I gotta give it to Stalin for saying everything nice and simple and tossing in a few jokes here and there. His Anarchism or Socialism was one of the best written books of theory I’d ever read. Stalin brings up Point A, then explains what it is, he explains the Anarchist positions/opinions on Point A, then Stalin shits on the anarchists and says “get a load of this jackass, he thinks blah blah blah about Point A! Have you ever heard of anyone so ignorant?” And on top of that, he never writes books that are especially long, most are able to be read over the course of 1-3 days. I genuinely haven’t read enough Lenin yet, I only read his Development of Capitalism in Russia which was very dry, Marx and Engels are great but I prefer Engels writing style to Marx
Of Stalin, I’ve read Dialectical and historical materialism, which I should probably re-read, and I’ve read economic problems of the USSR and foundations of Leninism, which were not the most engaging works. I haven’t read much Mao or Marx. I have read some Lenin, State and revolution is really great, I love his easy to understand and engaging style, Imperialism is also really good, I love how he dunks on Kautsky, and gives so much evidence and explanation it’s impossible to deny his conclusions. Finally Engels is pretty good, I’ve only read a few chapters of anti-duhring, but I feel like he’s like Lenin with a little more philosophical jargon.
On Authority was a key work for me as a budding Marxist. Socialism Utopian and Scientific was always a favorite too but I never remembered much because I only checked it in audiobook, I have a Marx-Engels reader that has it tho