Well, this book has a lot going for it from historical value. Keeping track of the multitude of political factions was a bit overwhelming, but to just pick up what you can and not dwell on the details it provided a pretty good overview of the events and the spirit of the time of the revolution. Only three stars because it is ultimately a dry read, and I can't rate it up there with amazing 5-star books that I've read. I would give it 5 stars from a historical significance perspective. ( )

Reed's reportage rings true but the verbatim transcript of revolutionary speeches and proclamations sounds hollow and cynical 90+ years on and after Stalinism. I also think Reed gives more credit to central party control during the revolution than it probably was.

AJP Taylor's introduction to the Penguin 20th Century Classics edition is excellent. He may be right that Reed's account of the Russian Revolution is the best account of any revolution. ( )

Interesting as a first-person account. Not as pro-Bolshevik as might be expected. For Reed, the Bolshevik coaltion with the Left
Social Revolutionaries was the climax of the revolution ( )

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

The classic firsthand account of how the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917. With vivid prose, verbatim speeches and actual documents American journalist John Reed captures the drama of the power struggle in Petrograd folowing the Tsar's abdication in 1917. Traveling throughout the city in those fateful days, he recounts with forceful description the packed meetings, the Provisional government's downfall, the resistance to the Bolsheviks, and their eventful hold on the country. A bestseller when first published in 1919, TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD still teaches compelling lessons about how cultures and societies remain the same even in the face of radical overthrow. Another proof of systems theory......