Ten Days That Shook the World main subject October Revolution
Background
John Reed was on an assignment for The Masses, a magazine of socialist politics, when he was reporting on the Russian Revolution. Although Reed stated that he had "tried to see events with the eye of a conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth" during the time of the event, he stated in the preface that "in the struggle my sympathies were not neutral" (since the book primarily shares the perspective of the Russian working class).Perhaps the most controversial work on our list is the seventh, John Reed’s book, “Ten Days That Shook the World,” reporting on the October revolution in Russia in 1917. Yes, as conservative critics have noted, Reed was a partisan. Yes, historians would do better. But this was probably the most consequential news story of the century, and Reed was there, and Reed could write. The magnitude of the event being reported on and the quality of the writing were other important standards in our considerations.
Not all responses were positive. Joseph Stalin argued in 1924 that Reed was misleading in regards to Leon Trotsky. The book portrays Trotsky (at that time commander of the Red Army) as co-director of the revolution with Lenin, and mentions Stalin only twice, one of those occasions being in a recitation of names. Russian writer Anatoly Rybakov elaborates on the Stalinist USSR’s ban of Ten Days That Shook The World: “The main task was to build a mighty socialist state. For that, mighty power was needed. Stalin was at the head of that power, which means that he stood at its source with Lenin. Together with Lenin he led the October Revolution. John Reed had presented the history of October differently. That wasn’t the John Reed we needed.” After Stalin's death, the book was allowed to recirculate in the USSR.
In contrast to Stalin's objections, Lenin had a different attitude towards the book. At the end of 1919, Lenin had written an Introduction to it (quoted further below).
Stalin remained silent on the topic at the time, and only spoke against it after Lenin's death in 1924.
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