afar (1917) (139k)
• The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution [Lenin's "April Theses"] (1917) (24k)
• Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? (1917) (130k)
• "Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder (1920) (P) (266k)
Stalin:
• The Provisional Revolutionary Government and Social-Democracy (1905) (46k)
• Concerning The Question of the Strategy and Tactics of the Russian Communists (1923) (48k)
• "Strategy and Tactics" from The Foundations of Leninism (1924)
Mao:
• On New Democracy (1940) (132k)
• On Coalition Government (1945) (187k)

"Politics by Other Means"

Lenin:
• The Dissoultion of the Duma and the Tasks of the Proletariat (1906) (60k)
• Marxism and Insurrection (1917) (26k)
• Advice of an Onlooker (1917) (9k)
Stalin:
• Marx and Engels on Insurrection (1906) (15k)
Mao:
• Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War (1936) (218k)
• Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan (1938) (99k)
• On Protracted War (1938) (236k)
• Problems of War and Strategy (1938) (49k)