Hi, first I’d love to say that your in-depth posts on Marxism and luxury communism are amazing and much of what you’re saying I agree with. How did you “discover” communist theory and what theory would you suggest for someone who’s new to communist/Marxist theory?

Well I always kind of hate admitting this because it’s so common for leftist women, but I was radicalized by my spouse.  I was a sort of soft-soc dem “I guess this is the best we can do” sort before that, and like simply being told about some of the history and having someone I respected and trusted tell me a little bit about what the actual ideas were (as opposed to the ideas anti-communists spout as communism) made me want to learn more, and then joining the IWW (being tired of fucked around by clients) people told me stuff, and gave me books, and I read snippets of stuff on tumblr and it was all quite gradual.

As for that, I mean I’m not a straight up Marxist (I’d describe some of my ideas/politics as Marxian but I don’t straight up tow the Marx line all the time).   I’m like… a communist, with sympathies with anarcho-communist/anarcho-syndicalist stuff, and with various sorts of left-communist tendencies.  I’m good buddies with syndicalists, leftcoms, Trotskyists, especifists, even some Maoists.  Just so we’re clear though I have a bias against Leninism and Leninist descended tendencies (Maoism, Trotskyism, and their especially shitty brother Stalinism)

So for your very most basic stuff:
Wage Labor and Capital by Marx is super useful and relatively brief, makes a good explanation of the Labor Theory Of Value.

The Preamble to The Constitution of The IWW is pretty cool 

I think Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution and The Mass Strike are useful intro pieces 

As a vision of a Communist society I have to admit I’ve a serious weakness for Kropotkin’s Conquest Of Bread.

After those it really depends on what you’re interested in learning about.  Economics, History, what various tendencies are like

I think the first few chapters of Capital by Marx are really good if you can get through them, but they’re super dense (and are really more about the way Capitalism functions than ideas for a new society) and if you can’t it’s cool cause Wage Labor and Capital spells it out pretty well.

I really like Women Without Class by Julie Bettie and Formations Of Class and Gender by Beverley Skeggs which are less explicitly communist but are great works on gender.

The Free Women Of Spain is a really cool book about Mujeres Libres.  I also recommend The Statement of The Combahee River Collective and Sex, Race and Class by Selma James as some short essays that are super useful and important. Also Radicalizing Feminism by Joy James

Emma Goldman’s 

Anarchism and Other Essays is an interesting and useful book, though it’s not a personal favorite.

Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of The Earth (the latter of which I have no read) by Fanon are really good Marxist texts on colonialism, race, and anti-colonial struggle

I also think there are some useful strategic points in Malatesta’s What is to Be Done 

I also think Montefiore’s Young Stalin and Court of the Red Czar are interesting and unbiased analyses of an awful but very interesting man and useful for understanding the failures in Soviet Russia.

My spouse says Lenin’s State and Revolution is good and useful for seeing where a set of seemingly admirable principals can go really horribly wrong (also it’s quite short) though I think Lenin is best read with a good grasp of the actual history of the Soviet Union and where its failings actually were and what went wrong because there’s a lot of weird misinformation out there so like… there needs to be a good companion book I can recommend.

Leninism or Marxism by Rosa Luxemburg is cool

Also the graphic novel Red Rosa is cool

Also this book on the Bread and Roses strike is cool.