I posted this a while back and just realized it could be helpful to new users so here it is again- first there's a brief description of the sub-forums (to be updated soon) followed by a description of socialism.

Also- I post a lot of things under the recomended reading parts, but recomended doesn't mean neccesary, it's good to read some basic stuff and find out which one of these guys you like best and delve deeper into them.

Karl Marx (Marxism)- Widely considered the founder of modern communism- recomended reading- "The Communist Manifesto", "Critique of the Gotha Programme", "The Civil War in France", "The Paris Commune", "Wage Labor and Profit", and "Das Kapital Volume 1" (the best existing critique and explanation of the capitalist system, it's also extremly long- over 1000 pages, so if you get really into this stuff it's a good read)
Archive- http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/index.htm

Vladimiry Ilych Lenin (Leninism)- I mod this forum so....anyway, Lenin is the founder and first leader of the USSR, he led the revolution there and is widely known for his philisophy which expanded on Marx and Engel's works (Engels was Marx's main partner in writing, check the Marx archive)-recomended reading- "What is to be Done?", "The State and Revolution", "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", "Lessons of the Revolution", "On Trade Unions"- you can find some more in a list I have in the Leninism thread as well as many that you can buy (all of these can be found free at his archive)
Archive- http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/index.htm

Leon Trotsky (Trotskyism)- One of Lenin's comrades in the revolution and formation of the USSR as well as a military leader, he was exiled from the USSR by Stalin because Stalin considered him an enemy of the state and Trotsky was eventually killed by Stalin's agents (note- this guild is anti-Stalinist in popular opinion)- recomended reading (I'm not the best guy for this as I don't like Trotsky much)- "My Life" (his auto-biography, an interesting read), "The History of the Russian Revolution", "The Revolution Betrayed", "In Defence of Marxism", "Permanent Revolution" (arguably his most important and lasting philosophical writing), "What Next? Vital Questions for the German Left", "The German Catastophe", "Bonapartism, Facism, and War"
Archive- http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/index.htm

Rosa Luxemburg (Luxemburgism)- I'm afraid I know next to nothing about her and the best thing for you would be to read through the sub-forum and/or look at her archive at- http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/index.htm

Mao Tse-Tung (Maoism)- One of my heroes, Mao is the founder of the People's Republic of China, and was the first and last socialist leader of it (it is now a capitalist country), he advocated solidarity between the proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie against the capitalist ruling class- Recomended Reading- just go to the following URL, and I've looked at it and recomend all of the works with red stars next to them- http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/date-index.htm
Archive- http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/index.htm#n1

Fidel Castro (Castroism)- You have probably heard of him, he was the founder of Cuba as a socialist nation and leader of the revolution, he was also the acting prime minister of Cuba until very recently when his brother made his first appointment as the acting leader- Recomended Reading "History will Absolve Me", "Denouncing the US Bay of Pigs Invasion", "When the People Rule", "The Revolution Begins Now", "Cuba's Achievments and America's Wars", "The First Declaration of Havana", "The Second Declaration of Havana"
Archive- http://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/index.htm

Che Guevarra (Guevarism)- Lead military commander in the Cuban revolution and freedom fighter for many places in Latin America, he didn't write a huge amount of things so here many are- http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/index.htm

Here's the ultimate communist/socialist resource by the way- http://www.marxists.org/

Also on that website is a beginner's guide to marxism which is excellent, here's a fairly brief explanation of socialism I did for a friend-

Here's the ultimate resource for communists and socialists of all degrees everywhere. http://www.marxists.org/
Some authors I would highly recomend are
Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels
Vladimir Lenin (I am a Leninist and I know these ideas best)
Leon Trotsky
Mao Tse-Tung
Bakunin (anarcho-communism basically)

The basic idea of communism is that under capitalism, no matter how much the poor man (proletariat) works he can never become rich (bourgeoisie) because what comes of his labor go to the bourgeoisie and he gets a tiny fraction of this, insuring that he stays in his poor state.

Yet another reason the poor man cannot get away from his status is that the bourgeoisie control the system, they control education, they control everything. The bourgeoisie donate to the schools of their children, they keep schools in upper class neighborhoods great with massive funding and eliminate the "risk" of poor people getting through the system by going to college or good schools, forcing them into work at factories or like places with low wages.

Here's a basic brake down of the classes from a communist point of view

Bourgeoisie- Upper class, this means the high level bosses and CEOs, anyone who can be considered rich. These people control the wealth and under capitalism are rarely taken away from their stature or made into part of the proletariat.

Petty Bourgeoisie- Middle class, generally holding office jobs or something like that. A franchise owner could be considered petty bourgeoisie. These people have more money then they need but aren't neccesarily rich. Someone in the petty bourgeoisie class can plausibly be pushed into the proletariat at any time although it doesn't happen a lot. In the Russian revolution the petty bourgeoisie fought with the proletariat as they generally have nothing to lose from the Bourgeoisie being taken out of power save a loss of some money.

Proletariat- The lower or working classes, sometimes reffered to as unskilled workers or people who don't have the options given to the bourgeoisie. This would include miners, factory workers, the unemployed, fast food workers, etc.

Here's another explanation of the capitalist system fairly simply
Lets say me and you live in our own country with a money printing press and 100 other people. Money is printed at a constant rate of 10 dollars per 10 minutes, 1 dollar per minute. Me and you decide to go into buisness, and the others work for us. We take 60 out of every 100 dollars (fun fact- in the US 1% of the population controls 60% of the wealth) and the other 100 people are forced to split the remaining 40 of every hundred dollars. They are poor, we are rich. Some how me and you each eventually marry and have 2 kids each. These four kids are in control of our company while the kids of the other 100 people are workers in the company. The same situation occurs except since there are more people everyone loses money, it doesn't hurt the rich of course because they still have a great deal of cash. Then they fire all except 100 workers creating conflict. You see how this becomes a domino effect.

What is the solution? The solution is the beginning of socialism which means as Marx said "From each his ability, to each his need" this means that the government controls all buisness in the country, with regular pay per person. It controls education, equalizing it out to all people, it gives free health care and housing etc. to all people. The people only have to buy their own food. How do they do this? Working of course, each person works as they formerly would except they get payed based on how much money they need. Say each person needs 500 dollars a week, then the government finds out how many people live in your house and gives you enough money to provide to them all so long as you come in to work obviously. If you don't work you get fired and there is you are put on unemployment until you get hired again, if you are unemployed and it seems purposful then unemployment is cut off from you. Since the government controls buisness they get what your labor produces, then redistribute it in the economy, stabilizing the economy. This system makes sure no one is richer then anyone because if one person controls more then their share of wealth the someone else controls less then their share of wealth which can not be justice.

That is a very basic description of socialism, I can go into specifics if you'd like or if you have any points where you think it wouldn't work or want to know how this would happen or anything at all, I'll do my best to answer them.

ALSO- check out our Main Recruitment page and it deals with the basic arguments against communism and socialism http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25810501&page=1