Ten Days That Shook the World Wikipedia pages

 



 
   
   




        
October: Ten Days That Shook the World
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October:
 Ten Days That Shook the World
Octyabr poster.jpg
Film poster

Directed by
Grigori Aleksandrov
Sergei Eisenstein
Written by
Grigori Aleksandrov
 Sergei Eisenstein
Starring
Vladimir Popov
Vasili Nikandrov
Layaschenko
Music by
Dimitri Shostakovich
Cinematography
Vladimir Nilsen
Vladimir Popov
Eduard Tisse
Release dates
20 January 1928 (USSR)
 2 November 1928 (New York City only)
Running time
104 min (Sweden)
 95 min (USA)
Country
Soviet Union
Language
Silent film
Russian (original intertitles)


File:October Ten Days That Shook the World (1928).webm
Play media


October: Ten Days That Shook the World
October: Ten Days That Shook the World (Russian: Октябрь (Десять дней, которые потрясли мир); translit. Oktyabr': Desyat' dney kotorye potryasli mir) is a 1928 Soviet silent propaganda film by Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov, sometimes referred to simply as October in English. It is a celebratory dramatization of the 1917 October Revolution. The title is taken from John Reed's book on the Revolution, Ten Days That Shook The World.


Contents  [hide]
1 Cast
2 Production
3 Style
4 Soundtrack
5 Responses
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Cast[edit]
Vladimir Popov — Aleksandr Kerensky
Vasili Nikandrov — Vladimir I. Lenin
Layaschenko — Konovalov
Chibisov — Skobolev
Boris Livanov — Terestsenko
Mikholyev — Kishkin
N. Podvoisky — Bolshevik
Smelsky — Verderevsky
Eduard Tisse — German Soldier
Yuri Sazonov — Munist
Production[edit]
October was one of two films commissioned by the Soviet government to honour the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution (the other was Vsevolod Pudovkin's The End of St. Petersburg). Eisenstein was chosen to head the project due to the international success he had achieved with The Battleship Potemkin in 1925. Nikolai Podvoisky, one of the troika who led the storming of the Winter Palace, was responsible for the commission. The scene of the storming was based more on The Storming of the Winter Palace from 1920, a re-enactment involving Vladimir Lenin and thousands of Red Guards, witnessed by 100,000 spectators, than the original occasion, which was far less photogenic. This scene is notable because it became the legitimate, historical depiction of the storming of the Winter Palace owing to the lack of print or film documenting the actual event, which led historians and filmmakers to use Eisenstein's recreation. This illustrates October '​s success as a propaganda film.[1]
Style[edit]
Eisenstein used the film to further develop his theories of film structure, using a concept he described as "intellectual montage", the editing together of shots of apparently unconnected objects in order to create and encourage intellectual comparisons between them. One of the film's most celebrated examples of this technique is a baroque image of Jesus that is compared, through a series of shots, to Hindu deities, the Buddha, Aztec gods, and finally a primitive idol in order to suggest the sameness of all religions; the idol is then compared with military regalia to suggest the linking of patriotism and religious fervour by the state. In another sequence Alexander Kerensky, head of the pre-Bolshevik revolutionary Provisional Government, is compared to a preening mechanical peacock.
Soundtrack[edit]
In 1966, Dimitri Shostakovich wrote a new soundtrack for the film, which later appeared as a tone poem 'October' Op.131 where Shostakovich's famous 'Partisan' theme makes an appearance.[2] This soundtrack is the one used on most DVD releases of the film.
Responses[edit]



Vladimir Lenin as represented in the film
The film was not as successful or influential as Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstein's montage experiments met with official disapproval; the authorities complained that October was unintelligible to the masses, and Eisenstein was attacked—for neither the first time nor the last—for excessive "formalism". He was also required to re-edit the work to expurgate references to Leon Trotsky, who had recently been purged by Joseph Stalin.
In spite of the film's lack of popular acceptance, film historians consider it to be an immensely rich experience—a sweeping historical epic of vast scale, and a powerful testament to Eisenstein's creativity and artistry.[citation needed] Vsevolod Pudovkin, after viewing the film, remarked, "How I should like to make such a powerful failure."[3]
See also[edit]
Propaganda film
List of films in the public domain
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Taylor, Richard. Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1979. pp. 93–94.
2.Jump up ^ Bolshevik Festivals, 1917–1920, accessed 7 December 2008
3.Jump up ^ Taylor, Richard. Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1979. p. 101
External links[edit]
October: Ten Days That Shook the World at the Internet Movie Database
October: Ten Days That Shook the World on MosFilm video channel with optional English subtitles
October: Ten Days That Shook the World is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
October: Ten Days That Shook the World at AllMovie


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Sergei Eisenstein


Glumov's Diary (1923) ·
 Strike (1924) ·
 Battleship Potemkin (1925) ·
 October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) ·
 The General Line (1929) ·
 ¡Que viva México! (1937) ·
 Bezhin Meadow (1937) ·
 Alexander Nevsky (1938) ·
 Ivan the Terrible (1944-46)
 

 


Categories: 1928 films
Black-and-white films
Epic films
Films about communism
Russian Revolution films
Films directed by Sergei Eisenstein
Russian silent films
Soviet films
Soviet revolutionary propaganda films






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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October:_Ten_Days_That_Shook_the_World









 



 
   
   




        
October: Ten Days That Shook the World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


October:
 Ten Days That Shook the World
Octyabr poster.jpg
Film poster

Directed by
Grigori Aleksandrov
Sergei Eisenstein
Written by
Grigori Aleksandrov
 Sergei Eisenstein
Starring
Vladimir Popov
Vasili Nikandrov
Layaschenko
Music by
Dimitri Shostakovich
Cinematography
Vladimir Nilsen
Vladimir Popov
Eduard Tisse
Release dates
20 January 1928 (USSR)
 2 November 1928 (New York City only)
Running time
104 min (Sweden)
 95 min (USA)
Country
Soviet Union
Language
Silent film
Russian (original intertitles)


File:October Ten Days That Shook the World (1928).webm
Play media


October: Ten Days That Shook the World
October: Ten Days That Shook the World (Russian: Октябрь (Десять дней, которые потрясли мир); translit. Oktyabr': Desyat' dney kotorye potryasli mir) is a 1928 Soviet silent propaganda film by Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov, sometimes referred to simply as October in English. It is a celebratory dramatization of the 1917 October Revolution. The title is taken from John Reed's book on the Revolution, Ten Days That Shook The World.


Contents  [hide]
1 Cast
2 Production
3 Style
4 Soundtrack
5 Responses
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Cast[edit]
Vladimir Popov — Aleksandr Kerensky
Vasili Nikandrov — Vladimir I. Lenin
Layaschenko — Konovalov
Chibisov — Skobolev
Boris Livanov — Terestsenko
Mikholyev — Kishkin
N. Podvoisky — Bolshevik
Smelsky — Verderevsky
Eduard Tisse — German Soldier
Yuri Sazonov — Munist
Production[edit]
October was one of two films commissioned by the Soviet government to honour the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution (the other was Vsevolod Pudovkin's The End of St. Petersburg). Eisenstein was chosen to head the project due to the international success he had achieved with The Battleship Potemkin in 1925. Nikolai Podvoisky, one of the troika who led the storming of the Winter Palace, was responsible for the commission. The scene of the storming was based more on The Storming of the Winter Palace from 1920, a re-enactment involving Vladimir Lenin and thousands of Red Guards, witnessed by 100,000 spectators, than the original occasion, which was far less photogenic. This scene is notable because it became the legitimate, historical depiction of the storming of the Winter Palace owing to the lack of print or film documenting the actual event, which led historians and filmmakers to use Eisenstein's recreation. This illustrates October '​s success as a propaganda film.[1]
Style[edit]
Eisenstein used the film to further develop his theories of film structure, using a concept he described as "intellectual montage", the editing together of shots of apparently unconnected objects in order to create and encourage intellectual comparisons between them. One of the film's most celebrated examples of this technique is a baroque image of Jesus that is compared, through a series of shots, to Hindu deities, the Buddha, Aztec gods, and finally a primitive idol in order to suggest the sameness of all religions; the idol is then compared with military regalia to suggest the linking of patriotism and religious fervour by the state. In another sequence Alexander Kerensky, head of the pre-Bolshevik revolutionary Provisional Government, is compared to a preening mechanical peacock.
Soundtrack[edit]
In 1966, Dimitri Shostakovich wrote a new soundtrack for the film, which later appeared as a tone poem 'October' Op.131 where Shostakovich's famous 'Partisan' theme makes an appearance.[2] This soundtrack is the one used on most DVD releases of the film.
Responses[edit]



Vladimir Lenin as represented in the film
The film was not as successful or influential as Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstein's montage experiments met with official disapproval; the authorities complained that October was unintelligible to the masses, and Eisenstein was attacked—for neither the first time nor the last—for excessive "formalism". He was also required to re-edit the work to expurgate references to Leon Trotsky, who had recently been purged by Joseph Stalin.
In spite of the film's lack of popular acceptance, film historians consider it to be an immensely rich experience—a sweeping historical epic of vast scale, and a powerful testament to Eisenstein's creativity and artistry.[citation needed] Vsevolod Pudovkin, after viewing the film, remarked, "How I should like to make such a powerful failure."[3]
See also[edit]
Propaganda film
List of films in the public domain
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Taylor, Richard. Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1979. pp. 93–94.
2.Jump up ^ Bolshevik Festivals, 1917–1920, accessed 7 December 2008
3.Jump up ^ Taylor, Richard. Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1979. p. 101
External links[edit]
October: Ten Days That Shook the World at the Internet Movie Database
October: Ten Days That Shook the World on MosFilm video channel with optional English subtitles
October: Ten Days That Shook the World is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
October: Ten Days That Shook the World at AllMovie


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Sergei Eisenstein


Glumov's Diary (1923) ·
 Strike (1924) ·
 Battleship Potemkin (1925) ·
 October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) ·
 The General Line (1929) ·
 ¡Que viva México! (1937) ·
 Bezhin Meadow (1937) ·
 Alexander Nevsky (1938) ·
 Ivan the Terrible (1944-46)
 

 


Categories: 1928 films
Black-and-white films
Epic films
Films about communism
Russian Revolution films
Films directed by Sergei Eisenstein
Russian silent films
Soviet films
Soviet revolutionary propaganda films






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This page was last modified on 19 August 2014 at 04:38.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October:_Ten_Days_That_Shook_the_World










 



 
   
   




        
Ten Days That Shook the World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the book. For the film, see October: Ten Days That Shook the World.



 1919 Boni & Liveright first edition
Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) is a book by American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, especially Grigory Zinoviev and Karl Radek, closely during his time in Russia. John Reed died in 1920, shortly after the book was finished, and he is one of the few Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow, a site normally reserved only for the most prominent Soviet leaders.


Contents  [hide]
1 Concept and creation
2 Critical response
3 Publication
4 Film adaptations
5 See also
6 Notes and references 6.1 Notes
6.2 References
7 External links

Concept and creation[edit]
John Reed was on an assignment for The Masses, a magazine of socialist politics, when he was reporting the Russian Revolution. Although Reed states that he had "tried to see events with the eye of a conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth"[1] during the time of the event, he stated in the preface that "in the struggle my sympathies were not neutral"[1] (since the book leans towards the Bolsheviks and their viewpoints).



This book is a slice of intensified history—history as I saw it. It does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November[note 1] Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands of the Soviets.
John Reed[1]
Before John Reed left for Russia, the Espionage Act was passed on June 15, 1917, which fined and imprisoned anyone who interfered with the recruiting of soldiers and prohibited the mailing of any newspaper or magazine that promoted such sentiments. The U. S. Postal Service was also given leave to deny any mailing that fitted these standards from further postal delivery, and then to disqualify a magazine because it had missed a mailing and hence, was no longer considered a regular publication.[2] Because of this, The Masses was forced by the United States federal government to cease publication in the fall of 1917, after refusing to change the magazine's policy against the war. The Liberator, founded by Max Eastman under his and his sister's private control, published Reed's articles concerning the Russian Revolution instead. In an effort to ensure the magazine's survival, Eastman compromised and tempered its views accordingly.[3]
Upon returning from Russia during April 1918 from Kristiania in Norway, after being barred from either traveling to the United States or returning to Russia since February 23 by the State Department, Reed's trunk of notes and materials on the revolution—which included Russian handbills, newspapers, and speeches—were seized by custom officials, who interrogated him for four hours over his activities in Russia during the previous eight months. Michael Gold, an eyewitness to Reed's arrival to Manhattan, recalls how "a swarm of Department of Justice men stripped him, went over every inch of his clothes and baggage, and put him through the usual inquisition. Reed had been sick with ptomaine on the boat. The inquisition had also been painful."[4] Back home during mid-summer 1918, Reed, worried that "his vivid impressions on the revolution would fade,"[5] fought hard to regain his papers from the possession of the government, who refused to return them.
Reed would not receive his materials until seven months later in November. Max Eastman recalls a meeting with John Reed in the middle of Sheridan Square during the period of time when Reed isolated himself writing the book:

...he wrote Ten Days that Shook the World—wrote it in another ten days and ten nights or little more. He was gaunt, unshaven, greasy-skinned, a stark sleepless half-crazy look on his slightly potato-like face—had come down after a night's work for a cup of coffee.
"Max, don't tell anybody where I am. I'm writing the Russian revolution in a book. I've got all the placards and papers up there in a little room and a Russian dictionary, and I'm working all day and all night. I haven't shut my eyes for thirty-six hours. I'll finish the whole thing in two weeks. And I've got a name for it too—Ten Days that Shook the World. Good-bye, I've got to go get some coffee. Don't for God's sake tell anybody where I am!"
Do you wonder I emphasize his brains? Not so many feats can be found in American literature to surpass what he did there in those two or three weeks in that little room with those piled-up papers in a half-known tongue, piled clear up to the ceiling, and a small dog-eared dictionary, and a memory, and a determination to get it right, and a gorgeous imagination to paint it when he got it. But what I wanted to comment on now was the unqualified, concentrated joy in his mad eyes that morning. He was doing what he was made to do, writing a great book. And he had a name for it too—Ten Days that Shook the World![6]
Critical response[edit]
Ten Days That Shook the World has received mixed responses since its publication in 1919, resulting in a wide range of critical reviews from negative to positive. However, the book was overall positively received by critics at the time of its first publication, despite some critics' vocal opposition to Reed's political beliefs.[7]
George F. Kennan, an American diplomat and historian who had no love for Bolshevism and is best known as "the father of containment," praised the book: "Reed's account of the events of that time rises above every other contemporary record for its literary power, its penetration, its command of detail" and would be "remembered when all others are forgotten." Kennan saw it as "a reflection of blazing honesty and a purity of idealism that did unintended credit to the American society that produced him, the merits of which he himself understood so poorly."[8] On March 1, 1999, The New York Times reported New York University's "Top 100 Works of Journalism" list,[note 2] which placed Ten Days that Shook the World at in seventh position.[9][10] Project director Mitchell Stephens explains the reasoning behind the judges' decision:

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.[11]
But not all responses were positive. Joseph Stalin argued in 1924 that Reed was misleading in regards to Leon Trotsky.[12] The book portrays Trotsky (head of the Red Army) as a man who co-led the revolution with Lenin and mentions Stalin only twice—one of them being only in the recitation of a list of names, as both Lenin and Trotsky were internationally known, whereas the activities of other Bolshevik militants were virtually unknown.[13] Russian writer Anatoly Rybakov elaborates on Stalinist Soviet Union's ban on 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 mean 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."[14] After Stalin's death, the book was allowed to recirculate.
Publication[edit]



 Cover of the 1922 German edition of 10 Days That Shook The World, published by the Comintern in Hamburg.
After its first publication, Reed returned to Russia in the fall of 1919, delighted to learn that Vladimir Lenin had taken time to read the book. Furthermore, Lenin agreed to write an introduction that first appeared in the 1922 edition published by Boni & Liveright (New York):[7]

With the greatest interest and with never slackening attention I read John Reed's book, 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. It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. These problems are widely discussed, but before one can accept or reject these ideas, he must understand the full significance of his decision. John Reed's book will undoubtedly help to clear this question, which is the fundamental problem of the international labor movement.

V. LENIN.
 End of 1919
In his introduction to Animal Farm titled "Freedom of the Press" (1945),[15] George Orwell claims that the British Communist Party published a version omitting Lenin's introduction and mention of Trotsky:

At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World—a first-hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution—the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin.
Film adaptations[edit]
In 1928 Sergei Eisenstein filmed the book as October: Ten Days That Shook the World.
John Reed's own exploits and parts of the book itself were the basis of the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds.
In 1982 the Soviet film maker Sergei Bondarchuk used the book as the basis of his film Red Bells (its alternative title is Ten Days that Shook the World).[16]
See also[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Ten Days That Shook the World

Bolshevism
Communism
Russian Revolution of 1917
Notes and references[edit]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ According to the Gregorian calendar, the October Revolution takes place in November.
2.Jump up ^ This list only includes works in the United States in the 20th Century.
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c Reed, John (1990-02-07) [1919]. Ten Days that Shook the World (1st ed.). Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-018293-4.
2.Jump up ^ Mott, Frank Luther (1941). American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States Through 250 Years, 1690–1940. New York: The Macmillan Company.
3.Jump up ^ Eastman, Max (1964). Love and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epoch. New York: Random House. pp. 69–78.
4.Jump up ^ Gold, Michael (1940-10-22). "He Loved the People". The New Masses: 8–11.
5.Jump up ^ Duke, David C. (1987). John Reed. Boston: Twayne Publishers. p. 41. ISBN 0-8057-7502-1.
6.Jump up ^ Eastman, Max (1942). Heroes I Have Known: Twelve Who Lived Great Lives. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 223–4.
7.^ Jump up to: a b Duke, David C. (1987). John Reed. Boston: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-7502-1.
8.Jump up ^ Kennan, George Frost (1989) [1956]. Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920. Princeton University Press. pp. 68–69. ISBN 0-691-00841-8.
9.Jump up ^ Barringer, Felicity (1999-03-01). "Journalism's Greatest Hits: Two Lists of a Century's Top Stories". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-17.
10.Jump up ^ "The Top 100 Works of Journalism". New York University. Retrieved 2007-11-17.
11.Jump up ^ Stephens, Mitchell. "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century". New York University. Retrieved 2007-11-17.
12.Jump up ^ Trotskyism or Leninism?
13.Jump up ^ Kahn, A. E. and M. Sayers. The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1946. pp. 190–1.
14.Jump up ^ Lehman, Daniel (2002). John Reed & the Writing of Revolution. United States: Ohio University Press. p. 201. ISBN 0-8214-1467-4.
15.Jump up ^ George Orwell, "The Freedom of the Press, Orwell's Proposed Preface to Animal Farm", online: orwell.ru/library
16.Jump up ^ Eleanor Mannikka. "Ten Days That Shook the World (1982)". The New York Times. Retrieved March 31, 2012.
External links[edit]
Ten Days that Shook the World
Ten Days That Shook The World public domain audiobook
Ten Days That Shook the World at Project Gutenberg
 


Categories: 1919 books
American political books
Books about communism
Books about the Russian Revolution


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This page was last modified on 16 September 2014 at 07:31.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Days_That_Shook_the_World









 



 
   
   




        
Ten Days That Shook the World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the book. For the film, see October: Ten Days That Shook the World.



 1919 Boni & Liveright first edition
Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) is a book by American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, especially Grigory Zinoviev and Karl Radek, closely during his time in Russia. John Reed died in 1920, shortly after the book was finished, and he is one of the few Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow, a site normally reserved only for the most prominent Soviet leaders.


Contents  [hide]
1 Concept and creation
2 Critical response
3 Publication
4 Film adaptations
5 See also
6 Notes and references 6.1 Notes
6.2 References
7 External links

Concept and creation[edit]
John Reed was on an assignment for The Masses, a magazine of socialist politics, when he was reporting the Russian Revolution. Although Reed states that he had "tried to see events with the eye of a conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth"[1] during the time of the event, he stated in the preface that "in the struggle my sympathies were not neutral"[1] (since the book leans towards the Bolsheviks and their viewpoints).



This book is a slice of intensified history—history as I saw it. It does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November[note 1] Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands of the Soviets.
John Reed[1]
Before John Reed left for Russia, the Espionage Act was passed on June 15, 1917, which fined and imprisoned anyone who interfered with the recruiting of soldiers and prohibited the mailing of any newspaper or magazine that promoted such sentiments. The U. S. Postal Service was also given leave to deny any mailing that fitted these standards from further postal delivery, and then to disqualify a magazine because it had missed a mailing and hence, was no longer considered a regular publication.[2] Because of this, The Masses was forced by the United States federal government to cease publication in the fall of 1917, after refusing to change the magazine's policy against the war. The Liberator, founded by Max Eastman under his and his sister's private control, published Reed's articles concerning the Russian Revolution instead. In an effort to ensure the magazine's survival, Eastman compromised and tempered its views accordingly.[3]
Upon returning from Russia during April 1918 from Kristiania in Norway, after being barred from either traveling to the United States or returning to Russia since February 23 by the State Department, Reed's trunk of notes and materials on the revolution—which included Russian handbills, newspapers, and speeches—were seized by custom officials, who interrogated him for four hours over his activities in Russia during the previous eight months. Michael Gold, an eyewitness to Reed's arrival to Manhattan, recalls how "a swarm of Department of Justice men stripped him, went over every inch of his clothes and baggage, and put him through the usual inquisition. Reed had been sick with ptomaine on the boat. The inquisition had also been painful."[4] Back home during mid-summer 1918, Reed, worried that "his vivid impressions on the revolution would fade,"[5] fought hard to regain his papers from the possession of the government, who refused to return them.
Reed would not receive his materials until seven months later in November. Max Eastman recalls a meeting with John Reed in the middle of Sheridan Square during the period of time when Reed isolated himself writing the book:

...he wrote Ten Days that Shook the World—wrote it in another ten days and ten nights or little more. He was gaunt, unshaven, greasy-skinned, a stark sleepless half-crazy look on his slightly potato-like face—had come down after a night's work for a cup of coffee.
"Max, don't tell anybody where I am. I'm writing the Russian revolution in a book. I've got all the placards and papers up there in a little room and a Russian dictionary, and I'm working all day and all night. I haven't shut my eyes for thirty-six hours. I'll finish the whole thing in two weeks. And I've got a name for it too—Ten Days that Shook the World. Good-bye, I've got to go get some coffee. Don't for God's sake tell anybody where I am!"
Do you wonder I emphasize his brains? Not so many feats can be found in American literature to surpass what he did there in those two or three weeks in that little room with those piled-up papers in a half-known tongue, piled clear up to the ceiling, and a small dog-eared dictionary, and a memory, and a determination to get it right, and a gorgeous imagination to paint it when he got it. But what I wanted to comment on now was the unqualified, concentrated joy in his mad eyes that morning. He was doing what he was made to do, writing a great book. And he had a name for it too—Ten Days that Shook the World![6]
Critical response[edit]
Ten Days That Shook the World has received mixed responses since its publication in 1919, resulting in a wide range of critical reviews from negative to positive. However, the book was overall positively received by critics at the time of its first publication, despite some critics' vocal opposition to Reed's political beliefs.[7]
George F. Kennan, an American diplomat and historian who had no love for Bolshevism and is best known as "the father of containment," praised the book: "Reed's account of the events of that time rises above every other contemporary record for its literary power, its penetration, its command of detail" and would be "remembered when all others are forgotten." Kennan saw it as "a reflection of blazing honesty and a purity of idealism that did unintended credit to the American society that produced him, the merits of which he himself understood so poorly."[8] On March 1, 1999, The New York Times reported New York University's "Top 100 Works of Journalism" list,[note 2] which placed Ten Days that Shook the World at in seventh position.[9][10] Project director Mitchell Stephens explains the reasoning behind the judges' decision:

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.[11]
But not all responses were positive. Joseph Stalin argued in 1924 that Reed was misleading in regards to Leon Trotsky.[12] The book portrays Trotsky (head of the Red Army) as a man who co-led the revolution with Lenin and mentions Stalin only twice—one of them being only in the recitation of a list of names, as both Lenin and Trotsky were internationally known, whereas the activities of other Bolshevik militants were virtually unknown.[13] Russian writer Anatoly Rybakov elaborates on Stalinist Soviet Union's ban on 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 mean 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."[14] After Stalin's death, the book was allowed to recirculate.
Publication[edit]



 Cover of the 1922 German edition of 10 Days That Shook The World, published by the Comintern in Hamburg.
After its first publication, Reed returned to Russia in the fall of 1919, delighted to learn that Vladimir Lenin had taken time to read the book. Furthermore, Lenin agreed to write an introduction that first appeared in the 1922 edition published by Boni & Liveright (New York):[7]

With the greatest interest and with never slackening attention I read John Reed's book, 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. It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. These problems are widely discussed, but before one can accept or reject these ideas, he must understand the full significance of his decision. John Reed's book will undoubtedly help to clear this question, which is the fundamental problem of the international labor movement.

V. LENIN.
 End of 1919
In his introduction to Animal Farm titled "Freedom of the Press" (1945),[15] George Orwell claims that the British Communist Party published a version omitting Lenin's introduction and mention of Trotsky:

At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World—a first-hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution—the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin.
Film adaptations[edit]
In 1928 Sergei Eisenstein filmed the book as October: Ten Days That Shook the World.
John Reed's own exploits and parts of the book itself were the basis of the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds.
In 1982 the Soviet film maker Sergei Bondarchuk used the book as the basis of his film Red Bells (its alternative title is Ten Days that Shook the World).[16]
See also[edit]
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Ten Days That Shook the World

Bolshevism
Communism
Russian Revolution of 1917
Notes and references[edit]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ According to the Gregorian calendar, the October Revolution takes place in November.
2.Jump up ^ This list only includes works in the United States in the 20th Century.
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c Reed, John (1990-02-07) [1919]. Ten Days that Shook the World (1st ed.). Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-018293-4.
2.Jump up ^ Mott, Frank Luther (1941). American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States Through 250 Years, 1690–1940. New York: The Macmillan Company.
3.Jump up ^ Eastman, Max (1964). Love and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epoch. New York: Random House. pp. 69–78.
4.Jump up ^ Gold, Michael (1940-10-22). "He Loved the People". The New Masses: 8–11.
5.Jump up ^ Duke, David C. (1987). John Reed. Boston: Twayne Publishers. p. 41. ISBN 0-8057-7502-1.
6.Jump up ^ Eastman, Max (1942). Heroes I Have Known: Twelve Who Lived Great Lives. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 223–4.
7.^ Jump up to: a b Duke, David C. (1987). John Reed. Boston: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-7502-1.
8.Jump up ^ Kennan, George Frost (1989) [1956]. Russia Leaves the War: Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920. Princeton University Press. pp. 68–69. ISBN 0-691-00841-8.
9.Jump up ^ Barringer, Felicity (1999-03-01). "Journalism's Greatest Hits: Two Lists of a Century's Top Stories". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-17.
10.Jump up ^ "The Top 100 Works of Journalism". New York University. Retrieved 2007-11-17.
11.Jump up ^ Stephens, Mitchell. "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century". New York University. Retrieved 2007-11-17.
12.Jump up ^ Trotskyism or Leninism?
13.Jump up ^ Kahn, A. E. and M. Sayers. The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1946. pp. 190–1.
14.Jump up ^ Lehman, Daniel (2002). John Reed & the Writing of Revolution. United States: Ohio University Press. p. 201. ISBN 0-8214-1467-4.
15.Jump up ^ George Orwell, "The Freedom of the Press, Orwell's Proposed Preface to Animal Farm", online: orwell.ru/library
16.Jump up ^ Eleanor Mannikka. "Ten Days That Shook the World (1982)". The New York Times. Retrieved March 31, 2012.
External links[edit]
Ten Days that Shook the World
Ten Days That Shook The World public domain audiobook
Ten Days That Shook the World at Project Gutenberg
 


Categories: 1919 books
American political books
Books about communism
Books about the Russian Revolution


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