Question: **What subset of Hegel should a person know to understand Marxist philosophy?**

In political alignment i'm a Marxist, and mostly subscribe to social and political positions of the kinds like Slavoj Žižek or István Mészáros. However in philosophy i was always a logical positivist and was never interested in continental tradition. For example, i'm not interested in Žižek's philosophical insights.

Lenin [said](http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch03.htm#LCW38_179) on Hegel:

> 
> It is impossible completely to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first Chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!
> 
> 
> 

What absolute minimum of Hegel should a person deeply entrenched in analytical camp know and comprehend? Can you please recommend an introduction to Hegel's thought from Marxist perspective?

Answer: 
You might be interested in Alexandre Kojève's *Introduction to the Reading of Hegel*. The first chapter is available on the site DBK recommended (www.marxists.org). Kojève has a few other works of note (though only the *Introduction* and *Outline of a Phenomenology of Right* have been translated into English--though *The Concept, Time, and Discourse* is supposed to be released soon). He is probably the most influential interpreter of Hegel. (He was also a Marxist.) 

As far as Hegel goes, I'd suggest reading, at the very least, the Master-Slave Dialectic in the *Phenomenology of Spirit*. The *Philosophy of History* is also worth reading (it's quite a bit easier than the *Phenomenology*, and is a good introduction to Hegel's historicism).
I liked *Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory* by Herbert Marcuse.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_and_Revolution>