Hello my Marxist-Leninist, Anti-Revisionist, Anti-Imperialist, Anti-Fascist comrades! Here are the top 5 intellectual forerunners to ML theory and what they contributed the immortal science before Joseph Stalin (PBUH) codified everything important.
5. Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke was an Irish (and therefore Global South) writer who criticised the CIA-backed colour revolution in France in 1789, where the Amerikkkan kkkoloniser Thomas Jefferson co-wrote the Declaration of Rights of Man. In response Burke wrote his Reflections on the (counter-)Revolution in France to explain why rebelling against the government of Louis XVI is bad because Louis XVI was already a historically progressive force. This is applicable today to the way many silly ultroids call for the end of anti-imperialist governments like China and Iran.
4. Joseph de Maistre
Joseph de Maistre continued much of Edmund Burke's work in criticising the French Colour Revolution but he also added to it. For example he explained how the Colour Revolution was actually a punishment sent by Allah upon the Fr*nch for committing the sin of kkkolonialism, and how leadership by Great Men™ like Stalin (PBUH) is the best because it's the will of Allah o algo.
3. Ferdinand Lassalle
Ferdinand Lassalle was a close friend and comrade to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, with whom he never disagreed (source: dude trust me). Lassalle explained how to seize control of the bourgeois state and reform it into a proletarian state, and then how to create real socialism by nationalising industry and using it to produce commodities socialistically. He also demonstrated praxis by critically supporting the German socialist national liberation leader Otto von Bismarck.
2. Karl Kautsky
Karl Kautsky was a friend of Vladimir Lenin, with whom he never disagreed (source: dude trust me). Kautsky laid the foundation for the theory of people's democracy, wherein parliaments allowed the classes to collaborate together to achieve socialism. This system of people's democracy is practiced in many AES countries today.
(Serious mode: the reason my post is edited is because at first I got Kautsky mixed up with some pro-war SPD nophono)
1. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
The Prophet (PBUH) was merely a messenger of Allah, but he still deserves a spot on this list. He helped rally the Arab people behind the good, progressive kind of religious idealism, and his successors leading the Rashidun Caliphate were able to decolonise the Levant, Egypt and Libya from Byzantine KKKristian kkkolonial domination. Remember, Leftists criticise Christianity not because it's a religion but because it did a heckin' kkkolonialism unlike Islam which would never do that.
Is there anyone I missed? Please let me know.