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Marxists Internet Archive
Marxists Internet Archive

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INTRODUCTION: The Marxists Internet Archive

The Marxists Internet Archive (MIA, http://marx.org/) is an all volunteer, non-profit public library, started 17 years ago in 1990. In 2006, MIA averaged 1.1 million visitors per month, downloading 15.5 million files per month. This represents a 25% increase in visitors since 2005, and a 380% increase in visitors since 2000.

In 2007, MIA has 62 active volunteers from 33 different countries. MIA contains the writings of 592 authors representing a complete spectrum of political, philosophical, and scientific thought, generally spanning the past 200 years. MIA contains these writings in 45 different languages, comprising a total size of over 53,000 documents and 29 GB of data, all created through the work of volunteers around the world.

MIA abides by eight fundamental tenants found in our Charter: (1) We will always be 100% Free; (2) We will always be a non-profit organization; (3) We will always be based on democratic decision making; (4) We will always have full disclosure; (5) We will always remain politically independent; (6) Our priority is to provide archival information; (7) We will classify writers as Marxist or not; (8) We will present content in a way that is easy to access and understand.

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If you have basic questions about Marxism and all that relates to it, start in our Student's Section. This will help introduce you to all the resources we have available and dispell common misconceptions of our views on various issues. Are you looking to join a union or a political party? While our work is about education, not party or union building, we are happy to give you information about these things through our sister site: Leftist Parties of the World. This site contains a very robust and thorough listing of unions and political parties near you.

The purpose of these pages is to tell you all about our organisation (see the frame to the left). We do this believing in the importance of organisational transparency to ensure our internal democracy remains strong, to help potential volunteers understand how we work, and to give readers insight into the scope and purpose of our organisation. For any and all legal questions, please read our Bourgeois Legality section and the Creative Commons License.

Link to this webpage: http://www.marxists.org/admin/intro/index.htm

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Foundations of Marxism

We are here to give you a starting point, a grounding in what Marxism is about. A Marxist has a certain kind of practice, a way of living and working, that we call being a Communist. A Marxist's thought is based on this daily practice, a philosophy called Dialectics. Thus, Marxism is both a theory and a practice. The theories of Marxism are based on a method of thought called dialectical materialism; to be clear there is no one answer to a question -- theory is based on a particular set of conditions that are always finite, and thus, any theory is necessarily limited. To test the validity of theory, Marxists rely on empirical evidence as the criteria of truth. Using such a methodology Marx and Engels examined history, which lead them to explain theories on the class struggle, the basis of social relations through economics, and the form of society that would follow capitalism. These theories are not immutable truths, they follow something similar to the scientific method: a hypothesis that explains observable events; a hypothesis which remains valid only so long as it does not conflict with reality. Naturally, there are countless examples of Marxist theories that have been modified, revised, or all together changed: starting with Marx's own changes! In this sense, in reading the classics of Marxism your most important task is to comprehensively understand the method; having accopmlished that, you'll begin to see relevant and up to date answers for modern times on your own. :)

What does this mean past all the words and definitions? We are judged by our historical practice and our understanding of the past, present, and future. You can find information about our history in the History of Marxism section. You can see an enormous spectrum of our ideas, the vibrance of debate within our movement, in our Marxist Writers archive. You can find a wealth of ideas we find invaluable to understanding, from the Physics of Einstein to the morality of Lao-Tzu, in our Reference Archive. If your mind is on certain subjects, like the women's movement, art, philosophy, etc, look into the Subject Archive. When you come across some term that just doesn't make sense, a word which has a meaning you want to explore or critique, go to our Encyclopedia of Marxism. Lastly, if you love educating people around the world about Marxism as much as we do, feel free to volunteer! :)

Whew! Okay, so there is enough material up there to fill your nearest public library. It is helpful to have an area of concern, a topic of interest, and work from there. :) To start your journey, a grounding in the basics is important! Read a couple of the Selected Works of Marx/Engels, and to better engage these works you may like to read our study guides. Read Lenin's The State and Revolution, and round that out with Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed. Alternatively, before going to the classics you can read What is Marxism? by Emile Burns. In this handful of material you will gain a view of what Marxism is capable of. If you take one step further and embrace critique, you will then begin learning and understanding Marxism.

The purpose of the material below is to give you an overview of the diversity in Marxism, dispel common misconceptions concerning our views on various important issues, as well as help you take the next step and really begin to learn what Marxism is all about: critique, and social change. This is a subject style approach -- you pick the topic, and we show you the diversity of Marxism -- world renowned Marxists who respond to those issues in decidedly Marxist ways. We want you to see the debate, when one Marxist goes at it with another, because this is what Marxism is all about. We've also included a Stalinist here and there, to give you an idea of how much the opposite of Marxism they are because they are against freedom and the empowerment of the working class.

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Introductory Readings on
Political Systems

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Capitalism:

Wage Labour and Capital, by Karl Marx

We shall present the subject in three great divisions:
(1) The Relation of Wage-Labor to Capital, the Slavery of the Worker, the Rule of the Capitalist.
(2) The Inevitable Ruin of the Middle Classes [petty-bourgeois] and the so-called Commons [peasants] under the present system.
(3) The Commercial Subjugation and Exploitation of the Bourgeois classes of the various European nations by the Despot of the World Market — England.
We shall seek to portray this as simply and popularly as possible, and shall not presuppose a knowledge of even the most elementary notions of political economy.

Additional Readings on Capitalism

Socialism:

The Socialisation of Society, by Rosa Luxemburg

All social wealth, the land with all its natural resources hidden in its bowels and on the surface, and all factories and works must be taken out of the hands of the exploiters and taken into common property of the people. The first duty of a real workers' government is to declare by means of a series of decrees the most important means of production to be national property and place them under the control of society.

Additional Readings on Socialism

Communism:

The German Ideology, by Karl Marx & Fredrick Engels

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

Additional Readings on Communism

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Introductory Readings on Application of Marxist Theory

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What is Needed to Establish Socialism?

Our Revolution, by Vladimir Lenin

Infinitely stereotyped, for instance, is the argument they learned by rote during the development of West-European Social-Democracy, namely, that we are not yet ripe for socialism, but as certain "learned" gentleman among them put it, the objective economic premises for socialism do not exist in our country. Does it not occur to any of them to ask: what about the people that found itself in a revolutionary situation such as that created during the first imperialist war? Might it not, influenced by the hopelessness of its situation, fling itself into a struggle that would offer it at least some chance of securing conditions for the further development of civilization that were somewhat unusual?

Additional Readings on What is Needed to Establish Socialism?

Did the Soviet Union ever become Socialist?

Is Russia a Socialist Community?, a debate between Earl Browder & Max Shachtman

Earl Browder: [Soviet Union is Socialist] Socialism is a result of conscious social building, planned and conducted by the organized workers who have won political power and supported by the majority of the population.... Every country must find its own path and its own forms for the transitions of history...
Max Shachtman: [Soviet Union is not Socialist] Socialism is based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and exchange, upon production for use as against production for profit, upon the abolition of all classes, all class divisions, class privilege, class rule, upon the production of such abundance that the struggle for material needs is completely eliminated, so that humanity, at last freed from economic exploitation, from oppression, from any form of coercion by a state machine, can devote itself to its fullest intellectual and cultural development.

Additional Readings on Did the Soviet Union ever become Socialist?

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Introductory Readings on Basic Social/Political Issues:

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Freedom:

On Freedom of the Press, by Karl Marx

Whenever one form of freedom is rejected, freedom in general is rejected and henceforth can have only a semblance of existence, since the sphere in which absence of freedom is dominant becomes a matter of pure chance. Absence of freedom is the rule and freedom an exception, a fortuitous and arbitrary occurrence. There can, therefore, be nothing wronger than to think that when it is a question of a particular form of existence of freedom, it is a particular question. It is the general question within a particular sphere. Freedom remains freedom whether it finds expression in printer's ink, in property, in the conscience, or in a political assembly.

Additional Readings on Freedom

Unions:

The Burning Question of Trades Unionism, by Daniel DeLeon

Starting from the principle, an undeniable one, that the spirit of union formation is an instinctive one, the question immediately presents itself: Is there no way by which the instinctive motion of self-defense can be rendered effective? Does it follow that because the man who raises his hand to protect his head from the threatened blow with a crowbar, has both his arm and his skull crushed, that therefore the instinctive motion of self-defense might as well be given up? The question suggests the immediate answer. The answer is no, it does not follow. And the question, furthermore, indicates what does follow. It follows that the arm which periodically is thrown up in self-defense, must arm itself with a weapon strong enough to resist -- at least to break the blow.

Additional Readings on Unions

Religion:

Contribution To The Critique Of Hegel's Philosophy Of Law, by Karl Marx

Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again....Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Additional Readings on Religion

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Introductory Readings on
Revolutionary Tactics

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Anti-Terrorism:

Cops, Dirty Harry, And Junious Poole, by Hal Draper

I refer to the self-styled radicals who, for some years now, have been burbling over with their rhetoric about "offing the pig," and "picking up the gun," and "revolution in the streets," and "urban guerrillas," and cheering every time somebody else bombs the window of a Bank of America branch, or terrorizes a PG&E power line, or incubates a revolution in a safety-deposit vault, or otherwise takes direct action in terrorism according to the most fashionable doctrines of 1890. Because it has been these bumpkin-blowhards of the Big Bang theory of revolution who have been very successful not in tearing apart the System, but in tearing apart what there was of a radical movement that was aborning.

> Additional Readings on Anti-Terrorism

Guerrilla Warfare:

On Guerrilla Warfare, by Mao Tse-tung

In a war of revolutionary character, guerrilla operations are a necessary part. This is particularly true in war waged for the emancipation of a people who inhabit a vast nation....These guerrilla operations must not be considered as an independent form of warfare. They are but one step in the total war, one aspect of the revolutionary struggle....There are certain fundamental steps necessary in the realization of this policy:
1. Arousing and organizing the people.
2. Achieving internal unification politically.
3. Establishing bases.
4. Equipping forces.
5. Recovering national strength.
6. Destroying enemy's national strength.
7. Regaining lost territories.

Additional Readings on Guerrilla Warfare

Link to this webpage - Foundations of Marxism : http://www.marxists.org/subject/students/index.htm