BANNEDTHOUGHT.NET
Political Theory and Issues Page
Suppressed or difficult to find articles, books, discussions,
etc., on various political topics, issues and questions.
This section on BANNEDTHOUGHT.NET contains materials on various political topics which are not specifically related to some particular country, but which have nevertheless been suppressed, or are at least very difficult to find.
Among the many topics we hope to provide information on are: historical materialism, revolutionary strategy, revisionism and opportunism, the national question, the mass line and methods of work among the masses, and the various differences and disagreements which arise from time to time within revolutionary and mass movements.
If you know of other documents or items which should be made available here, contact us at: freespeech@bannedthought.net
Introductions to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism:
- [Book:] Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Basic Course, by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), (Utrecht: Christophe Kistler, 2016), 256 pages. [The publisher of this edition states that this book was originally published by the CPI(Maoist), but gives no publication information or date for the original edition.] Searchable PDF format [3,638 KB]
- [Book:] Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Study Notes, prepared by Maoists in India, (India: New Vistas Publication, April 2002). HTML format
- [Book:] From Marx to Mao Tse-tung: A Study in Revolutionary Dialectics, by George Thomson, (London: China Policy Study Group, 1971), in searchable PDF format, 96 double pages, 9,790 KB. Though written over 40 years ago, this is still a fine introduction to revolutionary Marxism. It includes a great many quotations from Marx, Lenin, Mao and others, all arranged in a way to illustrate the overall coherence and unity of MLM theory.
- [Book:] Capitalism and After: The Rise and Fall of Commodity Production, by George Thomson, (London: China Policy Study Group, 1973), in PDF format, 162 pages, 11,007 KB. A continuation of the above volume, focusing here on the political economy of capitalism and socialism. Like the first volume, it includes many quotations from Marx, Lenin, Mao and others, all arranged in a way to illustrate the overall coherence and unity of MLM theory.
- [Book:] The Human Essence: The Sources of Science and Art, by George Thomson, (London: China Policy Study Group, 1974), in PDF format, 132 pages, 8,694 KB. The third and final volume of Thomson’s introduction to Marxism, which together “cover the political, historical and ideological aspects of the subject.” This volume, however, is based to a somewhat greater degree on Thomson’s own thinking and work.
- [Book:] The Science of Revolution: An Introduction, by Lenny Wolff, 254 pages. (Chicago: RCP Publications, 1983), PDF format, 8,281 KB.
Dictionaries of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism:
- Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism, online at: https://www.massline.org/Dictionary/index.htm This MLM dictionary is under slow but steady expansion and improvement.
General Guides to MLM Works:
- [Book:] Readers’ Guide to the Marxist Classics, prepared and edited by Maurice Cornforth, (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1952 [reprinted 1953]), 132 pages. PDF format [16,119 KB]
History of the World Revolutionary Movement:
- [Book:] Short History of the International Communist Movement: 1848-1917 This volume was originally published in Chinese in Shanghai in 1976. It was translated and published in German in 1977. As far as we know it has not been translated into other languages.
- Kurze Geschichte der internationalen kommunistischen Bewegung: 1848-1917, (Verlag Rote Fahne, 1977), available in two parts:
Teil 1 [Chapters I-VII, to page 177: PDF, 22,580 KB]; Teil 2 [Chapters VIII-XII, pp. 178-324: PDF, 16,288 KB]- Marxist Study Courses: History of the Working Class [Prepared by the Communist Party of Great Britain in the early 1930s.]
- Lesson 1: The Great French Revolution [1931, 28 sheets, 52 pages + cover, PDF format, 3,341 KB]
- Lesson 2: The English Industrial Revolution and Chartism [1932, 26 sheets, 52 pages, PDF format, 13,936 KB]
- Lesson 3: The Revolution of 1848 in France and Germany [c. 1931, 26 sheets, 49 pages + cover, PDF format, 3,365 KB]
- Lesson 4: The First International and the Paris Commune [c. 1931, 25 sheets, 47 pages + cover, PDF format, 2,965 KB]
Revolutionary Strategy (People’s War, October Road, Capitalist Counter-Strategies, etc.):
- The October Road:
- [Book:] Letters on Tactics: A Collection of Articles and Letters, by V. I. Lenin, (Moscow: Progress, 1970), 104 pages. [Note that Lenin used the word ‘tactics’ to include both of what we now call strategy and tactics. Also, the volume scanned has a small amount of underlining in it; our apologies!] [PDF format: 6,782 KB]
- [Book:] Strategy and Tactics of the Proletarian Revolution, International (1936), 95 pages. Consists of a series of brief extracts mostly from the works of Lenin, Stalin and from some reports of the Comintern. [PDF format: 1,349 KB]
- People’s War:
- [Book:] “Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung”, individually available on the Marxist Internet Archive.
- [More to be added.]
- The ‘Universality of PPW’ and Urban Guerrilla Warfare:
- “Protracted People’s War is Not a Universal Strategy for Revolution”, by the Mass Proletariat organization (USA), Jan. 19, 2018, 55 pages. A thorough discussion of this important topic. Searchable PDF format [263 KB]; Also available on the MP website at: http://www.bannedthought.net/USA/MassProletariat/index.htm
- “The False Path of the W. European ‘Urban Guerrilla’”, by P. Becker. From the RIM magazine, A World to Win, #4 (1985).
- Focoism:
by Mike Ely, originally in the Revolutionary Worker [RCP], #927, Oct. 12, 1997. Available separately online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20171018000747/https://kasamaarchive.org/2009/10/13/understanding-che-guevara-42-years-after-his-murder/
- “Understanding Che Guevara—42 Years After His Murder”
- “Guevara, Debray and Armed Revisionism”, by Lenny Wolff, Revolution [RCP], #53, Winter/Spring 1985, 36 pages.
Capitalist/Imperialist Counter-Revolutionary Strategies:
- [Book:] LIC is the Latest Counter-Insurgency Doctrine of the Imperialists! Defeat LIC through Protracted People’s War!!, by the Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Maoist), December 2008, 128 pages, in PDF book layout format, 395 KB. [About the capitalist-imperialist counter-revolutionary strategy against People’s War called “Low Intensity Conflict”.]
- “Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism: TKP/ML on Some Important Issues”, by the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist. This pamphlet from the summer of 1998 is comprised of the following three articles which discuss Maoist People’s War and contrast it to the counter-revolutionary strategy of ‘Low Intensity Warfare’ which the enemy uses to try to suppress People’s War.
- “Mao Zedong’s Theory of People’s War is the Military Strategy of the Proletariat and Oppressed Peoples of Semi-Colonies”, by the TKP/ML, Summer 1998, 13 pages. PDF format [1,127 KB]
- “The Strategy of ‘Low Intensity Warfare’ means blockade, embargo, force immigration, massacre, torture and exploitation! The People’s War Strategy means People’s Democratic Power!”, by the TKP/ML, Summer 1998, 16 pages. PDF format [217 KB]; MS Word [85 KB]
- “‘Low Intensity War’ is the strategy of counter-guerrilla and People’s War is the strategy of the proletariat”, by the TKP/ML, Summer 1998, 13 pages. This article is taken from the pamphlet “Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism: TKP/ML on Some Important Issues” (Summer 1998) which also includes the above two articles. PDF format [989 KB]
War and Peace:
- [Book:] Engels As a Military Critic, articles by Engels reprinted from the Volunteer Journal and the Manchester Guardian in the 1860s, ed. by W. H. Chaloner & W. O. Henderson, (Manchester Univ. Press, 1959), 174 pages. Searchable PDF format [16,207 KB]
- [Book:] Lenin on War and Peace, 2nd ed., (Peking: October 1960), excerpts and quotations, 84 pages. Issued as part of the great line struggle between Soviet revisionism and Maoist China. [PDF format: 19,213 KB]
- “On the Causes of World War I, 1900-1914”, by a long-time American Maoist, January 2018, 14 pages. Searchable PDF format [121 KB]
National Question:
- [Book:] Selections from V. I. Lenin and J. V. Stalin on the National and Colonial Question, (Calcutta: 1970), 244 pages. Searchable PDF format [12,871 KB]
Women’s Liberation:
- “Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement”, probably written by Anuradha Gandhi, published unsigned as part of a supplement to the Indian revolutionary magazine People’s March, Vol. 7, #3, March 2006. Anuradha Gandhi (1954-2008) was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). HTML format [171 KB]
Revolutionary Work Among the Masses:
- [Book:] V. I. Lenin: Party Work in the Masses, articles and speeches, including excerpts from his longer works, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), 170 pages. This is a collection of some of Lenin’s important writings about how to carry out work among the masses, which every communist should be very familiar with. [Note: This book is available in searchable PDF image format. Because of the large size of the scanned book, each separate article has been made available as a separate file.]
- Cover Image [JPG: 242 KB]
- Photo of Lenin [HTML: 32 KB]
- Title and Contents Pages [114 KB]
- German translation of these Title and Contents pages, which provides references to the relevant sections of the German edition of Lenin’s works. [Thanks to K.S.] [11 KB]
- “The Urgent Tasks of Our Movement” [351 KB]
- “On the Tasks of the Social-Democratic Movement” [96 KB]
- “New Tasks and New Forces” [627 KB]
- “On Confounding Politics with Pedagogics” [210 KB]
- “Lessons of the Moscow Uprising” [500 KB]
- “The Attitude of the Bourgeois Parties and of the Workers’ Party to the Duma Elections” [308 KB]
- From “Draft Resolutions for the Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.” [140 KB]
- “The Assessment of the Present Situation” [829 KB]
- “On the Road” [554 KB]
- “Once More on Partyism and Non-Partyism” [155 KB]
- “On the Eve of the Elections to the Fourth Duma” [292 KB]
- “Congress of Peasants’ Deputies” [199 KB]
- From “Greetings to Italian, French and German Communists” [382 KB]
- From “‘Left-Wing’ Communism—An Infantile Disorder” [1,266 KB]
- “Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International” [1,125 KB]
- “Speech on the Role of the Communist Party at the Second Congress of the Communist International” [268 KB]
- “Report of the Commission on the National and Colonial Questions at the Second Congress of the Communist International” [366 KB]
- “Letter to the Austrian Communists” [165 KB]
- “Speech in Defence of the Tactics of the Communist International at the Third Congress of the Communist International” [698 KB]
- End Notes [619 KB]
- Name Index [307 KB]
Revisionism and Opportunism:
- [Book:] Lenin’s Fight Against Revisionism and Opportunism, compiled by Cheng Yen-shih, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), 275 pages. [Note: This book is available in searchable PDF image format. It is now available as a single large PDF file, but because of the large size of the scanned book, each chapter has also been made available as a separate file.]
- Entire Book in one large PDF file [11,999 KB]
- Cover Image [JPG: 237 KB]
- Title Page and Contents [259 KB]
- Chapter 1: Repudiating Economism and Bernsteinism [664 KB]
- Chapter 2: The Struggle for the Creation of a Revolutionary Proletarian Party of a New Type [502 KB]
- Chapter 3: The Fight Against the Opportunist Tactical Line in the 1905 Russian Revolution [638 KB]
- Chapter 4: The Struggle at the Stuttgart Congress [442 KB]
- Chapter 5: The Theoretical Struggle Against the Revisionists During the Ebb Tide of the Revolution [504 KB]
- Chapter 6: The Struggles Against the Liquidators, the Otzovists and Trotsky [396 KB]
- Chapter 7: The Copenhagen and Basle Congresses [353 KB]
- Chapter 8: The Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism [369 KB]
- Chapter 9: Exposing and Refuting Kautskyism [558 KB]
- Chapter 10: The Struggle Against Social-Pacifism [294 KB]
- Chapter 11: The Struggle Against Opportunism on the National Question and the National and Colonial Question [541 KB]
- Chapter 12: Uniting the Left and Holding Aloft the Banner of Proletarian Internationalism [441 KB]
- Chapter 13: The Struggle for the Great October Socialist Revolution [800 KB]
- Chapter 14: The Effort Which was Made Through Struggle to Achieve Peace and Peaceful Co-Existence [631 KB]
- Chapter 15: Upholding the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Class Struggle During the Period of Transition [760 KB]
- Chapter 16: The Establishment and Consolidation of the Third International on the Basis of the Surging Revolutionary Movement [551 KB]
- Chapter 17: Criticism of the “Left-Wing” Infantile Disorder in the Communist Movement [939 KB]
- Chapter 18: The Period of Transition to the New Economic Policy; the Struggle Against the Opportunist Factions of Trotsky, Bukharin and Others [466 KB]
- Chapter 19: Resolute Support for the Proletarian Revolution and the National-Liberation Movements Throughout the World [595 KB]
- Conclusion [276 KB]
- Bibliography: Lenin’s Principal Writings Against Revisionism and Opportunism [239 KB]
- German translation of this Bibliography [Thanks to K.S.!] [18 KB]
- Index [532 KB]
Trotskyism:
- [Book:] “Trotskyism: Counter-Revolution in Disguise”, by M. J. Olgin, 1935, 166 pages. PDF format [8,640 KB]
The State and Class Dictatorships:
- The State and the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie
- [Book:] Engels’s “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, by I. L. Andreyev, (Moscow: 1985), 164 pages. This is a book about Engels’s book which provides background information and commentary about more recent findings in anthropology. Of course it should be kept in mind that this book was published in the revisionist, state-capitalist Soviet Union, but we feel it may still be useful. Searchable PDF format [6,020 KB]
- Dictatorship of the Proletariat
- [Book:] The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, articles and extracts from the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, compiled and arranged by V. Bystryansky and M. Mishin, “Readings in Leninism” series, (NY: International, 1936), 132 pages. Searchable PDF format [4,905 KB]
- “Marx, Engels and Lenin: On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, a collection of quotations, (Peking: FLP, 1975), 52 page pamphlet. (With some underlining; our apologies.) Searchable PDF format [1,060 KB]
This collection also appeared in Peking Review on Feb. 28, 1975. It is available in HTML format from that source at: http://massline.org/PekingReview/PR1975/PR1975-09a.htm and the entire issue is available in PDF format at: http://massline.org/PekingReview/PR1975/PR1975-09.pdfPolitical Economy (Economics):
- The Political Economy of Capitalism
- The Political Economy of Socialism [To be added]
Dialectical Materialism (Marxist Philosophy)
Other Topics:
- [To be added]