Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft

If you want a good introduction for how Marxist's understand what separates their form of revolutionary socialism from all others, this is the book to read.

Utopian Socialism is an old and hallowed tradition, but one that does not seem to have had much lasting impact in the western world. Scientific Socialism - Marxism - is an attempt to understand the process of history and use it to the ends of human emancipation. Engels here goes into great depth on the differences between the two, it is not a long read. Would recommend!

Throughout this year I've finally taken the plunge into reading Marxist theory and after reading some introductory and guided texts I decided to tackle this short read from Engels himself as it's been recommended to me as very understandable and approachable, as it's somewhat of a short primer on the principles of scientific socialism. I can definitely agree with that, reading this I've felt both that there's hope for me yet to attain enough understanding on subjects such as dialectics and historical materialism to follow a basic conversation on such things eventually (baby steps), and that I have yet much to learn. Still this is a great read, incredibly relevant and resonating despite having been published more than 140 years ago, and a very easy recommendation.