Socialist Bookshelf: Ten Days That Shook the World

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Ian Swindale re-reads the classic account of the Russian Revolution, "Ten Days That Shook the World" by John Reed, published in paperback by Penguin at £1.95.

The first time I read this "slice of intensified history" was in the early '60s when, as a school student eager to find out what the Russian Revolution had really been about, I picked up a copy in my local library.

At first baffled by the large array of political parties and popular organisations with strange names — Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Cadets, Soviets, Dumas — I quickly became absorbed by the vivid account of the first days of the Revolution put together by Reed.

As an American journalist, but also a supporter of the Bolsheviks, Reed was able to pass more or less with immunity from one side to the other to interview the leaders of the main parties, and talk to leading capitalists on the one hand and ordinary workers and soldiers on the other.

Although at one point he was put against a wall and nearly shot by Red Guards who took him to be a spy, he was able to come and go, witnessing many of the key events of the Revolution.

It is hardly surprising then that the revolution should come alive in the pages of his book. Here we can read the proclamations of the Military Revolutionary Committee, led by Trotsky, which organised the insurrection, and the Decrees on Peace and Land passed by the Congress of Soviets on the first day of the Revolution.

We can hear the bourgeoisie who had condemned Russian soldiers for failing to fight hard enough against Germany, praying now that the Kaiser's armies would come soon and smash the Bolsheviks.

We can smile in amusement at the leaders of the other socialist parties as they walk out of the Congress of Soviets in order to "go and die" at the Winter Palace in the company of counter-revolutionaries "in defence of the (bourgeois) revolution". (Needless to say, none of them actually did die there. The Red Guards wouldn't let them in, so they went home!)

And through all the confusion, the mistakes and chaos of the revolution we can sense the huge awakening of the ordinary peasants, workers and soldiers — many of the illiterate — as they grapple with the politics of the various revolutionary organisations; as they try in the midst of rumours and proclamations from all sides to work out who is fighting on their behalf and who has crossed over to the class enemy.

Endless political debate, the eager reading of newspapers, pamphlets and leaflets, a minimum of sleep and meals hurriedly eaten between rushing from one flashpoint to another — this was the life led by the Red Guards the factory workers and army battalions in revolutionary Petrograd and elsewhere in those days.

The Bolsheviks seemed to be completely isolated, having seized power. Against them stood the bourgeoisie, the yunkers, the Cossacks, teachers, students, clerical workers, even some sections of the working class, like the railway workers union, and of course all the other socialist parties.

But in reality they were far from being isolated because behind them stood the mass of workers and soldiers.

As news of the revolution in Petrograd spread to the front and throughout Russia, local Soviets fought to establish their own power.

But in the first few days covered by Reed's book, the crucial question was securing the revolution in Petrograd against counter-attack by the forces still loyal to Kerensky.

Here, chaos seemed to rule supreme. Nobody seemed to know where Kerensky was or how near to Petrograd his troops had advanced. Rumours spread like wildfire, while those who were eager to defend the revolution were unorganised and no overall strategy existed to defend the city.

But the tireless work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the determination of the workers and soldiers to defend their revolution and the appointment of sympathetic officers to lead the revolutionary troops resulted in Kerensky's forces being thrown back.

Petrograd was saved and the revolution erupted again throughout Russia.

By the time I had finished reading the book on that first occasion, I was completely convinced that the Russian Revolution had been both the most important event of the 20th century and the most democratic expression of the will of the masses ever to have taken place.

Even in a country where the working masses had been kept in deliberate ignorance by their ruling class it had been possible for the ordinary people to grasp where their interests lay and to make whatever sacrifices were necessary to win the struggle for power.

The rich and the educated scoffed at them, dirty, badly clothed, poorly educated and inarticulate — the 'Dark People'.

But they fought with tenacity against all the odds to establish the world's first workers' state.

I have re-read the book several times in the last 15 years and on each occasion I have felt inspired by Reed's account of the unfolding Revolution. And with an introduction by Lenin, recommending the book to the workers of the world, what more needs to be said? Read it!