Ten Days That Shook the World

“Unreservedly do I recommend it to the workers of the world. Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages.”
—V.I. Lenin

This dazzling eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution takes its readers into the heart of the extraordinary events that occurred in St. Petersburg towards the end of 1917.

An American journalist on assignment for the New York-based communist newspaper, The Masses, John Reed provides a riveting description of the events that led to Lenin and the Bolsheviks seizing state power. Crackling with energetic immediacy, Reed’s chronicle is based on his days and nights walking the streets and visiting the meeting halls in a city ablaze with revolutionary fervour. His reports are crammed with urgent information gleaned from handbills, newspapers, and posters, and from talking to the soldiers, peasants, and industrial workers who have flooded to the city to join the ranks of the revolution.

John Reed (1887-1920) was a journalist, activist and author. In addition to chronicling the Russian Revolution, he reported on US labour strikes, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and was a founder of and international delegate for the Communist Labor Party. He is buried at the Kremlin Wall in Moscow.