This is a suggested programme of further education for SSP branches to follow
SUGGESTED READING
Reading for the Basic Educational Programme educationals has been kept short - for most sessions, very short indeed. That basic reading should, however, serve as a foundation for the further reading which will equip comrades to act as "tutors" for the educationals.
A1. Why socialism?
James P Cannon, "America's Road to Socialism", especially the last chapter; Leon Trotsky, "Revolution Betrayed" (where the critique of Stalinism illuminates, by negative example, an anti-Stalinist conception of socialism). Bertell Ollman, "Alienation", and the article "Marx's vision of communism", in the magazine "Critique". William Morris, "News from Nowhere" is a polemic against technocratic "state-socialism" in the form of a dream-story.
A2-A6: The Marxist critique of capitalism.
The basic text here is Karl Marx, "Capital", volume 1. Helpful are any of a number of books - Geoffrey Kay, "The Economic Theory of the Working Class", Paul Sweezy, "The Theory of Capitalist Development", Karl Kautsky, "The Economic Doctrine of Karl Marx", Anthony Brewer, "A Guide to Marx's Capital", I I Rubin, "Essays on Marx's Theory of Value" (and article, "Abstract Labour in Marx's System", in "Capital and Class" no.5). Robert Tressell's "The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists" includes an exposition of the Marxist theory of exploitation within the framework of a novel. On imperialism see Anthony Brewer Marxist Theories of Imperialsim B1. Capitalism as a stage in history.
"Capital" volume 1 ch. 26-31 (accessible and clear even if you find some of the rest of "Capital" hard going). Leo Huberman, "Man's Worldly Goods", is an easy introduction to economic history, although the author's Stalinism mars the later chapters. David Ryazanov's edition of the Communist Manifesto, with copious notes, is very valuable though not easy to find. Hal Draper, "The Adventures of the Communist Manifesto", is another annotated edition.
B2. Why the working class?
Ellen Meiksins Wood's "The Retreat From Class" restates the Marxist view in a modern context and defends it against recent attacks take the argument further. George Plekhanov wrote the classic polemic against populism - the theory of progress being made by the action of "the people", all lumped together - in "Our Differences" ("Selected Philosophical Works Volume 1"). Emile Zola's Germinal dramatises the role of the working class in novel form.
B3. Stalinism.
Trotsky's "Revolution Betrayed" is the classic critique. Marx's "Critique of the Gotha Programme" is essential for understanding the difference between "state socialism" and working-class socialism: background to it can be found in good biographies of Marx (David Ryazanov, "Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels"; Franz Mehring, "Karl Marx"; or, more academic but still useful, David McLellan, "Karl Marx") or in Hal Draper's multi-volume "Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution".
On the history of the USSR, Alec Nove's "Economic History of the USSR" and Robert Conquest's "The Great Terror" are accessible and informative, despite the politics of their authors (social-democratic and Tory, respectively). Critique Journal.The book "Wild Swans" gives a vivid picture of Chinese Stalinism. Vivid autobiographical material on the Stalinist USSR includes the relevant chapters of Victor Serge, "Memoirs of a Revolutionary", and Leopold Trepper, "The Great Game".
B4. The Revolutionary Party.
"The party that won," by Max Shachtman; Trotsky, "Lessons of October"; Trotsky on Luxemburg and Lenin,; Lenin, "Left-wing Communism, an infantile disorder; James P Cannon, "History of American Trotskyism"; Krupskaya's "Memories of Lenin" sheds a lot of light in story-telling, biographical form, and Isaac Deutscher's "The Prophet Unarmed" is also a vivid account of the Russian Marxist movement.
B5. Trade-union work.
James P Cannon, "Trade Unionists and Revolutionists", in the book "Speeches to the Party". Lozovsky, "Marx and the Trade Unions". Brian Pearce and M Woodhouse, "Communism in Britain", is instructive on lessons from the history of the British Marxist movement. John McIlroy s "Strike" and "Trade Unions in Britain" contain recent information. And watch John Sayles' film "Matewan".
B6. Transforming the existing labour movement.
For information on the history of the Labour Party, see Ralph Miliband, "Parliamentary Socialism", Henry Pelling "History of the Labour Party", or Lewis Minkin "The Contentious Alliance". There is a video by Ken Loach, "The Red and the Blue", about the struggle in the Labour Party, though it gives a narrow and now very dated picture.
C1. Militant or sympathiser?
There are many good and inspiring biographies of great revolutionaries, and one good autobiography, Leon Trotsky's "My Life". Read Franz Mehring's "Karl Marx", Paul Frolich's "Rosa Luxemburg", and Giuseppe Fiori's "Antonio Gramsci" (despite Fiori's reformist politics).
C2. Materialist dialectics.
Sections of George Novack's "The Origins of Materialism" are good for the basic arguments about God. Paul Siegel, "The Meek and the Militant", is a summary of the Marxist view of religion: see also the collection "Marx and Engels on Religion". On dialectics, start with Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach" and 1873 Preface to Capital volume 1; and Engels, "Ludwig Feuerbach".
C3. Women's liberation.
Sheila Rowbotham's "Women: resistance and revolution" is a good modern summary; Engels, "The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State" is a classic; so, for the modern movement, is Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex". Werner Thonnessen's "The Emancipation of Women" is not as general as its title would suggest, but about the Marxist working-class women's movement in Germany. Lynne Segal's "Is the Future Female?" is useful reading if you re discussing with comrades influenced by radical or cultural feminism.
C4. The national question: Ireland.
On the national question generally, read Lenin, "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination", "Theses on the National and Colonial Question" (1920), "A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism", and "The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up".
Harry Magdoff, "Imperialism: From the Colonial Age to the Present", and Anthony Brewer, "Marxist Theories of Imperialism".
For more on Ireland's history - T A Jackson, "Ireland Her Own", gives an accessible narrative somewhat coloured by romantic nationalism and by Stalinism. J C Beckett, "Modern Ireland", and F S L Lyons, "Ireland Since the Famine", are competent academic histories. Eamonn McCann's "War in an Irish Town" is colourful on the start of the Troubles. You should read James Connolly, "Labour in Irish History" and the collection "Marx and Engels on Ireland".
C5. The national question: Israel-Palestine.
. Maxime Rodinson, "Israel and the Arabs", gives a good, accessible account of basic history. Abram Leon On the Jewish Question. Also read the collection, "Trotsky on the Jewish Question".
D1. The class state.
Read Ralph Miliband, "The State in Capitalist Society",.
D2. Reform and revolution.
Rosa Luxemburg, "Reform and Revolution", and also "The Mass Strike", about how class struggle can develop in a revolutionary way. May 1968, Read Trotsky, "Transitional Programme", on connecting the struggle for reforms with revolution.
D3. The French Revolution.
George Rude: Revolutionary Europe. The French Revolution. Peter Taafe: The Masses Arise.
Albert Soboul :The French Revolution. George Lefevre: The French Revolution.
D4. The origins of socialism.
On Babeuf's movement, see Albert Soboul, "The French Revolution", volume 2, pp.487-492. There is a book-length account, out of print, in Ernest Belfort Bax, "The Last Episode of the French Revolution". More on early 19th century socialism in Edmund Wilson, "To the Finland Station". Read Marx's "The Eighteenth Brumaire" (a study of the French revolution of 1848 and its aftermath, to 1851) for the relation between working-class revolution and revolutions of the type of the 1789-99 French Revolution.
D5. The English Revolution.
Read the many writings of Christopher Hill, for example "The Century of Revolution". "The World Turned Upside Down" is a vivid account of the radical strands in the Revolution. William Morris' "The Dream of John Ball" is about an earlier peasants' revolt, not the revolution of the 17th century, but is illuminating on the continuities and discontinuities of the revolutions of pre-capitalist times and the struggle against capitalism. Also C B Macpherson, "Possessive Individualism."
D6. The Chartists.
Articles by Gary Scott, G D H Cole and Raymond Postgate, "The Common People", is the best compact account of the whole history of the British working-class movement (not just the Chartists). E P Thompson, "The Making of the English Working Class", is a justly celebrated account of the early history, before the Chartist movement. Dorothy Thompson, "The Chartists", is a competent modern account, and cites other sources. Theodore Rothstein, "From Chartism to Labourism", is not easily available, but contains valuable material about the proto-Marxist left in the Chartist movement. Read Trotsky, "Where Is Britain Going?" for an overview of British history and the British labour movement;
D7. The Paris Commune.
Read Karl Marx, "The Civil War in France", and detailed discussion of this pamphlet in Lenin, "State and Revolution". For narrative accounts, read P O'Lissagary, "History of the Commune" (by a Communard), and, by bourgeois writers, Rupert Christiansen, "Tales from the New Babylon" and Alistair Horne, "The Fall of Paris".
D8. State and revolution.
Lenin's pamphlet is remarkably self-contained, though formidably rich in ideas. Read Engels, "Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State".
E1. The Russian Revolution.
Read Trotsky's "History of the Russian Revolution".
E2. The Stalinist counter-revolution.
Read Trotsky's "Revolution Betrayed", "Bolshevism and Stalinism", "The New Course", "My Life", "Stalin"; see also books cited under B3, above.
E3. The Russian Revolution and Marxist theory.
Trotsky, "The Third International After Lenin". Also, "Results and Prospects", and, for the original Marxist use of "permanent revolution", Marx, "The March Address". E4. The Internationals.
For narrative history, see Julius Braunthal's books on the first two Internationals; Carl Schorske's "German Social-Democracy, 1905-1917"; on the Third International, Trotsky "First Five Years of the Comintern", Alfred Rosmer, "Lenin's Moscow", the collection "First Four Congresses of the Communist International", and C L R James "World Revolution".
E5. Trotskyism.
Read, especially, Trotsky's writings for the united front in Germany ("Struggle Against Fascism in Germany"), against the Popular Front in Spain and France ("The Spanish Revolution" and "Trotsky on France"), and for working-class independence in underdeveloped countries ("The Chinese Revolution"), also Trotsky's "Transitional Programme" and the discussions round it. Isaac Deutscher's "The Prophet Armed" and the "The Prophet Outcast" are vivid, readable introductions to this vast literature, but, of course, with Deutscher's own slant .