Key Works

Critical Marxism and historical materialism

Readings for the introductory sessions on critical Marxism and historical materialism: Marx and Engels (Theses on Feuerbach, The German Ideology, Capital extracts, the Manifesto), Lenin, Trotsky, Ernest Mandel and Michael Löwy.

20 works. Fourth International documents and the classics first, then by the number of teaching materials that cite them.

1. Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political EconomyKarl Marx · 1859 · Marx and Engels Selected Works (Progress Publishers) · external link · cited in 22 teaching materialsAlso: marxists.org
2. Theses on FeuerbachKarl Marx · 1845 · external link · cited in 17 teaching materials
3. The German IdeologyKarl Marx; Friedrich Engels · 1845 · external link · cited in 12 teaching materialsAlso: marxists.org
4. Manifesto of the Communist PartyKarl Marx; Friedrich Engels · 1848 · Collected Works vol. 6 · external link · cited in 11 teaching materialsAlso: archive.4edu · marxists.org
5. Capital, Volume One, Chapter 7, Section 1: The Labour ProcessKarl Marx · 1867 · Capital, vol. 1 · external link · cited in 10 teaching materialsAlso: marxists.org
6. Ninety Years of the Communist ManifestoLeon Trotsky · 1937 · external link · cited in 9 teaching materials
7. "Introduction" to "Wage Labour and Capital"Friedrich Engels · 1891 · external link · cited in 8 teaching materials
8. Capital Volume 1, Chapter Six: The Buying and Selling of Labour-PowerKarl Marx · 1867 · external link · cited in 8 teaching materials
9. A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, IntroductionKarl Marx · 1843 · external link · cited in 7 teaching materials
10. The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of MarxismV.I. Lenin · 1913 · external link · cited in 6 teaching materials
11. Letter to Conrad Schmidt, 27 October 1890Friedrich Engels · 1890 · Marx and Engels Selected Works (Progress Publishers) · external link · cited in 5 teaching materialsAlso: marxists.org
12. The Paris Commune, chapter from The Civil War in FranceKarl Marx · 1871 · external link · cited in 4 teaching materials
13. The part played by labour in the transition from ape to manFriedrich Engels · 1876 · Dialectics of Nature (Foreign Languages Publishing House) · external link · cited in 4 teaching materials
14. Letter to the editor of Otechestvenniye ZapiskiKarl Marx · 1877 · Marx-Engels Correspondence 1877 · external link · cited in 3 teaching materialsAlso: archive.4edu
15. The Modern Theory of Colonisation, chapter 33 of Capital Volume 1Karl Marx · 1867 · external link · cited in 3 teaching materials
16. The Place of Marxism in History: AppendicesErnest Mandel · 1986 · IIRE Notebook for Study and Research · external link · cited in 17 teaching materials
17. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991Eric Hobsbawm · 1994 · Michael Joseph · no copy online · cited in 4 teaching materials
18. Another world is not possible without another mode of productionFrançois Iselin · 2001 · International Viewpoint no. 334 · archived copy · cited in 4 teaching materials
19. The spark ignites in the action - the philosophy of praxis in the thought of Rosa LuxemburgMichael Löwy · 2011 · International Viewpoint · external link · cited in 4 teaching materialsAlso: ESSF
20. Tides of change: culture in historical perspectiveFrancisco Louçã · 2000 · International Viewpoint no. 322 · external link · cited in 4 teaching materials