Curso Básico de Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoísmo

Colorful Classics #1

by Communist Party of India (Maoist)

This document is written by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and is used as a study guide for their cadre. It is an exemplary summary and outline of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the history of the International Communist Movement.

Genres: Theory, History, Politics, Nonfiction, India, Philosophy

256 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Hazel · Rating 2 out of 5]

More a truncated biography of Marx, Lenin and Mao than a helpful introduction to their thought. Riddled with minor factual errors and written in extremely off-putting ML vernacular, this was clearly written to induct new members into a certain discursive style rather than to train effective revolutionaries. Helpful for understanding Maoists, not so helpful for understanding Mao or Maoism.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely going to be using this for reference, a great starting point to give one historical, political, and social contexts to the lives and work of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

[celestine · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent enough history/general overview of Marxist-Leninist thought (though apparently considering another review from Michael‘ on this page, maybe not) that comes crashing down in its chapters on Mao and the post-Mao era. Truly embarrassing lack of material analysis and you can see the words plain as day contradicting statements made about ML philosophy just a few chapters earlier. The final two chapters are especially garbage. I was feeling mostly good about this book for the majority of it as a nice little primer on Leninism and the history of the communist movement until the last 30 pages or so; those were so bad it took everything in me not to give the book one star.

Just to give an idea of the sloppiness of its final moments, in the last chapter it praises Vietnam’s Revolution as if it was a Maoist one, or at least inspired by Mao, then mere pages later denounces Vietnam as a puppet of Soviet social-imperialism because of their (my note: justified) invasion of Khmer Rouge-controlled Kampuchea. They suggest that Democratic Kampuchea was the last successful communist revolution, a regime led by “genuine communist revolutionaries”! In the same vein, in the same chapter they praise the rise of the “anti-American Islamic Republic” of Iran in 1979 and the Afghan war against the “Soviet social-imperialists”, while at the same time trying to denounce the Three Worlds theory put forward by the “Deng revisionists, through Hua Guofeng”!

In the second-to-last chapter, on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, they ignore or leave out facts that make their succinct “analysis” of it inconvenient (like, for example, choosing not to explain that Deng was reinstated by Mao himself in 1975, instead choosing to imply that it was because of Deng’s capitalist-revisionist supporters) or otherwise leave out key details that make their review of the period confusing at best. And there’s the rub with most Maoist analysis of China’s “Thermidor”: it’s consistently rigidly dogmatic, and lacking in specific detail that is a requirement of anything proposing to call itself “scientific”. And in my opinion it’s much closer to typical immaterialist anarchist analyses than Marxist ones. They start off from the point of polemic statements made under the GPCR by the party, of bourgeois capitalist revisionists within the party, and go from there. “GPCR Mao said in a statement that there are capitalist roaders in the party so there must be.” No further investigation necessary. There’s no real Marxist thought involved here. No historical materialism, no dialectical materialism. No contradiction analysis that they earlier praise as one of the advancements of Marxist theory put forward by Mao. No level headed review of how some Marxists think developing the productive forces is the right course after socialism takes power and other Marxists disagree, no. Just dogmatic invective. And thus, “you are not a Marxist if you don’t support this correct analysis of the GPCR” (which is literally their concluding statement of that chapter).

If this is the idea of the basic course on Leninism for their cadres, yikes. But it makes Maoism as adventurist leftism with a shit understanding of dialectics and scientific socialism make more sense. What they say is scientific socialism here is really just Maoist dogma.

[dante]

more a concise, summarized history of socialist revolutionary struggle and the lives of marx, lenin, stalin and mao than a basic course on the theory and science brought forth by them, yet still worth a read and insightful. the concise breakdown of mao's work on dialectics and contradictions might be the most useful part of this little book, though.

[Michael’ · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I don’t cite a source, it’s from the Basic Course.

“The socioeconomic changes of that time provided the basis for the emergence of the true proletarian ideology.”
P. 37

As opposed to all the fake proletarian ideologies. Don’t dare think, the other “ideologies” are not the “true” one. Also, what is the Marxist definition of “ideology in general”, as Engels put it? “ideology amounts either to a distorted conception of this history or to a complete abstraction from it.” But the Maoists have the “true” “distorted conception”. What an achievement!
[Marx, Engels, Weydemeyer & Hess. Critique of Modern German Philosophy According to Its Representatives Feuerbach, B. Bauer and Stirner, and of German Socialism According to Its Various Prophets. Part. I: Feuerbach. Section A. Idealism and Materialism. Subsection The Illusions of German Ideology. Subsubsection. 1: Ideology in General, and Especially German Philosophy]

“Our platform demands from society, by means of the general duty to work, the satisfaction of all reasonable human needs. Our opponents want us to elaborate clearly the “practical consequences” of that idea. They don’t like our negative and critical attitude. We should build up and show “how it could be done” – of course, not in a serious, not in a palpable and practical way, but on paper, by means of harmless theories and ideal descriptions. They fail to recognize that our method is not purely ideological.”
Dietzgen. Social-Democratic Philosophy. Part. III

“Any ideology has to have its grounding in some philosophy and both Marx and Engels, as we have seen, had a strong base in German classical philosophy.”
P. 37

“With all philosophers it is precisely the ‘system’ which is perishable; and for the simple reason that it springs from an imperishable desire of the human mind — the desire to overcome all contradictions. But if all contradictions are once and for all disposed of, we shall have arrived at so-called absolute truth — world history will be at an end. And yet it has to continue, although there is nothing left for it to do — hence, a new, insoluble contradiction. As soon as we have once realized — and in the long run no one has helped us to realize it more than Hegel himself — that the task of philosophy thus stated means nothing but the task that a single philosopher should accomplish that which can only be accomplished by the entire human race in its progressive development — as soon as we realize that, there is an end to all philosophy in the hitherto accepted sense of the word. One leaves alone ‘absolute truth’, which is unattainable along this path or by any single individual; instead, one pursues attainable relative truths along the path of the positive sciences, and the summation of their results by means of dialectical thinking. At any rate, with Hegel philosophy comes to an end”
Engels. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Part. 1

“modern materialism is essentially dialectic, and no longer requires the assistance of that sort of philosophy which, queen-like, pretended to rule the remaining mob of sciences. As soon as each special science is bound to make clear its position in the great totality of things and of our knowledge of things, a special science dealing with this totality is superfluous or unnecessary. That which still survives of all earlier philosophy is the science of thought and its law — formal logic and dialectics. Everything else is subsumed in the positive science of Nature and history.”
Engels. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Part. II: Dialectics

“philosophy could not escape the universal law of movement and mutability, and it has undergone such changes that it is a great question whether, like modern Christianity, the new thing should retain its old name for reasons of expediency, or should get a new name to match. Social-democracy has decided against ‘religion,’ and I am now pleading that we decide against philosophy too. Only for the period of transition do we use the expression ‘Social-democratic philosophy.’ In the future we shall probably speak of dialectics or of the general doctrine of knowledge.”
Dietzgen. Social-Democratic Philosophy. Part. II

“Thus, the ‘method’ is pointed out to us to be the distinguishing mark between Philosophy and the special branches of science. Now, the speculative method of Philosophy is nothing but a stupid questioning and groping in hazy generalities. The philosopher, having no material to work upon, tries to evolve his speculative wisdom from his head like the spider its web from its hind-parts! Nay, the philosopher goes even farther than that, he refuses all material and given premises. His philosophic fabrics have thus less of a real connection than the cobwebs of the spider.”
Dietzgen. Social-Democratic Philosophy. Part. III

“To be sure no man can do without some conception of world and life, but that of Philosophy is of a kind which is utterly useless.”
Dietzgen. Social-Democratic Philosophy. Part. IV

As Dietzgen put it, all thinking can be divided into two, that which deals with the metaphysical, beyond reality, and about which, consequently, nothing can be known, and that which deals with that for which we have concepts and factual material, which can be done better by science, only assisted by proper understanding of the laws of thinking, rather than by philosophy.

“the German Middle classes”, “having many civil servants, had many contradictory aspects. It sometimes leaned to the industrial bourgeoisie and proletariat on the one side and sometimes to the feudal classes on the other. This was thus reflected in German philosophy having both a progressive as well as an anti-progressive aspect. This was particularly seen in Hegel’s philosophy upon which Marx and Engels largely based themselves. They therefore rejected all the anti-progressive aspects that upheld the existing feudal society and developed upon the progressive and revolutionary parts to lay the foundations of Marxist philosophy.”
P. 38

Did they? Or did they not just arbitrarily throw out the conservative stuff but develop it in a creative way?

Engels agreed with Hegel that “All that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real.”
[Hegel as quoted in Engels. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Part 1: Hegel] He did not just “reject” the “anti-progressive aspects” merely in the base that they are conservative. He actually accepted these parts but believed they led to different conclusions in the current period.

“For it [dialectical philosophy], nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher. And dialectical philosophy itself is nothing more than the mere reflection of this process in the thinking brain. It has, of course, also a conservative side; it recognizes that definite stages of knowledge and society are justified for their time and circumstances; but only so far. The conservatism of this mode of outlook is relative; its revolutionary character is absolute — the only absolute dialectical philosophy admits.”
[Engels. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Part 1: Hegel]
Again, the conservative “aspects” are not “rejected” but fully embraced.

The method of Hegel, Marx and Engels was substation:
“sublation and what is sublated, this is one of the most important notions of philosophy, a ground-form which repeats itself always and everywhere, the sense of which is to be exactly apprehended and particularly distinguished from the Nothing (negation). What sublates itself, does not, on that account, become nothing. Nothing is the immediate; what is sublated, on the other hand, is a mediate, it is a non-beënt — but as result — which set out from a being : it has, therefore, the definite particularity from which it derives still IN itself.
Aufheben, To sublate, has two senses, now signifying as much as to preserve, maintain, and again as much as to cause to cease, to make an end of. Even preserving includes the negative in it — this negative, that something, in order to be conserved is removed or withdrawn from its immediacy, from an existency open to external influences. What is sublated or resolved is thus, at the same time, preserved”
[Hegel (1831). Science of Logic. P. 243. Translated by James Hutchison Stirling (1898)]

“One way of understanding Hegel’s usage here is to think of ‘sublation’ as figuring in the kind of philosophical conversation in which one might say to an interlocutor, ‘Your claim, X, is, as you have phrased it, not right; but if we reformulate it as, say, X*, we can preserve the main point of your idea without having to buy into all of its problems.’”
[Hegel (1807). The Phenomenology of Spirit. Translator’s Note. P. XL. Translated by Terry Pinkard (2018)]

“Furthermore, the very attempt to define how a philo­sophical work is supposed to be connected with other efforts to deal with the same subject-matter drags in an extraneous concern, and what is really important for the cognition of the truth is obscured. The more conventional opinion gets fixated on the antithesis of truth and falsity, the more it tends to expect a given philosophical system to be either accepted or con­tradicted ; and hence it finds only acceptance or rejection. It does not comprehend the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive unfolding of truth, but rather sees in it simple disagreements.”
[Hegel (1807). Phenomenology of Spirit. §2. Translated by Miller (1976)]

Hegel’s big point was that you don’t have to, in fact, could not simply reject earlier philosophy if you want to build a new system. You have to develop what they left you creatively, not just reject what you don’t like. This Maoism textbook gives the impression that Marx & Engels rejected conservative conclusions of earlier thinkers merely because they had picked a goal an found this thought does not help them “progress” towards it. They actually concluded what was progressive based on the system they developed from earlier thought, not the other way around.

“as soon as a new class arose out of the German bourgeoisie in the course of economic development and entered into the class struggle, that is the proletariat, then it was natural that this new class tried to fight once again with its feet on the ground, and that it accordingly approached its maternal inheritance with some reservation, taking the revolutionary content from bourgeois philosophy, but discarding its reactionary form.”
Mehring. On Historical Materialism
Again, Marxists fully embrace the “content” of earlier bourgeois thought. It leads us to different conclusions. Our system takes a different “form”.

“Thus, for example, Ricardo, though he developed the labour theory of value, did not expose the exploitation of labour by the capitalist class. This was done by Marx.”
P. 39

“The produce of the earth—all that is derived from its surface by the united application of labour, machinery, and capital, is divided among three classes of the community; namely the proprietor of the land, the owner of the stock or capital necessary for its cultivation, and the labourers by whose industry it is cultivated.”
Ricardo (1817). On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. P. 1

“And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists, the economic anatomy of classes.”
Marx. Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels Collected Works, Volume 39: Marx and Engels 1852-1855. P. 62 (also quoted by Lenin, The State And Revolution. Chapter II: The Experience of 1848-51. Section 3: The Presentation of the Question by Marx in 1852)

“English Political Economy was the second important source of Marxism. As England was the centre of the Industrial Revolution, it was only natural that the study of the economy and its laws should reach its peak in this country. It was a new field of study, which basically started with the growth of modern capitalism.”
P. 38

Dühring wrote that “economic science” is “an enormously modern phenomenon”.[Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie. P. 12 as quoted in Anti-Dühring. Part II: Political economy. Chapter X: From Kritische Geschichte] To which Engels responded “In fact, Marx says in Capital”: “Political economy ... as an independent science, first sprang into being during the period of manufacture”[Engels. Anti-Dühring. Part II: Political economy. Chapter X: From Kritische Geschichte]

“In England its period started with the publication in 1776 of the world famous book, The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith.”
P. 39

“over a century and a half by classical political economy, dates from William Petty in Britain and Boisguillebert in France, and ending with Ricardo in Britain and Sismondi in France”
[Marx. Critique of Political Economy. Chapter 1]

“Locke and North gave us proof of how the first bold strokes which Petty dealt in almost every sphere of political economy were taken up one by one by his English successors and further developed. The traces of this process during the period 1691 [NOT 1776!] to 1752 are obvious even to the most superficial observer from the very fact that all the more important economic writings of that time start from Petty, either positively or negatively. That period, which abounded in original thinkers, is therefore the most important for the investigation of the gradual genesis of political economy.”
[Engels. Anti-Dühring. Part II: Political economy. Chapter X: From Kritische Geschichte]

I already grew tired of this festering heap of nonsense. You’ll have to debunk the rest of this yourself. Debunking even these few pages took me some hours since I had to find all the quotes. Use some critical thinking, folks.

[Alex Quintero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Resum acceptable de la història del moviment comunista internacional. Tot i que a l’inici defineixi alguns conceptes teòrics bàsics del marxisme de forma senzilla i encertada, la major part del llibre es centra en els pensaments polítics i filosòfics de Marx, Lenin, Stalin i Mao, els quals desenvolupa superficialment mitjançant les seves respectives biografies i els esdeveniments revolucionaris històrics més importants de l’Europa occidental, Rússia i Xina.

A partir de la meitat, però, els autors s’aferren al dogma estalinista com a única via revolucionària veritable. A partir d’aquest punt, el llibre deixa de ser una eina de formació rigorosa per convertir-se en una dèria propagandística: per exemple, tendeix a calumniar i ridiculitzar als adversaris polítics de la línia ortodoxa del MLM -menxevics, opositors d’esquerres, trotskistes, khrusxovistes, pragmàtics xinesos, etc.- en comptes d’analitzar de forma crítica les seves postures i tractar de defenestrar-los amb arguments racionals. L’últim capítol, sobre les lluites d’alliberament nacional, conté frases que directament provocarien vergonya aliena a qualsevol comunista amb dos dits de front. Aquest tuf fanàtic fa que el llibre perdi seriositat i credibilitat i estigui lluny d’allò que diu ser, una guia d’estudi.

[Nikos · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book gives a really great outline of the formation of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism and impressively connects the history of the working class with the developments of these theories. The theoretical weaknesses of the last four to five chapters (of the in total 32 chapters) damage the book's hitherto properly written history of the development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to some extent. Pointing out the progressive traits and characters of Napoleons Coalition Wars in one of the earlier chapters only to then resolutely oppose the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan just simply does not fit together in my head. This feeling becomes even more estranged when reading the paragraphs glorifying the Khmer Rouge or framing the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as success without mentioning in one way or another what constitutes this success apart from the anti-American nature of the Islamic Republic. These problematic traits, as stated above, only concern the last chapters mainly focused on detailing the so-called revisionism of so-called capitalist roaders like Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi.

[kereru · Rating 3 out of 5]

moreso just a biography of the various figures lol

[Miguel Rodríguez · Rating 1 out of 5]

El Curso Básico de Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoismo es una lectura muy interesante, a la par que dogmática, sesgada y sectaria. El documento, aparentemente utilizado como guía de estudio para los cuadros del Partido Comunista de la India, es tres cuartas partes de historia del marxismo y una cuarta parte de exposición teórica de las tesis marxistas-leninistas-maoístas.

La parte histórica consiste en una breve biografía de Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin y Mao, así como de un recorrido a través de los diferentes procesos revolucionarios que han existido en el mundo entre 1850 y la actualidad, haciendo hincapié en el desarrollo de las diferentes Internacionales, la revolución rusa de 1917, la URSS bajo Lenin y la China Maoista. Esta parte del texto, la más potable (lo que no habla muy bien del él), trata a los teóricos marxistas mencionados anteriormente como profetas, héroes y hombres hechos a sí mismos que, a través de su prodigiosa inteligencia, conocían la Verdad, Verdad que les llevó a leer con claridad su momento histórico y a tomar la decisión correcta en todo momento (salvo el pobre Stalin, un poquito más tonto, que fue “un gran marxista con un 70% de aciertos” ). A pesar de un clarísimo sesgo y lavado de las figuras revolucionarias aquí descritas y de sus regímenes (parece que Lenin y Mao nunca se equivocaron, sino que sus “fracasos” son atribuidos a las pugnas oportunistas / reformistas / capitalistas dentro del Partido), el resumen de la historia del marxismo, donde se presentan los principales debates de las Internacionales y la ruptura entre el partido comunista soviético y el chino, es muy interesante y está bien sintetizado. Mi falta de formación histórica ha hecho que se me hayan pasado decenas de gambazos gordos que habrán cometido, pero alguno muy grave sí que he pillado, como la defensa del genocida de Pol Pot:

“ […] la mayoría de estos países estuvieron en manos de títeres o satélites del socialimperalismo soviético. La destacable excepción fue Kampuchea, donde los auténticos revolucionarios comunistas – los Jemeres Rojos – se mantuvieron independientes hasta que fueron invadidos en 1978 por Vietnam, bajo las órdenes de los imperialistas soviéticos.”

Por otro lado, la parte de teoría marxista reúne todo aquello que ha hecho que no haya leído a Marx y compañía hasta muy recientemente, y es la mezcla de un estilo barroco, el criptolenguaje, un tono profético y una sarta de imbecilidades de poca calidad filosófica que caracterizan a muchos textos marxistas-leninistas. Lleno de adjetivos grandilocuentes, el texto defiende al marxismo como “la verdadera ideología del proletariado” y aquello que “convirtió el socialismo en una ciencia . Una lectura muy pobre de Marx hace que pongan en su boca cosas que nunca dijo, como que “la lucha de clases conduce inevitablemente al socialismo y al comunismo . A su vez, hay una breve y bochornosa introducción y “refutación” del idealismo filosófico, así como una explicación del “materialismo dialéctico”, la economía política y la “teoría del socialismo científico. Cabe decir que Marx nunca expuso una metodología ni unos principios del “materialismo dialéctico” ni del “socialismo científico”, al igual que tampoco tuvo una visión lineal ni teleológica de la historia. Sin embargo, el “materialismo dialéctico” es vendido como La metodología para analizar la realidad, cuando no deja de ser una pseudofilosofía que lleva a argumentos circulares e infalsables y que ha sido durante demasiado tiempo el dogma de ciertos grupos “marxistas”. Como mi conocimiento de los textos de Lenin y Mao es muy pobre, no entro a valorar la calidad de la representación de sus aportes teóricos, que son expuestos.

En resumidas cuentas, el texto, aunque sea propaganda, es verdaderamente interesante. Es muy ameno y hace un repaso de la historia del marxismo (lo único que hay que cogerla con pinzas, claro). Ante todo, este curso sirve para aprender qué piensan algunos grupos maoístas actuales, más que para aprender sobre marxismo.

[Pozzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wie drauf steht ist es ein "Grundkurs". Wer sich schon länger mit marxistischer und maoistischer Theorie befässt wird besonders im ersten Teil wenig neues Lernen, denn dort werden nur die Grundlagen des MLs dargelegt und dies auch nur oft als Biographie versteckt. Dafür findet man Hinweise auf weiterführende Texte.

Im zweiten Teil wird sich stärker auf die Aspekte des Maoismus im MLM konzentriert und die grundlegenden Teile der Theorie dargestellt besonders die Aspekte des zwei-linien-kampfes (anhand der historischen Beispiele) und der Kulturrevolution.

Da es ein Grundkurs ist werden die meisten Themen nur halb angeschnitten, wer tiefer reingehen will, muss sich wohl an der Primärliteratur ranwagen. Bedenkt man aber dass der Text für Personen geschrieben wurden, die gerade aktiv im Volkskrieg kämpfen und somit natürlich nicht die Zeit sich mit umfassender Theorie zu beschäftigen ist es aber ein gutes Buch, genauso für Anfänger

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

gute einführung in den mlm, die vor allem auf eine verständliche und gut mit „theoretischen erklärungen“ verknüpfte wiedergabe der historischen und praktischen umstände und entwicklungen setzt. wenn man in den grundlagen schon drin ist, wird man das meiste wohl schon wissen, meiner meinung nach führt das buch einem aber alles noch mal so kompakt vor augen, dass es eine super wiederholung ist. was ich außerdem (besonders beim maoismus teil) super finde, sind die zahlreichen hinweise auf theoretische werke und dokumente, die jeweils relevant sind, darauf kann man denke ich sehr gut eine weitere auseinandersetzung basieren.

[Matthew Singer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting stuff. I really prefer the first 75 percent of the book though. At the end it gets kind of sloppy and confusing! Especially the last chapter which is kind of all over the place and really puts a damper on an otherwise great guide to understanding Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. I enjoyed learning more about the early lives of the important figures like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Overall a great book that is not closed out well. Still I recommended this to anyone and even a dedicated Marxist-Leninist like myself learned a lot (I learned a lot about Maoism specifically).

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great distillation of the ideas and history

[Ivan Alvarado · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good text that details the development of Marxism, from Marx to Mao. My biggest issue with this text is its lack of citations and evidence to back up certain claims.

[Cameron Cannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic overview of the history of revolutionary Marxism. It gives a sense of where ideas came from, and touches on many major Marxist concepts in a very easy to understand way.

That being said, the book must be read critically, take for example their weird support of the Khmer Rouge.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok primer with surprisingly wide applicability. Unfortunate positive references to the Khmer rouge and majority of it being sugar coated biography is not great

[A, Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is like the “it’s a small world after all ride” where you sit down a listen to the general history and works of a Marxist leader as well as what made them important. This work is meant to be a very beginners friendly Marxist work without having to be overly long but sometimes runs into problems by trying to simplify complex issues and ideas. About 70% of this book I agree with the other 30% is bewildered to me such as the defense of the Chinese involved with the funding Afghan rebels against the soviets because of social-Imperalism??? Also defending the khmer rouge against NLF makes my head spin. All together while there are worse introductions to Marxist theory you are better off in reading each of the thinkers independently.

[Nick Kinsella · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a very biased look at the formation of Communism throughout it's history. It is a good overview but much of it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sorry, but if you're presenting people like Stalin, Mao, and the Khmer Rouge as beacons to humanity while ignoring their unprecedented crimes against humanity, you're writing with your brain off.

I would say the book has some good "praxis" up to the death of Lenin era. Then the book proceeds to "Stan" for Mao for the rest of the book.

A good start, but I'll be seeking out more comprehensive works.

[Eilev Dekko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the swedish translation. Clear and comprehensive. Only catch is that it focusing primarily on history without taking into account the full theoretical implications of that history. Especially when it comes to the contributions of Mao. But over all a good basic course by a party actually indulged in making revoulution. Their account of communist theory is therfore invaluable. A good overview of Marxism-leninism-maoism.

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 2 out of 5]

As some people (and a friend) had already said on this site, this book is a theoretical mess: too vulgar in my opinion.

That said, the historical sections are good (specially the biographies and the recount of the socialist revolutions).

I'd recommend this only to a person that:
a) REALLY doesn't know a thing about MLM theory
b) Tries to find a synthetic historical resume of russian and chinese revolutions.

[Asis Hassan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Doesn't really explain the contributions that these theorists made, they are just named. Almost like a book full of Marxist buzzwords. The typical defense I hear from people who like the book is that it is a basic course and therefore can't explain everything, but I still have to say that there are probably hundreds of other ML introductory works that do a better job, although (dis-)missing contribution from Mao. Wouldn't recommend.

[Tannen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good historical account but lacking in summarizing the ideology itself. Needs more direct quotes from sources instead of just referring to them by name. Surprisingly brief about Mao and his contributions. Quite a few factual errors as well. I’m no Trot but the section on Trotsky was 70% garbage and inaccuracies based not on fact or explaining Trotskyisms ideological oversights and shortcomings but just on dogma alone. Pretty disappointing honestly.

[Charles-Olivier Rivard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good overview of Marxism-Leninism-Maoïsm, but it spends too much time going over the life events of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, rather than thorough revolutionary theory. I recommend reading a similarly written book but more insightful one published by Foreign Languages Press, Basic Course of Marxism-Leninism.

ML-MZT would be a a better description of this work.

[Gieselle Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the concise and brief history of MLM development, despite the historical inaccuracies here and there. For any new revolutionary, I wouldn't recommend referencing this as your sole information of MLM ideology. There's no shortcut to theory.

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quintessential reading for communists today. I have ready several texts that go through the history and motions of the formation of Marxism and advancement to MLM, but this one in particular felt like I had a person directly teaching me.

[Jan Kashmir · Rating 5 out of 5]

comprehensive, easy to understand basic course on the history and development of marxism-leninism-maoism; a must read for students of MLM who encounter advanced works on Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism but wish to start with the basic terms and concepts of this philosophy

[Comrade Zupa Ogórkowa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice little accessible book providing some history to Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao and their thinking. Would probably use this mostly to give to baby communists. Not sure how academically rigorous it is.

[Breadhasnotaste · Rating 4 out of 5]

great for people who want to learn how scientific socialism was developed from the experiences of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao

[E]

The publisher of this edition states that this book was originally published by the CPI(Maoist), but gives no publication information or date for the original edition

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es excelente el 95%, pero como sobra la parte de los Jemeres rojos.