Educational Resources

It is possible to change the world but the first step is to understand it. For that a Marxist education is needed.

The FSP is devoted to nurturing working class intellectuals who understand capitalism as a living organism that produces the necessities of life in a specific way and in a specific historical time. Capitalism is not the only way to meet human needs or even the best way. It doesn’t rest on freedom but compulsion of a class of people who have no other way to feed and clothe ourselves than to hire out our labor (physical and/or mental). To learn more about this system check out the resources below.

Start Your Own Study Group

The FSP will help you get started with study guides, information about where to purchase literature, sample PR announcements and tips on how to organize a study group in your area. Call us at 206-985-4621 to talk it over.

Study Guides

Radical Reading List

Check out our comprehensive list of writings on Marxism and socialist feminism plus selected reading on U.S. labor and world history, biographies, fiction, writings by and about women, people of color, Jews, immigrants and queers. There’s an education to be had for free in these books!

Party History
Fraser and FraserCrisis and Leadership
Gloria MartinSocialist Feminism: The First Decade, 1966-1976
Why We Left the Socialist Workers Party
A Victory for Socialist Feminism,
1969
They Refused to Name Names: The Freeway Hall
Case Victory
Political Resolutions
Weiss, Deaderick, and FraserThe Precarious ’80s: Crisis and Opportunity, 1982
Hoddersen and FraserTowards the ’90s: Approaching the Final Conflict, 1990
Bauer and HoddersenCareening Toward the New World—Revolt and Counterrevolution in the ’90s, 1993
Andrea BauerDefying the Neo-Liberal Order: World Labor Strikes Back, 1997
Andrea BauerFrom the Ashes of the Old Century, A Better World’s in Birth, 1999
Guerry HoddersenOne Hemisphere Indivisible: Permanent Revolution and Neoliberalism in the Americas
People of Color
Fraser and BootRevolutionary Integration: A Marxist Analysis of African American Liberation, 2004
Alaniz, Wong, et. al.Voices of Color, 1999
Alaniz and CornishViva la Raza: A History of Chicano Identity & Resistance, 2008
Feminism and Gay Liberation
Weiss and CrismanPermanent Revolution and Women’s Emancipation
Turner and DeaderickGay Resistance: The Hidden History
Su DocekalOn the Frontlines of Lavender Labor History: The Freedom Socialist Party in Action
Cornish, Averill, and MendicinoIn Defense of Marxist Feminism: Radical Women and Freedom Socialist Party Debate the International Socialist Organization
International Issues
Murry WeissWomen’s Emancipation and the Future of the Fourth International
Durham and WilliamsOn the Nature of the Nicaraguan State, 1988
Susan WilliamsCapitalism’s Brutal Comeback in China, 2002
Raya FidelShattered Hopes in Palestine: Which Way Forward for Arabs and Jews?
General Interest
Clara FraserRevolution, She Wrote
Socialism for Skeptics
On the Dialectics of US Backwardness
Tamara Turner, et. al.A Worker’s Guide to the 20th Century
Crisman, Durham, Hill & WooPermanent Revolution in the U.S. Today
Helen GilbertLyndon LaRouche: Fascism Restyled for the New Millenium
Leon Trotsky: His Life and Ideas
Megan CornishA Marxist Looks at Capitalism’s Meltdown
Poetry
Karen BrodineWoman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking
Merle WooYellow Woman Speaks

Radical Women Theory and Program

Radical Women Manifesto: Theory, Program and Structure
Durham and CornishWomen Workers: Sparkplugs of Labor
Clara FraserWoman As Leader
Which Road towards Women’s Liberation: A Radical Vanguard or a Single-Issue Coalition?
The Emancipation of Women
Nancy KatoWomen of Color: Front-Runners for Freedom
Susan WilliamsLesbianism: A Socialist Feminist Perspective
Women’s Psychology: Mental Illness as Social Disease
Wong, Woo and YamadaThree Asian American Writers Speak Out on Feminism

Basic Marxist Theory and Socialist History

Marx and EngelsThe Communist Manifesto
On the Paris Commune
First International
Karl MarxCritique of the Gotha Program
Economics
Karl MarxCapital, Volumes, 1-3
Value, Price and Profit
Wage-Labor and Capital
Critique of Political Economy
Philosophy
Karl MarxOn Historical Materialism
The Poverty of Philosophy
Frederick EngelsSocialism: Utopian and Scientific
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
Dialectics of Nature
Anti-Durhing
Lenin and TrotskyKronstadt
V.I. LeninEmancipation of Women
On the Jewish Question
Leftwing Communism, An Infantile Disorder
State and Revolution
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
What Is to Be Done?
National Liberation and Socialism
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism
The Suppressed Testament of Lenin
Lenin’s Last Fight,
1922-23
Leon TrotskyAutobiography and Biographical Sketches
My Life
Diary in Exile
Portraits, Political and Personal
Russian Revolution
History of the Russian Revolution, Vols. 1-3
Lessons of October
First Five Years of the Communist International
Analysis of Stalinism
The Revolution Betrayed
The Stalin School of Falsification
Challenge of the Left Opposition,
1923-25; 1926-27; 1928-29
Stalinism and Bolshevism
The Third International After Lenin
Marxist Theory
Permanent Revolution
In Defense of Marxism
If America Should Go Communist
Anti-fascism
Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It
The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany
The Spanish Revolution, 1931-39
A Revolutionary View on Unions and Social Issues
Women and the Family
Their Morals and Ours
On the Trade Unions
Problems of Everyday Life
Literature and Art
Against Individual Terrorism
Fourth International
The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution:
The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International
James P. CannonAmerica’s Road to Socialism
Letters from Prison
Notebook of An Agitator
Socialism on Trial
Struggle for Socialism in the “American Century”
Struggle for a Proletarian Party
Speeches for Socialism (includes Theses on the American Revolution)
Speeches to the Party
The First Ten Years of American Communism
The History of American Trotskyism
The Revolutionary Party: Its Role in the Struggle for Socialism
The Socialist Workers Party in World War II, 1940-43
Rosa LuxembourgReform or Revolution
Introduction to Economics
Rosa Luxemburg Speaks
George NovakPhilosophy
An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism
The Origins of Materialism
(Greek Philosophy)
Empiricism and Its Evolution
Pragmatism versus Marxism
Humanism and Socialism
History
America’s Revolutionary Heritage
Understanding History
The Long View of History

Biographies and Auto Biographies

Perry AndersonChe Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
Carolyn AshbaughLucy Parsons: American Revolutionary
Louise BryantSix Red Months in Russia
Isaac DeutscherThe Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Betrayed (a trilogy of Trotsky’s Life
Bernadette DevlinThe Price of My Soul
Phillip Foner, Ed.The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs
Elizabeth Gurley FlynnThe Rebel Girl (IWW feminist)
Ray GingerThe Bending Cross (Eugene V. Debs)
James KutcherThe Case of the Legless Veteran (SWP WWII veteran)
Michael LowyMarxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare
Franz MehringKarl Marx
Bryan D. PalmerJames P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928
Robert RosenstoneRomantic Revolutionary (about writer John Reed)
Assata ShakurAssata (Black Panther exiled in Cuba)
Ida B. Wells BarnettAutobiography of Ida B. Wells Barnett

World History

Renate BridenthalWhen Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany
Eduardo GaleanoOpen Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
Daniel GuerinFascism and Big Business (origins of European fascism)
Brown Plague (first-person account of the rise of German fascism)
Joseph HansenLeninist Strategy of Party Building: the Debate on Guerilla Warfare in the Fourth International
C.L.R. JamesThe Black Jacobins: Touissant L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
Joseph HansenDynamics of the Cuban Revolution
Harold IsaacsTragedy of the Chinese Revolution (deals with 1920s and ‘30s)
Felix MorrowRevolution and Counter Revolution in Spain
Farley MowatAnd No Birds Sang (Canadians Fighting in Italy in WWII)
George OrwellHomage to Catalonia (first-person account of Spanish Civil War)
John ReedTen Days that Shook the World (Russian Revolution)
Insurgent Mexico
Victor SergeFrom Lenin to Stalin
Daniel SingerThe Road to Gdansk
Studs TerkelThe Good War (the ugly side of Americans in Europe in WWII)
Leon TrotskyThe Spanish Revolution, 1931-39

U.S. Labor History

Louis AdamicDynamite
Ralph ChaplinWobbly
Eugene DebsEugene v. Debs Speaks
Farrell DobbsTeamster Rebellion (Trotskyist-led strike in 1934)
Phillip FonerThe Great Labor Uprising of 1877
History of the Labor Movement in the U.S.,
Vols. 1-7
Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1919-81
Women and the American Labor Movement
Philip Foner, Ed.Mother Jones Speaks
Michael HoneySouthern Labor and Black Civil Rights
Harvey O’ConnorRevolution in Seattle (1919 General Strike)
Art PreisLabor’s Giant Step (1930s depression and founding of the AFL-CIO)
Barbara WertheimerWe Were There: The Story of Working Women in America
Murry WeissThe Problem of Smashing McCarthyism
McCarthyism: Key Issues in the 1954 Election
Samuel YellenAmerican Labor Struggles, 1877-1934

Women

Lim, et al.Forbidden Stitch (Asian American anthology)
Asian Women UnitedMaking Waves
August BebelWoman Under Socialism
Simone de BeauvoirThe Second Sex
Martha CoteraDiosa y Hembra
Angela DavisWomen, Race and Class
Sara EvansPersonal Politics (origins of the feminist movement in the 1960s civil rights struggles)
Eleanor FlexnorCentury of Struggle
Betty FriedanThe Feminine Mystique
Paula GiddingsWhen and Where I Enter: Black Women’s Impact on Race and Sex in America
Gerda LernerBlack Women in White America
Kate MilletSexual Politics
Michele WallaceBlack Macho and the Myth of the Super-Woman
Moraga, et, al.This Bridge Called My Back
Evelyn ReedSexism and Science
Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family
Barbara Smith, ed.Homegirls: A Black Feminist Anthology
Elizabeth StoneWomen and the Cuban Revolution

People of Color and Jews

Mumia Abu-JamalLive from Death Row
We Want Freedom: Life in the Black Panther Party
Rodolfo AcunaAnything But Mexican
James BaldwinThe Fire Next Time
Leroy BennetBefore the Mayflower
Terry BissonOn a Move: The Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Taylor BranchParting the Water, Pillar of Fire, & At Canaan’s Edge (trilogy on civil rights movement)
Karen BrodkinHow Jews Became White Folks and What that Says About Race in America
Dee BrownBury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Carlos BulosanAmerica is in the Heart
Peter CamejoRacism, Revolution, Reaction 1861-1877
Churchill and VanderWallAgents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and American Indian Movement
Oliver C. CoxCaste, Class and Race
Vine Deloria Jr.Custer Died for Our Sins
W.E.B. DuboisBlack Reconstruction in America
Souls of Black Folk
John EgertonSpeak Now Against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South
James FormanThe Making of Black Revolutionaries
Daniel GuerinNegroes on the March (Post WWII analysis)
Fred Ho, et. al.Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America
Jean Wakatsuki HoustonFarewell to Manzanar (Japanese American internment during WWII)
Gloria JahodaTrail of Tears: The Story of American Indian Removals 1813-1855
Peter KwongChinatown, New York
Winona La DukeAll Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life
Abram LeonThe Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation
Elizabeth MartinezDe Colores Means All of US
Leonard PeltierPrison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance
Howell RainesMy Soul Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South
Virginia Sanchez KorrelFrom Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City
Malcolm XThe Final Speeches
By Any Means Necessary
Robert WilliamsNegroes with Guns (armed resistance to 1960s racism)

L/G/B/T—Queer

Joseph Beam, Ed.In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology
Faderman and ErikssonLesbians in Germany: 1890s-1920s
Jonathan KatzGay American History
Kitchen Table PressCombahee River Collective Statement
Leslie FeinbergTransgender Warrior
Lauritsen and ThorstadThe Early Homosexual Rights Movement
Audre LordeSister Outsider
Will RoscoeThe Zuni Man-Woman
Don TealThe Gay Militants
Merle WooYellow Woman Speaks

Civil Liberties

Heidi BoghosianAssault on Free Speech, Public Assembly and Dissent
Arthur KinoyRights on Trial: Odyssey of a People’s Lawyer
Studs TerkelComing of Age (an oral history of movement activists)

General Interest

William BlakeAn American Looks at Karl Marx
Phillip CaputoRumor of War (Vietnam)
Dana FrankBananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America
Incite!The Revolution Will Not Be Funded (an expose of NGOs by Women of Color Against Violence)
Naomi KleinThe Shock Doctrine (expose of free market capitalists)
Howard ZinnPeople’s History of the U.S.
Dave Zirin and Chuck DWelcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, The Promise and Politics of Sports

Fiction/Historical Novels

Chinua AchebeThings Fall Apart (an African village when Europeans move in)
William FaulknerIntruder in the Dust (struggle for racial justice in the South)
Nadine GordimerA World of Strangers (and other novels & short stories set in South Africa)
Khaled HosseiniA Thousand Splendid Suns (women in Afghanistan)
Margaret LawrenceStone Angel (woman growing up on the Canadian prairie)
Andre MalrauxMan’s Fate (novel about defeat of 1927 Chinese revolt)
Alan PatonCry the Beloved Country (set in South Africa)
Marge PiercyThree Women
Danzy SennaCaucasia
Lillian SmithStrange Fruit (racism in the South)
John SteinbeckGrapes of Wrath (the plight of sharecroppers during the Depression)
In Dubious Battle (Depression-era strike organizing)
Ngugi wa Thiong’oPetals of Blood (failed revolution in Kenya)
Dalton TrumboJohnny Got His Gun (anti-war)
Leon UrisTrinity (Ireland)
Margaret WalkerJubilee (African Americans before, during and after the Civil War)

Red Letter Press

Red Letter Press publishes books and pamphlets to inform and arm today’s activists with the ideas, experiences and history of radical and workingclass women and men, people of color and sexual minorities, and others in the global movement for social change.