I was a far-right lunatic until about 2009, when I started turning left. I have read many (center-)leftist articles from Jacobin, Common Dreams, The Guardian, and, from Brazil, Carta Capital and IHU (Catholic liberation theology).
Lemmy (despite my suboptimal instance) and communist friends got me interested in actual Marxism, but I have not yet really studied it. So please recommend:
- The best Marxist Lemmy instance for my background.
- Marxist books or videos in approximate reading/watching order. For the next many months (I suspect six months) I will have very little time, though.
Bonus:
- reasonable tolerance of Catholic faith and individual morality
- contextualized on Brazil, Cuba, broader Latin America or China
Background: Brazilian Catholic male autistic ADHD IT analyst with an electronic engineering degree and MsC in computer science. I have a son with my wife. I highly value privacy and software freedom. I read English well, but Spanish quite poorly. Native Portuguese speaker.
EDIT: I got a lemmygrad account. I am still processing the other recommendations.
Besides that, imperialism is not simply "a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force."
It is a system culminating from the growing capitalist mode of production.
Imperialism is the {higher} stage of capitalism by Lenin, defined by
Dominance of capitalist monopolies in everyday life
Bank capital (think shareholders and money-lenders) + industrial capital (think factories and mass production ) --> Finance capital, whose surplus value is increasingly dominated by dividends and interest, rather than industrial profit of enterprise.
You might call this rentier capital.
Export of capital around the world is dominant, rather than export of commodities, in search of new sources of surplus value
International capitalist monopolies are established
Territorial division and redivision of the colonized world, on the basis of monopoly capitalism. (even then, under neo-colonialism, you don't need to even occupy; you just have to exert economic and military dominance/hegemony on the 'ex-colonies')
Thus, it is important to be anti-imperialist, in the sense of Lenin.
If ye wanted a book recommendation intro, here's one by Cowbee
https://lemmy.ml/post/22417306
There's also this one.
Basic Marxism-Leninism study plan
This is the Marxism-Leninism "basic study plan" of the Anti-Imperialism Movement (Movimiento Anti-Imperialista or MAI). I think this is a very decent set of texts to read, so I've translated the original list and added links to all English and free-to-read versions available online. Since people very often ask for this kind of thing I hope some of you will find it useful.
You can find these at marxists.org
Introduction Lenin. The three sources and three component parts of Marxism
Lenin. Karl Marx
Marx, Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party
Historical Materialism
Marx, Engels. The German Ideology, chapter 1
Scientific Socialism
Engels. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Lenin. What is to be done?
Lenin. State and Revolution
Lenin. Texts against revisionism and opportunism:
The historical destiny of the doctrine of Karl Marx
Opportunism and the collapse of the Second International
The collapse of the Second International
Imperialism and the split in Socialism
Certain features of the historical development of Marxism
Marxism and Revisionism
Marxism and Reformism
Lenin. Left-wing Communism: and infantile disorder
Engels. Anti-Dühring, part III: Socialism
Stalin. The foundations of Leninism
Philosophy
Mao. On contradiction
Engels. Anti-Dühring, part I: Philosophy
Engels. Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy
Marx. Theses on Feuerbach
Political Economy
Marx. Wages, price and profit (Ouais)
Engels. Anti-Dühring, part II: Political Economy
Marx. Capital Volume I (This is a big one; oof)
Lenin. Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism