Ten days that Shook the World (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) [Paperback]

John Reed (Author), A. J. P. Taylor (Introduction), Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin | Publication Date: February 7, 1990

John Reed conveys, with the immediacy of cinema, the impression of a whole nation in ferment and disintegration. A contemporary journalist writing in the first flush of revolutionary enthusiasm, he gives us a record of the events in Petrograd in November 1917, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks finally siezed power. Containing verbatim reports both of speeches by leaders and the chance comments of bystanders set against an idealized backcloth of the proletariat soldiers, sailors, and peasants uniting to throw off oppression, Reed's account is the product of passionate involvement.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The situation in St. Petersburg was growing more and more tense. The People's Revolution had begun by overthrowing the corrupt Tsarist regime in March 1917, but the workers and the peasants felt the revolution had much farther to go. Tired of fighting a war that meant little to them, the soldiers also grew restless: "When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we'll know we have something to fight for, and we'll fight for it!"

Lenin pressed the Bolsheviks to seize power. On the night of October 24, an organized mass of workers, soldiers, peasants, and sailors stormed the Winter Palace. On the following day, at the opening of the second Congress of Soviets, Trotsky announced the overthrow of the provisional government. Counterrevolutionary forces marched on the capital, but the Revolutionary Army triumphed. After all, "[t]his was their battle, for their world; the officers in command were elected by them. For the moment that incoherent multiple will was one will."

In Ten Days That Shook the World John Reed tells the story of Red October and the Russian revolution from a unique, firsthand perspective. Reed, an American journalist, was on assignment in Russia for The Masses--then the principal radical journal in the United States--and spent his days walking the streets, reading and collecting handbills, newspapers, and posters, and talking to people. As a result, Ten Days crackles with energetic immediacy. At its best moments it reads like a novel: Reed recounts conversations and arguments, details political machinations, and speculates on personal motives. Though this is no mere piece of propaganda, Reed's enthusiasm for the revolution infuses the text (some readers may be put off by Reed's florid prose), casting each counterrevolutionary act in a negative light. Helpful notes flesh out the background for those less familiar with the preceding events and render this a solid work of history. Ten Days That Shook the World is a stirring account of a stirring event. --Sunny Delaney

Review

".....he writes of it brilliantly and entertainingly ......His familiar powers of graphic description ......are here at their best." -- The New York Times Book Review on first publication. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; 1st edition (February 7, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140182934
• ISBN-13: 978-0140182934
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,050,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to get the most out of this great book, June 23, 2006

By 

D. Morrow "[e-mail]" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (Bantam Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

To appreciate this book, you have to understand what it is and what it isn't.

This is top-notch journalism, by someone with a lot of insight into what he was seeing, and a knack for turning up in all the right places. It gives you a vivid, unparalleled *flavor* of the Russian revolution of 1917, the first victorious working class revolution.

But it's still *journalism*. It's not an organized chronicle of what happened, beginning at the beginning and introducing events and ideas in a logical order. On top of that, Reed arrived in Russia at the climax of the revolution, after seven months of intense activity by an overwhelming cast of characters. If you read it too casually, it's like starting a textbook by reading the last chapter.

To get the most out of the book, I suggest reading Reed's introductory material carefully, probably returning to it more than once as you read the book. If you need more help, there's a good summary in the last two chapters of "Revolutionary Continuity: the Early Years" by Farrell Dobbs.

Your efforts will be well-rewarded. It really is great journalism.

For a definitive history, I highly recommend the widely acclaimed masterpiece, "History of the Russian Revolution" by Leon Trotsky. If you like one book, you'll like the other. I promise. Please read my review. (Click on "See all my reviews" above.)

Some reviewers complained that Reed doesn't explain the revolution's shortcomings -- the Russian revolution obviously turned out badly in the long run. But not everyone agrees that the revolution was fatally flawed from the very beginning. I don't. It's hard to read Reed's book and believe it was anything but an authentic popular revolution. For what went wrong, I recommend "The Revolution Betrayed" by Leon Trotsky and "Lenin's Final Fight", a collection of Lenin's last writings.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Eyewitness Account of The Russian Revolution, November 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Ten days that Shook the World (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

This is a most powerfully written American radical journalist's eyewitness account of the Bolshevik seizure of power--recording the excitement of the October days and the beginnings of John Reed's own revolutionary disillusionment.

Ten Days That Shook the World is the classic account of the Russian Revolution of November 1917 by a western journalist and has been admired worldwide since its first publication in 1919. Lenin endorsed it as "a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution."

Already based in Europe and sympathetic to the cause of the Russian Revolution, Reed was able to observe dispassionately exactly what was going on and to find out not only what the Bolshevik leaders were doing, but to move among those on the streets and note experiences of the masses of ordinary people. Witnessing first-hand the day-to-day events of the Revolution, he captures in vivid and graphic detail the atmosphere of that time.

An extraordinary document of history in the making, this newer edition is the first with contemporary photographs, while a new introduction by Harold Shukman, University Lecturer in Modern Russian History at Oxford University, sets the work in context. Published to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, this illustrated edition will appeal to anyone interested in modern history. And quite possibly re-ignite a political polemic.

Warren Beatty dared to make the film Reds, which gives us a poignantly epic visual view of John Reed, his life, his loves and his fierce beliefs as read in Ten Days That Shook The World.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent examination of the Revolution, February 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Ten days that Shook the World (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

Mr. Reed's depiction of the events in Petrograd leading up to the October Revolution was gripping, well-balanced and thoughtful. The book was not marred in the least by the fact that he was a well-known Communist. Those who percived that are probably either ultra-anti-Communist or perhaps misinterpreted Mr. Reed's work. All in all, an excellent book.