Honestly, I’d start with Blackshirts and Reds, it’s a history book that analyzes AES states critically and debunks modern anticommunism and anti-Marxism. Michael Parenti uses modern, non-Marxist language to appeal to liberals and leftists sympathetic to Marxism but unsure about it and AES. An alternative, or supplementary source, is the famous “Yellow Parenti” speech and/or Albert Einstein’s Why Socialism?

The absolute best primer is Engels’ The Principles of Communism, which I would follow with Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy, and swing back to Engels for Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. By now, you should understand what Communism is, how Marxism diverges from older Utopian Socialism, and have a thorough understanding of Dialectical and Historical Materialism, the philosophical foundation of Marxism. DiaMat makes the rest of Marxist theory far easier to understand, as it is the basis of all that follows, including analysis of Capitalism and Imperialism.

Now, you can read Wage Labor and Capital as well as Value, Price and Profit back to back for Marx to explain the Law of Value, and prep you for Lenin’s works Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and The State and Revolution, to bring you to the modern era of Imperialist Capitalism and explain the Marxist theory of the State.

If you read all of those works, you will be more well-read than the vast majority of Leftists. There are numerous other fantastic Marxist works, but this will get you by far the most bang for your buck when starting out.

As for Lemmy, the instances that care the most about Marxism are Hexbear.net, Lemmy.ml, and Lemmygrad.ml, both Hexbear and Grad have reading lists and offer help with theory.

Honestly, as an American, I’ve avoided diving into Marxist ideas because they tend to carry a lot of ‘baggage’ here and are seen as a touchy subject by many.

the baggage was intentionally manufactured.

there was a big push from the american government to suppress leftist political views because they were gaining groundswell political support during the great depression.

that’s why roosevelt did the new deal; the american government trained, paid and armed political violence in western europe & latin america to prevent them from going full socialist immediately after ww2; and did nothing but a slap on the wrist to the people who perpetuated the red scare.

it’'s in their interests keep you ignorant and make you think that leftists are the bogeyman.

Really cool!

Maybe you’ll find you disagree with most or all of what you read, that’s fine, you don’t have to agree. I don’t think Litvinov^[1] agreed with the nazis when he “[i]n 1928 […] had read and re-read Mein Kampf until he almost memorized it”^[2]. But reading even the books of our enemies is necessary to learn and grow.

I’m the creator of comlib (see some of the links in Cowbees comment), I’ve been thinking of giving someone that did what you did, to ask and learn, a… “coupon” for an EPUB. So if you use EPUBs and you have some book you’d like made into one, come tell me and I’ll prioritize it.