Ten Days That Shook the World

Ten Days That Shook the World is John Reed’s first-hand account of the Russian Revolution: a gripping record of the events in Petrograd in November 1917, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks finally seized power. 


Containing verbatim reports both of speeches by leaders and the comments of onlookers, and set against an idealized backcloth of the proletariat, soldiers, sailors, and peasants uniting to throw off oppression, Reed’s account is the product of passionate involvement and remains a timeless illustration of factual eyewitness reporting.




JOHN REED (1887-1920) was an American journalist whose colorful life as a revolutionary writer ended in Russia but made him the hero of a generation of radical intellectuals. Reed became a close friend of V.I. Lenin and was a first-hand observer to the 1917 October Russian revolution. He recorded this historical event in his best-known book Ten Days That Shook the World, later memorialized in the epic motion picture Reds. Reed is buried with other Bolshevik heroes beside the Kremlin wall.