this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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You can't read a revolution into existence, but you can't have a successful revolution without properly preparing for it and studying revolution. You wouldn't want someone to perform surgery just because they want to help, they will almost certainly end up doing more harm than good. Revolution is the same way, we stand against the most brutal global system of imperialism, we must be prepared for it!
If anyone wants a place to start with theory, I wrote a new basic Marxist-Leninist study guide. Give it a look!
I appreciate the effort and I will check it out. However imo the original works (ie Marx, Engels, Lenin) are too dense for a begginer, I feel there has to be a softer learning curve, with more digested content. For example I'm reading the Vietnamese textbook and I think it does a very good job at explaining excerpts of the originals in accessible language. Denser doesn't mean more accurate or better in all cases, just generally harder to read.
The Vietnamese textbook is phenomenal! It doesn't touch the areas my list goes into though, and just focuses on dialectical materialism, historical materialism, and political economy.
Hey, I'm having the same issue with the denser works — what's the name of the vietnamese textbook?
Presumably "The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism"
https://www.lunaoi.com/product/the-worldview-and-philosophical-methodology-of-marxism-leninism-preorder/?sync-done
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Curriculum_of_the_Basic_Principles_of_Marxism-Leninism_Part_1
Thanks.
This is again part of the problem. You can understand the fundamentals of ML in like an hour or less. A quick start guide being like 12 hours long is insane.
I don't think that's accurate, though. How do you explain dialectical materialism, historical materialism, imperialism, why capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable, revolutionary strategy, and more in under an hour?
However else you explain any other concept, these are very simple ideas.
How so? How can you simplify them to take less than an hour?
Explaining it to them without the fluff?
Elaborate, how do you explain all of them in under an hour, even without fluff?
What are you asking for? Like my method of teaching?
I'm asking how you can fit the sheer quantity of raw information, effectively, into an hour. I'm entirely unconvinced that you could do so.
Well okay thats not something I could describe for you without actually doing it, and I’m not finna make an hour long course for you bro
Pick any of the core parts then, and try to accurately break it down into a small enough chunk. Explain dialectical materialism (not even historical materialism) in 5 minutes.
Too lazy
Cool, my latest effort to do so takes around 5-10 minutes to read, but I feel that I'm missing a lot of important factors.
Cringe
You can definitely explain most of those in a way a 5 year old could understand in under 20 minutes.
Not dialectical materialism though. I've read about it and had it explained to me more time than I can count, and my brain refuses to hold on to what it means.
I wrote a basic guide on dialectical materialism. It's missing a ton, but should be enough to hopefully make it make sense to start off with.
Thanks. I'll try it, but I have zero faith it'll stick this time 😅
Haha, no worries! Really, it's about materialism in outlook, dialectics in method. The rest follows from there!
I read it. I've been reading a lot of complex systems science lately, and it seems to have a lot of overlap, so perhaps it will stick a bit harder this time. Thanks :)
No problem, glad it helped!
From a Marxist-Leninist: there are some Marxist authors contesting the emphasis on the "dialectics" part of dialectical materialism. Paul Cockshott is a good example, you can search for Cockshott's criticism of dialectical materialism, maybe if the concepts don't stick to you you could have a more Newtonian materialist view
I had the same problem up in until I had Stalin explain it to me:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm
(It's short, to the point and when one "hence" paragraph after the other comes, you will start to understand)
Alternativly if you're not the reading type:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HAEgTPK-oiU
(Taken from a vietnamese schoolbook)