[BATIK]

Who are your three favourite Marxist authors, other than Marx, Engels and Lenin?

[Potemkin]

Stalin, Gramsci and Althusser.

[The Immortal Goon]

Really? Stalin? I can understand you liking his theory, and it's idiotic to say he wasn't an amazing politician—But I rarely hear anyone say he was a good writer.

Someone on SE a long time ago pointed out to me that he writes the same sentence in different ways three times before moving on, and that ended up sticking with me.

An honestly random selection:

The Young Communist League has always marched in the front ranks of our fighters. Let us hope that the Young Communist League will continue to be in the front ranks, bearing aloft and carrying forward the banner of socialism. (Applause.)

The Young Communist League marches first. It marches in front. It is the banner man, which is to say it marches first and in front of everyone.

The first question is that of our industrial policy. That, so to speak, belongs to our home affairs. The second question is that of the Nanking events. That, consequently, is a matter of foreign affairs.

First we'll talk about the stuff we make at home. That's, so to speak, things we make at home. There are other things we don't do at home, but this we do at home.

Comrades, the basic line which our industry must follow, the basic line which must determine all its subsequent steps, is that of systematically

There's something we must do in proper order. That means we have to follow steps. This means we have to do it systematic order...

...reducing industrial production costs, that of systematically reducing wholesale prices of manufactured goods. That is the high road our industry must take if it is to develop and grow strong, if it is to give the lead to agriculture, and if it is to strengthen and broaden the foundation of our socialist economy.

...By making things cheaper. That means making costs go down. To make things more available, they'll need to be cheaper.

...and on and on.

Though in fairness to Comrade Potemkin, now that I read the question again it says your favorite author, not favorite writer. Which may mean more the person than the writing. Fair enough.

Though to show my fully biased approach, I would say Trotsky is the best writer, and one of the better authors both. I pull toward James Connolly too, and then I'll second Gramsci.

[oppose_obama]

kant

[Cromwell]

Jack London... and I can't think of any others.

[BATIK]

Since I never posted mine:

Lukács, Gramsci and Karl Korsch.

I think Korsch is seriously underrated. A very elegant and unequivocal writer.

Bourgeois consciousness necessarily sees itself as apart from the world and independent of it as pure critical philosophy and impartial science, just as the bourgeois State and bourgeois Law appear to be above society. This consciousness must be philosophically fought by the revolutionary materialistic dialectic, which is the philosophy of the working class. This struggle will only end when the whole of existing society and its economic basis have been totally overthrown in practice, and this consciousness has been totally surpassed and abolished in theory. 'Philosophy cannot be abolished without being realised'.

[Rei Murasame]

I'd say:

• Althusser
• Gramsci
• Trotsky

[fuser]

Stalin, Gramsci and Althusser.

+1

Althusser is probably the most underrated communist author. While Stalin's "Marxism and the National Question" is pure genius.

I would had included Trotsky but I haven't read him much.

[Potemkin]

I would had included Trotsky but I haven't read him much.

Trotsky was a brilliant writer, but one gets the feeling sometimes that he's rather too fond of the sound of his own voice. He's something of a 'phrase monger' - he comes up with startling, memorable phrases which often, on reflection, don't actually mean very much. "Neither peace nor war" is merely one of the more notorious examples.

[Social_Critic]

Ernest Gellner

Bertrand Russell

Stephen Hicks

[Paradigm]

Are we talking writers who happened to be Marxist, or those who specifically wrote on the subject of Marxist theory?

If it's the former, I'd say Deleuze, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty.

If the latter, I'd go with Anton Pannekoek, Rosa Luxemborg, and Huey Newton.

[Ambroise]

I am still a newb in a lot of ways, and I don't yet have a complete understanding of the literature, so I am not really in a position to describe who are best/favourites. I can point to a few Marxist writers that I have been reading lately and that I like, but who I certainly don't proclaim to be the best: David Harvey, Terry Eagleton, and Richard Wolff.

[Paradigm]

Ah yes, I forgot David Harvey. His book The Enigma of Capital really helped me understand the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

[Cromwell]

I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned London.

[Social_Critic]

Ah yes, I forgot David Harvey. His book The Enigma of Capital really helped me understand the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

Harvey was somewhat of a moron. He failed to understand that a free society is made up of multiple players which seek profit, and when they compete each player's individual profit margin (what the Marxists call surplus value) will change according to the value the market assigns to his specific product at a given time. In any society the actual profit margin will depend on the mental and physical attributes of players, as well as luck (evidently the discovery of giant oil reserves offshore Brazil involved all of the above, and these reserves will clearly bring a lot of profit to the Brazilian nation).

If players start running out of new ideas and lack the physical ability to earn the expected profit margins then their profits will drop. But this isn't necessarily a given. What is definitely true is the lilkelyhood that a nation will be seeing much less value generation if it ever falls in the hands of communists.

[Donna]

Gramsci, Lukács and Marcuse.

[The Immortal Goon]

I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned London.

London wrote fiction. Really, so far as fiction writers, I would say Orwell and Wilde both come out ahead of London. London, though he doesn't know it, is more interested in Thompson, whom Marx cribbed. In the Iron Heel when Everhard is going over a lot of the stuff he attributes to Marx, it's stuff Marx took from Thompson and later expanded upon. Which, ultimately, I suppose doesn't matter but I think it's interesting.

[Potemkin]

Really, so far as fiction writers, I would say Orwell and Wilde both come out ahead of London.

Agreed, though I would add the caveat that Wilde wrote a non-fiction book about his political beliefs, The Soul of Man Under Socialism. While not Marxist, per se, it presents a witty and succinct case in favour of a communist (in the widest sense of that word) society.

[Cromwell]

London wrote fiction. Really, so far as fiction writers, I would say Orwell and Wilde both come out ahead of London. London, though he doesn't know it, is more interested in Thompson, whom Marx cribbed. In the Iron Heel when Everhard is going over a lot of the stuff he attributes to Marx, it's stuff Marx took from Thompson and later expanded upon. Which, ultimately, I suppose doesn't matter but I think it's interesting.

It's the fact that he wrote fiction that I immediately considered him to be my favourite Marxist writer. I don't read political theory for good writing, I read it for good ideas.

[welcometohavoc]

Lenin, Trotsky, Marx