Introduction to Marxist thought?

There is
Marx: A very short introduction by Peter Singer
Part of the very good Oxford short introduction series

Slightly less neutral but much more accessible is
Marx for Beginners by Rius
Marxism explained in cartoons. There's a used copy of the original 1976 book on Amazon for £1.50.

Rather than reading works per se it might be more useful to look at particular concepts and discuss the continued relevance or otherwise of Marxist and post Marxist theories like labour theory of value, commodity fetishism, socialisation of capital, spatial reorganisation of the social relations of capital , Hegelian idealism versus materialism, ideology and hegemony etc.

Yeah. I have read a lot of Marx, and none of it is well explained, and any questions you come up with are never answered.

Marx, how to write 5000 words to say not a lot.

I am sure that is why Marxism was so successful. Because anyone could say " it means this ", and nobody was confident enough in what it means to disagree.

My interest is the CPC, and how what Marxism is has changed from the 1920's in China to today. How Mao promised the peasants free land and retribution against the landlords, through the Great Leap, cultural rev etc, to todays state capitalism, complete with new landlords.

I find it fascinating how Marxism keeps being changed and re-defined, but is still called Marxism.

And I think that is because Marx was really really bad at explaining things.

There is an exceptional lecture series on YouTube by David Harvey. It's on reading Capital and it made reading it way more accessible. My husband and I read about a chapter a week a few years back and watched the lecture together. The chapters are short but complicated, but honestly if you can follow the first 3 chapters, you understand the core ideas (although it took me a lot of thinking!). Critical to understand economics if you ask me.

Ooh thanks ive ordered it for DS1's stocking. £3 bargain!

Plato To NATO
Here's the link

Good to have a perspective of what happens if a country tries to implement it!

I remember "Plato To Nato" was really useful. Political thought in a nutshell (ie a short, cheat version!) and a chapter devoted to Marx from recollection.

The Communist Manifesto in itself is quite brief. However it is not neutral obviously! Its not that well explained either tbh, more 'this is all terrible' then 'this is why all other socialists are wrong' then 2 pages of 'this is what society will be like after the Revolution'.