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
Against Individual Acts of Terrorism
American Labor Struggles, 1877-1934
History of the Russian Revolution
If America Should Go Communist
Lessons of October by Leon Trotsky
On the Dialectics of U.S. “Backwardness”
Revolutionary Integration: A Marxist Analysis of Black Liberation
The First Ten Years of American Communism
The History of American Trotskyism
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
The Revolutionary Party: Its Role in the Struggle for Socialism
Theses on the American Revolution
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 Fraser | Crisis and Leadership |
| Gloria Martin | Socialist 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 Fraser | The Precarious ’80s: Crisis and Opportunity, 1982 |
| Hoddersen and Fraser | Towards the ’90s: Approaching the Final Conflict, 1990 |
| Bauer and Hoddersen | Careening Toward the New World—Revolt and Counterrevolution in the ’90s, 1993 |
| Andrea Bauer | Defying the Neo-Liberal Order: World Labor Strikes Back, 1997 |
| Andrea Bauer | From the Ashes of the Old Century, A Better World’s in Birth, 1999 |
| Guerry Hoddersen | One Hemisphere Indivisible: Permanent Revolution and Neoliberalism in the Americas |
| People of Color | |
| Fraser and Boot | Revolutionary Integration: A Marxist Analysis of African American Liberation, 2004 |
| Alaniz, Wong, et. al. | Voices of Color, 1999 |
| Alaniz and Cornish | Viva la Raza: A History of Chicano Identity & Resistance, 2008 |
| Feminism and Gay Liberation | |
| Weiss and Crisman | Permanent Revolution and Women’s Emancipation |
| Turner and Deaderick | Gay Resistance: The Hidden History |
| Su Docekal | On the Frontlines of Lavender Labor History: The Freedom Socialist Party in Action |
| Cornish, Averill, and Mendicino | In Defense of Marxist Feminism: Radical Women and Freedom Socialist Party Debate the International Socialist Organization |
| International Issues | |
| Murry Weiss | Women’s Emancipation and the Future of the Fourth International |
| Durham and Williams | On the Nature of the Nicaraguan State, 1988 |
| Susan Williams | Capitalism’s Brutal Comeback in China, 2002 |
| Raya Fidel | Shattered Hopes in Palestine: Which Way Forward for Arabs and Jews? |
| General Interest | |
| Clara Fraser | Revolution, 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 & Woo | Permanent Revolution in the U.S. Today |
| Helen Gilbert | Lyndon LaRouche: Fascism Restyled for the New Millenium Leon Trotsky: His Life and Ideas |
| Megan Cornish | A Marxist Looks at Capitalism’s Meltdown |
| Poetry | |
| Karen Brodine | Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking |
| Merle Woo | Yellow Woman Speaks |
Radical Women Theory and Program
| Radical Women Manifesto: Theory, Program and Structure | |
| Durham and Cornish | Women Workers: Sparkplugs of Labor |
| Clara Fraser | Woman As Leader Which Road towards Women’s Liberation: A Radical Vanguard or a Single-Issue Coalition? The Emancipation of Women |
| Nancy Kato | Women of Color: Front-Runners for Freedom |
| Susan Williams | Lesbianism: A Socialist Feminist Perspective Women’s Psychology: Mental Illness as Social Disease |
| Wong, Woo and Yamada | Three Asian American Writers Speak Out on Feminism |
Basic Marxist Theory and Socialist History
| Marx and Engels | The Communist Manifesto On the Paris Commune |
| First International | |
| Karl Marx | Critique of the Gotha Program |
| Economics | |
| Karl Marx | Capital, Volumes, 1-3 Value, Price and Profit Wage-Labor and Capital Critique of Political Economy |
| Philosophy | |
| Karl Marx | On Historical Materialism The Poverty of Philosophy |
| Frederick Engels | Socialism: Utopian and Scientific The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State Dialectics of Nature Anti-Durhing |
| Lenin and Trotsky | Kronstadt |
| V.I. Lenin | Emancipation 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 Trotsky | Autobiography 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. Cannon | America’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 Luxembourg | Reform or Revolution Introduction to Economics Rosa Luxemburg Speaks |
| George Novak | Philosophy 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 Anderson | Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life |
| Carolyn Ashbaugh | Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary |
| Louise Bryant | Six Red Months in Russia |
| Isaac Deutscher | The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Betrayed (a trilogy of Trotsky’s Life |
| Bernadette Devlin | The Price of My Soul |
| Phillip Foner, Ed. | The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs |
| Elizabeth Gurley Flynn | The Rebel Girl (IWW feminist) |
| Ray Ginger | The Bending Cross (Eugene V. Debs) |
| James Kutcher | The Case of the Legless Veteran (SWP WWII veteran) |
| Michael Lowy | Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare |
| Franz Mehring | Karl Marx |
| Bryan D. Palmer | James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928 |
| Robert Rosenstone | Romantic Revolutionary (about writer John Reed) |
| Assata Shakur | Assata (Black Panther exiled in Cuba) |
| Ida B. Wells Barnett | Autobiography of Ida B. Wells Barnett |
World History
| Renate Bridenthal | When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany |
| Eduardo Galeano | Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent |
| Daniel Guerin | Fascism and Big Business (origins of European fascism) Brown Plague (first-person account of the rise of German fascism) |
| Joseph Hansen | Leninist Strategy of Party Building: the Debate on Guerilla Warfare in the Fourth International |
| C.L.R. James | The Black Jacobins: Touissant L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution |
| Joseph Hansen | Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution |
| Harold Isaacs | Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (deals with 1920s and ‘30s) |
| Felix Morrow | Revolution and Counter Revolution in Spain |
| Farley Mowat | And No Birds Sang (Canadians Fighting in Italy in WWII) |
| George Orwell | Homage to Catalonia (first-person account of Spanish Civil War) |
| John Reed | Ten Days that Shook the World (Russian Revolution) Insurgent Mexico |
| Victor Serge | From Lenin to Stalin |
| Daniel Singer | The Road to Gdansk |
| Studs Terkel | The Good War (the ugly side of Americans in Europe in WWII) |
| Leon Trotsky | The Spanish Revolution, 1931-39 |
U.S. Labor History
| Louis Adamic | Dynamite |
| Ralph Chaplin | Wobbly |
| Eugene Debs | Eugene v. Debs Speaks |
| Farrell Dobbs | Teamster Rebellion (Trotskyist-led strike in 1934) |
| Phillip Foner | The 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 Honey | Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights |
| Harvey O’Connor | Revolution in Seattle (1919 General Strike) |
| Art Preis | Labor’s Giant Step (1930s depression and founding of the AFL-CIO) |
| Barbara Wertheimer | We Were There: The Story of Working Women in America |
| Murry Weiss | The Problem of Smashing McCarthyism McCarthyism: Key Issues in the 1954 Election |
| Samuel Yellen | American Labor Struggles, 1877-1934 |
Women
| Lim, et al. | Forbidden Stitch (Asian American anthology) |
| Asian Women United | Making Waves |
| August Bebel | Woman Under Socialism |
| Simone de Beauvoir | The Second Sex |
| Martha Cotera | Diosa y Hembra |
| Angela Davis | Women, Race and Class |
| Sara Evans | Personal Politics (origins of the feminist movement in the 1960s civil rights struggles) |
| Eleanor Flexnor | Century of Struggle |
| Betty Friedan | The Feminine Mystique |
| Paula Giddings | When and Where I Enter: Black Women’s Impact on Race and Sex in America |
| Gerda Lerner | Black Women in White America |
| Kate Millet | Sexual Politics |
| Michele Wallace | Black Macho and the Myth of the Super-Woman |
| Moraga, et, al. | This Bridge Called My Back |
| Evelyn Reed | Sexism and Science Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family |
| Barbara Smith, ed. | Homegirls: A Black Feminist Anthology |
| Elizabeth Stone | Women and the Cuban Revolution |
People of Color and Jews
| Mumia Abu-Jamal | Live from Death Row We Want Freedom: Life in the Black Panther Party |
| Rodolfo Acuna | Anything But Mexican |
| James Baldwin | The Fire Next Time |
| Leroy Bennet | Before the Mayflower |
| Terry Bisson | On a Move: The Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal |
| Taylor Branch | Parting the Water, Pillar of Fire, & At Canaan’s Edge (trilogy on civil rights movement) |
| Karen Brodkin | How Jews Became White Folks and What that Says About Race in America |
| Dee Brown | Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee |
| Carlos Bulosan | America is in the Heart |
| Peter Camejo | Racism, Revolution, Reaction 1861-1877 |
| Churchill and VanderWall | Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and American Indian Movement |
| Oliver C. Cox | Caste, Class and Race |
| Vine Deloria Jr. | Custer Died for Our Sins |
| W.E.B. Dubois | Black Reconstruction in America Souls of Black Folk |
| John Egerton | Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South |
| James Forman | The Making of Black Revolutionaries |
| Daniel Guerin | Negroes on the March (Post WWII analysis) |
| Fred Ho, et. al. | Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America |
| Jean Wakatsuki Houston | Farewell to Manzanar (Japanese American internment during WWII) |
| Gloria Jahoda | Trail of Tears: The Story of American Indian Removals 1813-1855 |
| Peter Kwong | Chinatown, New York |
| Winona La Duke | All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life |
| Abram Leon | The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation |
| Elizabeth Martinez | De Colores Means All of US |
| Leonard Peltier | Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance |
| Howell Raines | My Soul Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South |
| Virginia Sanchez Korrel | From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City |
| Malcolm X | The Final Speeches By Any Means Necessary |
| Robert Williams | Negroes with Guns (armed resistance to 1960s racism) |
L/G/B/T—Queer
| Joseph Beam, Ed. | In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology |
| Faderman and Eriksson | Lesbians in Germany: 1890s-1920s |
| Jonathan Katz | Gay American History |
| Kitchen Table Press | Combahee River Collective Statement |
| Leslie Feinberg | Transgender Warrior |
| Lauritsen and Thorstad | The Early Homosexual Rights Movement |
| Audre Lorde | Sister Outsider |
| Will Roscoe | The Zuni Man-Woman |
| Don Teal | The Gay Militants |
| Merle Woo | Yellow Woman Speaks |
Civil Liberties
| Heidi Boghosian | Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly and Dissent |
| Arthur Kinoy | Rights on Trial: Odyssey of a People’s Lawyer |
| Studs Terkel | Coming of Age (an oral history of movement activists) |
General Interest
| William Blake | An American Looks at Karl Marx |
| Phillip Caputo | Rumor of War (Vietnam) |
| Dana Frank | Bananeras: 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 Klein | The Shock Doctrine (expose of free market capitalists) |
| Howard Zinn | People’s History of the U.S. |
| Dave Zirin and Chuck D | Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, The Promise and Politics of Sports |
Fiction/Historical Novels
| Chinua Achebe | Things Fall Apart (an African village when Europeans move in) |
| William Faulkner | Intruder in the Dust (struggle for racial justice in the South) |
| Nadine Gordimer | A World of Strangers (and other novels & short stories set in South Africa) |
| Khaled Hosseini | A Thousand Splendid Suns (women in Afghanistan) |
| Margaret Lawrence | Stone Angel (woman growing up on the Canadian prairie) |
| Andre Malraux | Man’s Fate (novel about defeat of 1927 Chinese revolt) |
| Alan Paton | Cry the Beloved Country (set in South Africa) |
| Marge Piercy | Three Women |
| Danzy Senna | Caucasia |
| Lillian Smith | Strange Fruit (racism in the South) |
| John Steinbeck | Grapes of Wrath (the plight of sharecroppers during the Depression) In Dubious Battle (Depression-era strike organizing) |
| Ngugi wa Thiong’o | Petals of Blood (failed revolution in Kenya) |
| Dalton Trumbo | Johnny Got His Gun (anti-war) |
| Leon Uris | Trinity (Ireland) |
| Margaret Walker | Jubilee (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.