Dictators and Democracy In the Era of Total War 1900-1948

Dr Michael Sauter
S231054
Summative Assessment 2
Ten Days that Shook the World

2196 words
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Ten Days That Shook The World: John Reed

“Peace, Bread, and Land”, an instantly placeable and recognisable slogan to define one of history’s
most tumultuous periods of political movement. Yet, its significance holds meaning for both the
critique and admirer of Lenin’s Socialism. For one, it is the propaganda which allowed a ‘contagion’
to spread from Russia across the globe. For the other, it is the basic political action which allows the
most oppressed to rise above their hardships. John Reed’s book acts to present this period through
the principles of why the Bolsheviks usurped state power and why a Socialist Russia was necessary
as he provides first-hand accounts, speeches and pamphlets. Being invested in labour action long
before 1917, Reed comes at first to Russia an observer but leaves the events a participant who
affirms the creation of a world-wide state of Socialism. His work therefore is certainly charged with
exhorting upon the reader an ire of importance for socialist revolution, but is balanced by the
presentation of events which show how anti-climactic, disjointed and sudden the revolution turned
out to be. In many ways, this style means Reed lends a helping hand to Western interpretations,
such as Richard Pipes, of it being a Russian Coup rather than Revolution, despite his belief in it being
the opposite.

Key to understanding Reed’s book is within his motivation to move to Russia. Reed had already
spent time witnessing the Mexican Revolution as a war correspondent and observing the Ludlow
massacre during the Colorado Coalfield war. From these events, Reed developed sentiments
towards the idea of class conflict popularised by thinkers such as Karl Marx. Upon the United States
entering the war in April they would threaten and eventually shut down ‘The Masses’, a socialist
magazine presenting Reeds work due to its anti-war stance, making him disillusioned with his
country of birth. “Whose war is this? Not mine” he proclaimed in a final article for The Masses 1. He
“felt totally disconnected and disgusted by American society”2 and decided to travel to Russia based
on the recent February Revolution In hopes he could observe successful social change.

Reed would be greeted on his arrival by a number of fellow American Journalists such as Louise
Bryant and Albert Rhys Williams. The latter was viewed by Reed as “almost a veteran on the scene,
and he immediately proceeded, like the good reporter he was, to sound me out on all I had seen and
heard much that I had not”3. Their invaluable help and work documenting various states of affairs
such as the Smolny Institute and the desertion of Intelligentsia4 gave Reed a spectrum of views
toward Russia from which to draw inspiration for his book.

Reed’s arrival in Russia came at the perfect opportunity, under a week away from the events of the
October Revolution. Following the Tsar’s abdication in February, Russia’s capitol, Petrograd, has
been in a state of constant uneasiness between the fragile dual power of the Provisional
1
John Reed, Whose War? (2000) <https://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1917/masses02.htm> [accessed 25
January 2023].
2
W.B. Whisenhunt, ‘John Reed and the Russian Revolution’, Литература двух Америк, 3 (2017), 30-43 (p.36)
https://doaj.org/article/8eff67acb1ff424b84e4907d0f6e95ed [accessed 25 January 2023].
3
Daniel W. Lehman, John Reed and the writing of the revolution (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2002), p.189.
4
Todd Chretien, Eyewitnesses to the Russian Revolution, (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017), pp.22-26n.
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Government under Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky and the Petrograd Soviet of workers and
soldiers. Stirred by the continuation of a failing war effort, a botched offensive in July and an
attempted insurrection by the appointed Commander-in-Chief Lavr Kornilov among other events,
tension is at its height. The Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin who is leering over an opportunity for a
successful revolution “retorted by preaching the class war, and by asserting the supremacy of the
soviets”5. This approach to them “was neither to act for the class, nor to leave it to its own devices,
but rather to pose to it, through actions, the question of revolution”6. Revolution would indeed
occur, resulting in the creation of The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies which set out to achieve its most significant slogan. Backlash from the other
socialist Revolutionary groups was strong, but with control of the military forces there was little they
could do but resign and be, in Trotsky’s mocking words, be “swept away into the garbage-heap of
history”7.

Much of the Bolshevik action comes from their frustration, one Reed comes to share, of the rest of
the state’s inability to act which permeates Reeds accounts. Socialist Revolutionaries and
Mensheviks would delay the peace conference, being “promised for August; then postponed until
September; then until October; and now it was fixed for 10 November” 8. As supported by Alexander
Rabinowitch, when Lenin made attempts to be pragmatic and find common ground with those
groups, most were reluctant to “sanction the formation of an exclusively socialist government, and,
to the contrary, of their efforts to organize a new coalition cabinet with representatives of the
bourgeoisie”9. Much of their decisions here can be based on the words of Marx and Engels whose
teachings these groups fervently followed. Many looked at Russia as too undeveloped at the time to
facilitate a radical change, believing peaceful proletariat revolution to be only achievable in countries
such as Germany and Britain.

Such dithering can be seen as the core explanation behind Lenin’s decision to call for “Power to the
Soviets” and fight for revolutionary action and in turn why the workers and soldiers listened. Beset
from a constantly advancing German front, Petrograd and the socialist dream was becoming visibly
threatened. Fearing the opportunity for the proletariat to seize control may disappear forever Lenin
declared that “either we abandon our slogan…” “… or else we must make an insurrection” 10. This
decree was significant as it acted not as “a negation but an extension of democracy, as it gave direct
authority to the masses”11. Masses who at the time, were angry at a Provisional Government
prolonging a costly war and other socialists for doing an inadequate job of getting out of it. The
Bolsheviks provided an ideal option for both parties, with Socialism being achieved and power given
to the proletariat.

5
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, (London: Penguin, 2007), p.12.
6
Lisa Leak, Re-Reading Reed: Ten Days That Shook The World (2017)
<https://www.rs21.org.uk/2017/03/01/re-reading-reed-ten-days-that-shook-the-world/> [accessed 25 January
2023].
7
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, (London: Penguin, 2007), p.115.
8
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, (London: Penguin, 2007), p.45.
9
Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Came To Power: The Revolution of 1917 In Petrograd, (Abingdon:
Pluto Press, 2017), p.223.
10
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, (London: Penguin, 2007), p.58.
11
Barney Doherty, Review: John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World (2017)
<https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/irishmr/vol06/no17/doherty.pdf> [accessed 25 January
2023].
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The Bolsheviks achieved power, what now? Other Western interpretations and first hand accounts
serve to provide evidence for a coup d’état that ultimately plunges the country into unnecessary
chaos. The work of Richard Pipes portrays that the Provisional Government’s fall came from political
turmoil, not ideas of social change. The largest issue were peasants, who made up 80% of Russia’s
population and were “isolated from the country’s political, economic and cultural life” 12. The
Bolsheviks had promised them bread and the land of the Bourgeoisie, but at the results of the
Democratic Constituent Assembly on the 25th of November 1917, the Bolsheviks would sit 120 seats
behind the Socialist Revolutionary Parties 324. Socialist Revolutionaries had long since held control
over the rural communities, standing for “confiscation without compensation of the great landed
estates, and their disposition by the peasants themselves”13. Quickly dissolving the Assembly, the
Bolsheviks make it known that any hopes of a system of Democracy is long gone. But considering the
Bolsheviks were, in their own eyes, the only ones willing enough to go ahead with revolution,
democracy with those parties who denied it would prove in many ways pointless.

Additionally, without Lenin, calls for armed insurrection may definitely have been avoided. Most of
the Bolshevik party believed it to be an ill-decision, only passing on the slightest of margins. Even
Lenin at the time of the hour, was hesitant that “everything hangs on a hair”14. In such a situation it
is hard to see that the change in government was anything but from a small group. Furthermore, the
workers may have supported the decision to put power to the soviets, but the events presented in
Reeds memoirs present anything other than armed military personnel swiftly taking control of the
Winter Palace. Trotsky iterates himself that “there is no action of great masses. There are no
dramatic encounters with the troops. There is nothing of all those which imaginations brought up to
the facts of history associate with the idea of insurrection”.15 Even during the ‘siege’ of the Winter
Palace, reed recounts how “life goes on as usual”16, expressing the underwhelming importance of
the 10 days. Consequently however, the freedom and ease with which it is completed suggests how
the general populace was at the least ambivalent and at most supportive of the actions of the Red
Army and the Bolsheviks.

In a speech given personally to Reed from Trotsky, he perfectly outlines Reed’s shared ambition for
the need to spread Russia’s social revolution with the world:

“I see Europe re-created, not by the diplomats, but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of
Europe….” “….That is what it must be. National Autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution
demands the abolition of national frontiers…” “…Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace
to the world”17.

Upon attempting to return to America after the events in early 1918 to co-found the Communist
Labour Party of America in 1919 , Reed would be hounded in controversy and arrested extensively in
his first few months due to the surveillance accumulated from Edgar Sisson during his time in Russia,
which “pushed Reed further towards adopting the Manichean language of the Bolsheviks” 18.
Woodrow Wilson, the then United States President, exerted extreme control over foreign policy and
12
R. Pipes, ‘Did the Russian Revolution have to happen?’, American Scholar, 63 (1994), 215-238 (p.218).
13
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, (London: Penguin, 2007), p.22.
14
R. Pipes, ‘Did the Russian Revolution have to happen?’, American Scholar, 63 (1994), 215-238 (p.11).
15
W.B. Whisenhunt, ‘John Reed and the Russian Revolution’, Литература двух Америк, 3 (2017), 30-43
(p.39) <https://doaj.org/article/8eff67acb1ff424b84e4907d0f6e95ed> [accessed 25 January 2023].
16
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, (London: Penguin, 2007), p.95.
17
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, (London: Penguin, 2007), pp.69-70.
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the situation occurring in Russia. Chiefly concerned with the effects of socialism on the stability of
American, Wilson would have his propaganda ministry publish documents created by White Russians
(supporters of the Tzarist regime) to fabricate the Bolsheviks as German agents.19 Returning to
Russia upon completing his book, he would receive honours and a personal introduction at the start
of his book direct from Lenin. Reed would in turn be provided a healthy sum of cash and jewels at
least $15,000 in value to invest in the American Communist Party20. However, Reed would be
intercepted by Finnish authorities attempting to smuggle his investment back overseas leading to
the American Government denying him re-entry; Reed would be forced back to Russia. Reed would
later back the Industrial Workers of the World to replace the American Federation of Labour as a
radical new union, but was denied by the Comintern, demanding he radicalise the existing union
from within.21 Following some party infighting with the then head of the Comintern, Gregory
Zinoviev, Reed would catch typhus late in 1920, leading to his death several weeks later.

Overall, Reed’s work may not be the best to present a clear and truly fictional portrayal of the events
or conspirators of the revolution which may or may not be a coup d’état, but his charge with which
he establishes the importance for Lenin’s Socialism through the defying act of revolution is laid bare.
What comes afterwards is in many ways soured by the famines, civil war and unrest that plagued
Russia. Yet for Reed, the revolution marked a case study of freedom and control for workers that
could spread to every other country. For the time he was alive, the proletariat cause was beating
strong in the hearts of many. Did the ten days shake the world? From the reaction of world leaders
and the many interventions from France, Britain, Japan and the United States in the Civil War, the
world cradle was certainly rocked.

18
K. Strauss, ‘John Reed and The Russian Revolution; Uncollected Articles, Letters and Speeches on Russia,
1917-1920, Eric Homberger, John Biggart’, Slavic Review, 52.1 (1993), 168-169 <https://www-jstor-
org.uos.idm.oclc.org/stable/2499634?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents> [accessed 25 January 2023].
19
J.M Hamilton & C. Georgacopoulos, ‘The Sisson documents and Their ‘Distinguished Place’ In The History Of
Disinformation’, Intelligence and National Security 36.6 (2021) 881-897 <https://www-tandfonline-
com.uos.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2021.1946953> [accessed 25 January 2023].
20
Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes & Kyrill M. Anderson, The Soviet World Of American Communism,
(Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1998), p.149.
21
Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes & Kyrill M. Anderson, The Soviet World Of American Communism,
(Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1998), p.231.
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Bibliography

Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Came To Power: The Revolution of 1917 In Petrograd, (Abingdon: Pluto
Press, 2017).

Barney Doherty, Review: John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World (2017)
<https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/irishmr/vol06/no17/doherty.pdf> [accessed 25 January
2023].

Daniel W. Lehman, John Reed and the writing of the revolution (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2002), p.189.

Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes & Kyrill M. Anderson, The Soviet World Of American Communism, (Connecticut:
Yale University Press, 1998).

J.M Hamilton & C. Georgacopoulos, ‘The Sisson documents and Their ‘Distinguished Place’ In The History Of
Disinformation’, Intelligence and National Security 36.6 (2021) 881-897 <https://www-tandfonline-
com.uos.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2021.1946953> [accessed 25 January 2023].

John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, (London: Penguin, 2007).

K. Strauss, ‘John Reed and The Russian Revolution; Uncollected Articles, Letters and Speeches on Russia, 1917-
1920, Eric Homberger, John Biggart’, Slavic Review, 52.1 (1993), 168-169 <https://www-jstor-
org.uos.idm.oclc.org/stable/2499634?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents> [accessed 25 January 2023].

Lisa Leak, Re-Reading Reed: Ten Days That Shook The World (2017) <https://www.rs21.org.uk/2017/03/01/re-
reading-reed-ten-days-that-shook-the-world/> [accessed 25 January 2023].

R. Pipes, ‘Did the Russian Revolution have to happen?’, American Scholar, 63 (1994), 215-238 (p.218).

Todd Chretien, Eyewitnesses to the Russian Revolution, (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017), pp.22-26n.

W.B. Whisenhunt, ‘John Reed and the Russian Revolution’, Литература двух Америк, 3 (2017), 30-43 (p.36)
https://doaj.org/article/8eff67acb1ff424b84e4907d0f6e95ed [accessed 25 January 2023].

John Reed, Whose War? (2000) <https://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1917/masses02.htm> [accessed 25

January 2023].
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rocked.