"Brilliant and entertaining." —The New York Times Book Review This first-person chronicle by John Reed, a legendary journalist who was present at the flash point of the Russian Revolution in 1917, provides an intense and informative eyewitness account of one of the greatest events of the twentieth century. Capturing the spirit of those heady days of excitement and idealism, Reed's true-to-life account follows many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, as well as vividly capturing the mood of the masses. Verbatim reports of speeches by leaders, and comments of bystanders—set against an idealized backdrop of the proletariat united with soldiers, sailors, and peasants—are balanced by passionate narratives describing the fall of the provisional government, the assault on the Winter Palace, and Lenin's seizure of power. Accompanied by contemporaneous photographs, this gripping record by a western journalist has been acclaimed worldwide since its first publication in 1919. Endorsed by Lenin as a "truthful and most vivid exposition," the work was the basis for the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Reds.
Author
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. American journalist John Silas Reed, a correspondent of World War I, recounted an experience in Petrograd during the revolution of October 1917 in Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) and, after returning to the United States, cofounded the Communist labor party in 1919; people buried his body in the Kremlin, the citadel, housing the offices of the Russian government and formerly those of the Soviet government, in Moscow. This poet and Communist activist first gained prominence as a war correspondent during the Mexican revolution for Metropolitan magazine and during World War I for the magazine The Masses. People best know his coverage. Reed supported the Soviet takeover of Russia and even briefly took up arms to join the Red guards in 1918. He expected a similar Communist revolution in the United States with the short-lived organization. He died in Moscow of spotted typhus. At the time of his death, he perhaps soured on the Soviet leadership, but the Soviet Union gave him burial of a hero, one of only three Americans at the Kremlin wall necropolis.
