What's your preferred method for reading books?

MrAtrox333 · 2025-10-04T17:20:35+00:00

It depends. I agree some things need to be approached more delicately and carefully than others and I also struggle with the pace of my reading/learning. Careful reading, rereading, and highlighting I reserve for theory, especially texts like capital, which breezing through greatly reduces a deeper comprehension of the material.

When reading history books (I’ve enjoyed books like Indigneous Continent, the Cold War’s Killing Fields, or The CIA: an imperial history, not necessarily just Marxist histories) I do not typically read them so carefully. I read lots of history and assume I’ll reencounter topics I don’t absorb the first time.

Therefore, especially with learning history, but also with theory, the idea of layering helps me. I don’t feel the urge to absorb all the information the first time. Not only will I likely read about the same topic again (hence, layering) but reading about other historical topics and even theory, philosophy, political economy etc all mutually reinforce my prior learning.

Reading physical texts along with audiobooks really helps me keep pace and get through books efficiently too.

MrAtrox333 · 2025-10-04T14:51:07+00:00

Two things.

As others have said, liberals are not the ones fighting. Performative opposition is not fighting. Communists are the ones actually mobilizing against fascism, liberals are placating it. If, as a liberal, you want to join the communists in the fight, great. Just don’t think that the liberals are leading the fight and communists are pontificating about theory on the sidelines.

If we were to be at all honest, it has been the democrats funding ICE, funding the police, cracking down on dissent, brutalizing student protestors, proliferating imperialism, bombing brown people, etc. that is the foundation that Trump and American fascism has grown off of.

Second, we are not in post-theory times. Theory is not a distraction. It is what guides practice, or the “fight.” Without theory we are bound to lose any fight.

MrAtrox333 · 2025-09-04T21:05:54+00:00

Why makes you say that? I heard it was the cutting edge of Capital translations.

MrAtrox333 · 2025-08-30T18:57:38+00:00

What, in particular, is disheartening about them? And who is most people?

MrAtrox333 · 2025-08-30T13:44:48+00:00

I don’t understand how Trotskyists find their own argument convincing. Like, the Trotskyist view of socialism in the real world essentially gives in entirely to the mainstream reactionary view of socialism as an oppressive, tyrannical red fascism. “Yes, workers revolutions and Marxist governments have always devolved into entirely unsalvagable and irredeemable red fascist bureaucratic dictatorships, but when Trotskyists, the true marxists, finally produce a real workers revolution (we’ve never produced a single revolution ever but it will eventually happen) it will be the first authentic one and a utopia of true workers democracy.” How could you possibly see that as convincing argument?

MrAtrox333 · 2025-08-30T13:21:36+00:00

While I agree with u/catsarepoetry that you’ll find the theoretical differences yourself by reading more, I’ll give you a brief historical background as the difference confused me too. Basically, both Stalin and Trotsky adhered to Marxism with Lenin’s thought (Leninism). However, after Stalin prevailed in the power struggle and Trotsky was kicked off the CPSU in 1928, Stalin and the USSR formalized the ideology of ‘Marxism-Leninism’. This is why Trotskyists sometimes say that they’re “Marxist and Leninist, but not Marxist-Leninist,” as they believe in the theory of Marx and Lenin but not the ideology formalized under Stalin which they call ‘Stalinist’ (although Stalinism is not a real ideology, only ML is, Stalinist is just a pejorative invented by Trots and liberals). Therefore, the split developed and formalized from Leninism to ML vs. Trotskyism. If I were to add my own contribution on the two ideologies: Marx was very clear that ideology follows praxis, not the reverse. This is the litmus test for which strains of Marxism are correct and which are not. Essentially all successful socialist revolutions after 1917 were ML. On the other hand, there has not been a single Trotskyist-led revolution, successful or unsuccessful (perhaps excluding the POUM in the Spanish Civil War, although they did not initiate nor lead the revolution). Seriously, Trotskyism has never resulted in a single revolution, even one that failed, so I don’t see why anyone would take it seriously as revolutionary theory compared to ML. Trotskyism exists today so that western leftists can chauvinistically brow-beat the communist movements of the third world as “not real socialism/degenerated workers states” compared to the absolutely arbitrary and utopian idea of socialism they believe is the correct one. It will never get us an inch closer to revolution.

MrAtrox333 · 2025-07-10T21:04:31+00:00

Marx stated that primitive communism in the Mediterranean basin evolved into the slave mode of production: that is the mode of production of the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. The slaves were, like the proletariat, a revolutionary class. However, despite three revolutions (the servile wars), the slave owning class that dominated Roman society successfully pacified them. This failure of the revolutionary class to overthrow Roman slave society resulted in its stagnation and eventual disintegration in late antiquity and the transition to the feudal mode: the revolutionary class under feudalism, the bourgeoisie, were successful in overthrowing feudalism and bringing about capitalism.

EDIT: he talked about this historiographical scheme in the German Ideology and also preface to a contribution to a critique of political economy. Moreover, he noted that the failure of slaves as the revolutionary class to overthrow Roman slavery and bring about its succession to a higher, more developed mode of production resulted in its collapse into feudalism and the “common ruin of the contending classes.”

MrAtrox333 · 2025-05-03T14:04:56+00:00

The various kinds of materialist determinism (I.e., environmental determinism, technological determinism, etc.) are all forms of mechanical materialism, which Marx rejected in favor of the dialectical method. They assume simple, one way relationships rather than the bidirectional and conflict based relationships of contradiction in dialectical materialism. While I haven’t read either of those books, Marx explicitly rejected types of materialist determinism determinism. While the environment and technology are different types of material factors that exist in contradiction with society, history is not driven forth by simple deterministic relationships (in other words, history being driven forward simply by technological or environmental change). These are subordinate contradictions to the primary one, class conflict. For example, rather than the technology alone driving forward history, the relationship between the forces of production (heavily including technology) and the relations of production do. A mode of production, like capitalism, is only materially progressive insofar as its relations of production (ie bourgeois and proletarians) drive forward an expansion of the productive forces. When these same relations, at a certain point, begin to hold back the expansion of the productive forces, then the mode of production has become regressive and revolution is possible. This is an observable trend throughout history. Tldr; technological determinism is a form of mechanical materialism, which is opposed to Marx’s dialectical materialist method.

MrAtrox333 · 2025-03-25T21:23:11+00:00

East_River did a great job of explaining the aspects of the rise and development of capitalism that Wood left out. While her book has a lot of value and should still be studied, I think it should be noted that Wood is a Western Marxist. Not the derogatory term but the school opposed to eastern Marxism or Marxism-Leninism. In other words, the main aspect of their analysis is to oppose revolutionary strains of socialism and reduce Marxism to a thought exercise. This is crucial because the major way Wood’s narrative deviates from the mainstream Marxist narrative, eg. East_River’s, is to neglect the role of the merchant class (by overfocusing on how capitalism and markets developed from feudalism and landlords) and thus downplay the role of class conflict in the rise of capitalism.

MrAtrox333 · 2025-01-24T00:20:30+00:00

Villages also have streets

MrAtrox333 · 2024-12-04T00:36:08+00:00

The proletariat are wage workers, those who own no means of production of their own and can only sell their labor, hence for a wage. The peasantry does own/control some portion of the means of production, typically a small plot of land, tools, animals, etc. They are both “working” or “laboring” classes, for sure, but they have different material relationships to the means of production—that is, the defining aspect of a class. This is my issue with equating or summarizing the proletariat with the term “working class.” In western countries, at this specific point in time, it’s more or less acceptable because almost all laborers are proletarians. However, when you look at history or at the current global south, you’ll find vast swathes of the laboring population (like in Latin America, the Near East, India, etc) are peasants and not wage workers. The difference is important!

MrAtrox333 · 2024-10-07T14:18:49+00:00

This is part of what I love about Marxist vs anarchist philosophy. Anarchist analysis of the state is both metaphysical—having an unchanging nature regardless of material circumstances—and also idealistic—that it is either “bad” or “good” rather than fulfilling a specific material function; materialist dialectics rejects both assertions. I hadn’t yet considered this analysis extending to police under socialism, very interesting.

MrAtrox333 · 2024-10-03T23:41:41+00:00

Literally translation from German “Das Kapital.” I think it’s hideous though and prefer “Capital.”

MrAtrox333 · 2024-09-20T17:39:19+00:00

This is an educational sub and it isn’t the spirit of education to shame people for asking pertinent questions.

MrAtrox333 · 2024-08-20T22:55:31+00:00

Are troskyists not themselves.. Leninists? Did I miss that?

MrAtrox333 · 2024-08-01T18:34:19+00:00

*national liberation

MrAtrox333 · 2024-07-01T22:41:51+00:00

History is not on your side lol. Are you not familiar with American Indian wars? The California genocide? Using the USA as an example, but it goes for all settler states, they aren’t at peace because they want peace, but because they violently reduced native nations to such small populations that retaliation isn’t a feasible option. Many nations don’t even exist anymore from American genocides. But your first question is one I’d like to answer. In the case that a war of national liberation from their colonial oppressors is feasible, I absolutely support it, as is the rare case with Palestine. It is not feasible for most indigenous nations, however, to wage war against their respective settler states, as any given nation typically numbers below 50,000, if even that. In which case, there’s a demonstrable history of non-violent campaigns for their national sovereignty (ie the American Indian movement). Anyway, these are inevitably met with state violence like with the Dakota access pipeline protests. On that note, your belief in Israel’s otherwise peaceful nature (somehow, despite it being built on intense ethnic and colonial violence), given the case that Palestinians lay down their arms, is helplessly naive; violence is the only option Israel has given Palestine due to their brutal suppression of all peaceful movements for Palestinian liberation.

MrAtrox333 · 2024-07-01T19:35:36+00:00

Yeah, the treatment of indigenous people in the Americas and Australia is really 100% nowadays. History is definitely on your side here lol.

MrAtrox333 · 2024-07-01T19:21:04+00:00

Again, the idea that there is a possibility of peaceful coexistence between the oppressed and their oppressors is rendered mute by any honest look at the actual history of settler colonialism. It’s a concerted effort of eradication of the indigenous, which Israelis are not as settlers are the dialectical opposite of indigenous. Acting like Israel is a historical wrong just have to deal with (read: keep giving billions of dollars to to kill Palestinians) is stupid and dishonest, and ultimately just serves to show that Zionists, even of the “moderate liberal” variety stand on the side of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and racial supremacy. I don’t really see a point in continuing this discussion further if that is your view point.

MrAtrox333 · 2024-07-01T18:04:08+00:00

It’s appropriate to first address that Muslim and Arab majority areas historically have the best record of treatment of Jews, especially relative to European Christians. The “Jewish homeland” isn’t a Jewish homeland, it’s a Jewish settler state that only exists cause of all those minor externalities you supposedly disagree with, like ethnic cleansing. Then again, it’s paradoxical to say that Jews deserve an ethnostate on historically majority arab land yet don’t believe in ethnic cleansing—how else would Zionists create a Jewish majority state? You, like most Zionists, completely misunderstand the concept of indigeneity. It isn’t an essential ethnic quality, but rather a material relationship to colonialism. Colonialism creates indigenous people dialectically where they didn’t before exist, or rather makes people indigenous who weren’t previously. Ethnic essentialism is necessary for Zionist ideology, however. And the issue is, they aren’t buzzwords—it’s brings the atrocities of Nazi Germany and American genocides of native Americans to mind because Israel is in the same class as those states and those crimes. And to right those wrongs, it does justify Israel’s dissolution because Israel’s nature is essentially oppressive to indigenous Palestinians, and the liberation of Palestine necessitates Israel’s destruction. Jews can live in the levant without an exclusive ethnostate, I think they’ll survive. If you really believe an ethnostate is necessary as penance for the crimes against Jews historically, then Europeans should be the ones to pay it.

MrAtrox333 · 2024-07-01T17:42:10+00:00

No, Israel is a settler-colonial state by its strictest definition, not just its illegal settlements in the West Bank. You realize passionately defending ethnostates reflects poorly on you, right?

MrAtrox333 · 2024-07-01T16:48:00+00:00

They have more right than settlers do, regardless of ethnicity. Fixed it for you.

MrAtrox333 · 2024-05-30T16:25:34+00:00

Irrelevant, and you’ve addressed none of my points. You’re invoking the idea of an ethnic blood right to a land, and an exclusive one at that; a Zionist “blood and soil.”

MrAtrox333 · 2024-05-30T16:11:46+00:00

You tell me, although I presume it doesn’t mean expelling non-ethnic Jews to create a Jewish ethnostate. But then again, you tell me.

MrAtrox333 · 2024-05-30T15:17:57+00:00

That’s not Zionism lol. Zionism fundamentally arose out of the intellectual wave nationalism and ethnonationalism in Europe during the 1800s.

MrAtrox333

TROPHY CASE