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How commie should I be? We're supposed to have a book swap and idk if it's NYT bestsellers or Lenin. They've got a lot of "we'll take your name off if you're scared to associate with our group", but looking through the docs and all seems like completely normal stuff.
If you don't know how radical they are, why not bring a book written by a Marxist but that doesn't immediately set off people's alarm bells? Fanon, Gramsci, or any of the French new left writers are acceptable for most radlibs (yet for some reason Marx isn't?)
read the jakarta method, it's kinda both
If you want to gauge the group itself, their sentiments on China are a good barometer.
How about Capitalism, Coronavirus, and War by Radhika Desai? It is modern, relevant, and has substantial portions about the new cold war against China. If a group is particularly anti-China, they will let you know by taking this opportunity to tell you that Chiba is imperialist or something.
I feel like there are a lot of Bernie Sanders style left liberal who are not ready to be deprogrammed on China yet but would appreciate Blackshirts and Reds, at least in my experience talking to people in USA and Canada
Yes that is the main book I recommend to people to get them started on a left pipeline!
Naomi Klein is a good middle point, try the shock doctrine or this changes everything
perhaps non-theory works from communist authors, especially soviet ones like maxim gorky or demyan bedny. if they receive it well, you can slowly guide them towards the more political stuff and if they resort to racist russophobic or anticommunist screeching you'll know to run before it's to late.