The Books: “10 Days That Shook the World” (John Reed)

History bookshelf:

Next book on the shelf is Ten days that Shook the World by John Reed.

Before I get to this rollicking effective fabulously-written piece of propaganda, I have to get something out of the way, especially for my conservative readers:

You know how some bloggers are always arguing with an imaginary confrontational audience? In the posts? Their writing goes like this:

“Now I realize that most of you will find this offensive …” “I am willing to bet that 90% of you will be angry at what I’m about to say …” Everything must be prefaced, or couched, or framed. They even flat-out get into it with the imaginary audience: “Don’t tell me that there isn’t a such and such for the so and so … I am fully aware of all of the implications, thank you very much.” They start up an argument, and then keep arguing – even though no one’s there. This is not along the lines of someone taking a point and defending it, or expressing why they are angry about this or that. This is being overly conscious of the readership. I honestly try not to do that. It’s bad writing. You learn that in high school English. Pick a point and argue it. Imagine putting all of that stuff into a high school term paper. “I know that you, my teacher, may find my argument immature, but you just need to sit back and listen to where I’m coming from when I say that the green light across Gatsby’s bay symbolizes the lost hopes of the Jazz Age. I know it’s controversial, and I know you probably don’t agree, but just hear me out.” You’d get an F.

It’s hard not to succumb to it, because I just know that someone’s gonna say this exact thing, and I need to address that before they say it. I find bloggers who do that habitually unreadable … I like the writers who just flat out say what they want to say, and just share their opinions wihtout hemming and hawing to their “readers”.

All of this does have a point.

In another post about the Russian Revolution, where John Reed’s book came up, I did exactly what I don’t like, as you can see:

I’ve read John Reed’s 10 Days that shook the world, and it’s a brilliant piece of propaganda – one of the best. It is, of course, propaganda – and you can argue that it’s a dangerous piece of work, whatever – that argument bores me, frankly. I want to read anything I can get my hands on – and that is a first-hand account of the October Revolution. He was the one who “sold” the Revolution to the outside world. Whatever you think of his beliefs (and again – I find myself rolling my eyes when I read it – the enthusiasm! The belief that the whole world would rise up in a red wave! Etc.) – the dude can write. Don’t bitch about me about what I should or should not read. That’s another form of totalitarianism. I recognize Reed’s work as propaganda for the cause. I read it anyway. So don’t foam at the mouth, mkay? I love first-person accounts of any historical event – biased or no. I like to feel like I am THERE.

That “don’t bitch to me” and “so don’t foam at the mouth, mkay?” is what I’m talking about. My point is well made in the above paragraph without the “don’t foam at the mouth”. I know that I have readers who would foam at the mouth, and I find them boring and tiresome, but why is that my problem? There are going to be people who just think I’m an idiot and who read me in order to CORRECT me. Again, I find these people boring, but that should not affect my writing. Why take into consideration the bores among us? I should not address my posts TO those boring (and predictable) people. This has only occurred in the last year or so when I’ve gotten so many more readers than I had before.

I didn’t set down to write all this this morning, but I do know that when I saw the next book on the shelf, I felt a bit apprehensive, like: Oh God. As though people would be mad at me for even having it on my shelf. How was I going to FRAME this?

Good Lord. Who cares?? I ain’t gonna frame SHIT.

So. John Reed. Who, strangely enough, did NOT look like Warren Beatty was a journalist. Here’s some good information about him. A fascinating life. The value of his book is, for me, the first-person account of the events of those “10 days” – his writing is phenomenal. He was swept away by the enthusiasm of what was happening, so obviously he was duped – as many were duped – but his writing!! The descriptions!! You get the smells, the sights, the brief personality portraits, the “foul blue cigarette smoke” in the air, the smell of unwashed people, the frigid wind … Fabulous.

Here is an excerpt from his description of November 7, 1917. The bulletin that Kameniev hands to John Reed is stunning, I think. Good Lord. They stated their intentions up front and … God. You just know that MILLIONS died carrying the plan out. “transform into a state monopoly” … wow, guys!! Great idea!! Good luck with that! (It’s funny that this book came up a day after I wrote this.)

Oh, and one thing: John Reed uses ellipses a lot. I’ve not taken anything out in the excerpt below – the ellipses are already in the text.

From Ten days that Shook the World (Penguin Classics) by John Reed.

The massive facade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in the gloom. Automobiiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous elephant-coloured armored automobile, with two red flags flying from the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and at the outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bonfire. At the inner gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the sentries slowly spelled out our passes and looked us up and down. The canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on each side of the doorway, and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike from their breeches. A dun herd of armoured cars stood under the trees in the court-yard, engines going. The long, bare, dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder of feet, calling, shouting … There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd came pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders, soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur shapki pinched flat, a leader or so — Lunatcharsky, Kameniev — hurrying along in the centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces, and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev — a quick-moving little man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders. Without preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution just passed:

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldier’s Deputies, saluting the victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison, particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so well.

The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will be created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country can be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.

The new Workers’ and Peasants’ Government will propose immediately a just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.

It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer the land to the peasants. It will establish workmen’s control over production and distribution of manufactured products, and will set up a general control over the banks, which it will transform into a state monopoly.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldier’s Deputies calls upon the workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their energy and all their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet expresses its conviction that the city workers, allies of the poor peasants, will assure complete revolutionary order, indispensable to the victory of Socialism. The Soviet is convinced that the proletariat of the countries of Western Europe will aid us in conducting the cause of Socialism to a real and lasting victory.

“You consider it won then?”

He lifted his shoulders. “There is much to do. Horribly much. It is just beginning …”

On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions, looking black and biting his grey beard. “It’s insane! Insane!” he shouted. “The European working-class won’t move! All Russia –” He waved his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and Kameniev had both opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin’s terrible tongue …

It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee Trotsky had declared that the Provisional Government no longer existed.

“The characteristic of bourgeois government,” he said, “is to deceive the people. We, the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in history; we are going to found a power which will have no other aim but to satisfy the needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants.”

Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying world-wide Social Revolution … And Zinoviev crying, “This day we have paid our debt to the international proletariat, and struck a terrible blow at the war, a terrible body-blow at all the imperialists and particularly at Wilhelm the Executioner …”

Then Trotsky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing the victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said to be marching against Petrograd — a delegation must be sent to tell them the truth.

Cries, “You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets!”

Trotsky, colly, “The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets has been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and soldiers!”

So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the clamourous mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white chandeliers, packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides, perched on every window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the representatives of the workesr and soldiers of all Russia waited in anxious silence or wild exultation the ringing of the chairman’s bell. There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of unwashed human bodies. A foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose from the mass and hung in the thick air. Occasionally some one in authority mounted the tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke; then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry “Don’t smoke, comrades!” and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist delegate from the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him. Unshaven and filthy, he was reeling from three nights’ sleepless work on the Military Revolutionary Committee.

On the platform sat the leaders of the old Tsay-ee-kah — for the last time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled from the first days, and which were now risen against them. It was the end of the first period of the Russian revolution, which these men had attempted to guide in careful ways … The three greatest of them were not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country towns all doubtfully heaving up; Teheidze, the old eagle, who had contemptuously retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to sicken with consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also mortally stricken, who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his beautiful eloquence for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber, Bogdanov, Broido, Fillipovsky, — white-faced, hollow-eyed and indignant. Below them the second siezd of the All-Russian Soviets boiled and swirled, and over their heads the Military Revolutionary Committee functioned white-hot, holding in its hands the threads of insurrection and striking with a long arm … It was 10:40 P.M.

Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon’s uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken by the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door …

“We have the power in our hands,” he began sadly, stopped for a moment, and then went on in a low voice. “Comrades! The Congress of Soviets is meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an extraordinary moment that you will understand why the Tsay-ee-kah considers it unnecessary to address you with a political speech. This will become much clearer to you if you will recollect that I am a memeber of the Tsay-ee-kah, and that at this very moment our party comrades are in the Winter Palace under bombardment, sacrificing themselves to execute the duty put on them by the Tsay-ee-kah.” (Confused uproar.)

“I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies open!”

The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about. Avanessov announced that by agreement of the Bolskeviki, Left Socialist Revolutionaries and Menshiviki Internationalists, it was decided to base the presidium upon proportionality. Several Mensheviki leaped to their feet protesting. A bearded solider shouted at them, “Remember what you did to us Bolsheviki when we were the minority!” Result — 14 Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and 1 Internationalist (Gorky’s group). Hendelmann, for the right and centre Socialist Revolutionaries siad that they refused to take part in the presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the Mensheviki; and from the Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the verification of certain circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium. Scattering applause and hoots. One voice, “Renegades, you call yourselves Socialists!” A representative of the Ukrainian delegates demanded, and received, a place. Then the old Tsay-ee-kah stepped down, and in their places appeared Trotsky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky, Madame Kollentai, Nogin … The hall rose, thundering. How far they had soared, these Bolsheviki, from a despised and hunted sect leses than four months ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia in full tide of insurrection!

The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organization of Power; second, War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly. Lozovsky, rising, announced that upon agreement of the bureaus of all factions, it was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the Petrograd Soviet, then to give the floor to members of the Tsay-ee-kah and the different parties, and finally to pass to the order of the day.

But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult of the crowd, persistent, disquieting — the dull shock of guns. People looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of fever came over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely, “The civil war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a peaceful settlement of the crisis. On principle and from a political standpoint we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war. Our brothers are being shot down in the streets! At this moment, when before the opening of the Congress of Soviets the question of Power is being settled by means of a military plot organized by one of the revolutionary parties–” for a moment he could not make himself heard above the noise, “All of the revolutionary parties must face the fact! The first vopros (question) before the Congress is the question of Power, and this question is already being settled by force of arms in the streets! … We must create a power which will be recognized by the whole democracy. If the Congress wishes to be the voice of the revolutionary democracy it must not sit with folded hands before the developing civil war, the result of which may be a dangerous outburst of counter-revolution … The possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in the formation of a united democratic authority … We must elect a delegation to negotiate with the other Socialist parties and organizations …”

Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows, and the delegates, screaming at each other … So, with the crash of artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new Russia was being born.