page number in the original book. These figures are available elsewhere
(www.geocities.com/norm_90) where images of the pages involved are available in tiff
or pdf format. These are-- page 33 46 49 96 104 166 184 205 224 227 251 254 276 279
281 287 354
Epilogue: The original book of this text had a number of newspaper clipings from the
1920's and 1930's included. Most of these relate to the violent deaths encountered by
those playing a part in this book. Others reveal that Eisenstein made a film of "Ten Days".
Stalin, who is not mentioned in the book, suppressed the work. Louise Bryant, mentioned
in the text, was married to John Reed, and after his death married William Bullitt in 1923
(divorced 1930) and died in Paris in 1936 at age 41. Mr. Bullitt was the first ambassador
to Russia in the Roosevelt administration, and later to France. Harvard University
accepted a commissioned portrait of Reed in 1935 from a group of his classmates and
hung it in Adams House, site of the boarding house where Reed lived at Harvard. ]
Ten Days That Shook the World
by John Reed
Table of Contents
Preface.
Notes and Explanations.
Chapter 1.
Background.
Chapter 2.
The Coming Storm.
Chapter 3.
On the Eve.
Chapter 4.
The Fall of the Provisional Government.
Chapter 5.
Plunging Ahead.
Chapter 6.
The Committee for Salvation.
Chapter 7.
The Revolutionary Front.
Chapter 8.
Counter-Revolution.
Chapter 9.
Victory.
Chapter 10.
Moscow.
Chapter 11.
The Conquest of Power.
Chapter 12.
The Peasants’ Congress.
Appendices I - XII
Preface
THIS book is a slice of intensified history—history as I saw it. It does not pretend to be
anything but a detailed account of the November Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the
head of the workers and soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the
hands of the Soviets.
Naturally most of it deals with “Red Petrograd,” the capital and heart of the insurrection.
But the reader must realize that what took place in Petrograd was almost exactly
duplicated, with greater or lesser intensity, at different intervals of time, all over Russia.
In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must confine myself to a chronicle
of those events which I myself observed and experienced, and those supported by reliable
evidence; preceded by two chapters briefly outlining the background and causes of the
November Revolution. I am aware that these two chapters make difficult reading, but
they are essential to an understanding of what follows.
Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. What is Bolshevism?
What kind of a governmental structure did the Bolsheviki set up? If the Bolsheviki
championed the Constituent Assembly before the November Revolution, why did they
disperse it by force of arms afterward? And if the bourgeoisie opposed the Constituent
Assembly until the danger of Bolshevism became apparent, why did they champion it
afterward?
These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In another volume, “Kornilov
to Brest-Litovsk,” I trace the course of the Revolution up to and including the German
peace. There I explain the origin and functions of the Revolutionary organisations, the
evolution of popular sentiment, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the structure
of the Soviet state, and the course and outcome of the Brest- Litovsk negotiations….
In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to understand that Russian
economic life and the Russian army were not disorganised on November 7th, 1917, but
many months before, as the logical result of a process which began as far back as 1915.
The corrupt reactionaries in control of the Tsar’s Court deliberately undertook to wreck
Russia in order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the front,
which had caused the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the lack of food in the army
and in the great cities, the break-down of manufactures and transportation in 1916—all
these we know now were part of a gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in
time by the March Revolution.
For the first few months of the new régime, in spite of the confusion incident upon a great
Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions of the world’s most oppressed peoples
suddenly achieved liberty, both the internal situation and the combative power of the
army actually improved.
But the “honeymoon” was short. The propertied classes wanted merely a political
revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give it to them. They wanted
Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like France or the United States; or a
constitutional Monarchy, like England. On the other
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