Book Description:

“In order to build socialism, first and foremost, we need to have socialist people who understand socialist ideology and have socialist values.”

These are the immortal words of Ho Chi Minh, who helped guide Vietnam through decades of revolution against French colonialism, Japanese fascism, and American imperialism. These words reverberate today in the classrooms of Vietnamese high schools and colleges, where students are required to study a full curriculum of socialist theory rooted in the foundational works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Now, for the first time, the materials used to train Vietnamese students in the core ideological system of dialectical materialism and materialist dialectics is available to the English speaking world through Luna Nguyen’s groundbreaking translation of Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism, Part 1: The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism for University and College Students Not Specializing in Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought. This text, originally produced by Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training for use in universities, provides a brief history of Marxism-Leninism as well as thorough explanations of the principles and laws of dialectical materialism, materialist dialectics, and the cognitive theory of dialectical materialism.

The first English edition is brought to you by Banyan House Publishing in collaboration with Iskra Books and The International Magazine. We have done our best to deliver a textbook which is highly optimized for collective training as well as self-study and for use as a companion piece for further reading. The book includes an original glossary, appendices, and illustrations and annotations by Emerican Johnson as well as a foreword by Dr. Vijay Prashad and introduction by Dr. Taimur Rahman.