Ten Days That Shook the World

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This etext was produced by Normal Wolcott.

Ten Days that Shook the World

by John Reed

[Redactor's Note: This document uses the ISO 8891-1 Latin1 character
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The footnotes are included at the end of each chapter, while the
Appendix No. and Section are referred to in the text in parentheses,
the Appendices following the book text. Liberal use is made of italics,
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"Graphic", etc. The Figures themselves are in a separate file. To
facilitate conversion to a word-processing format, an attempt has been
made to end each line with a space.

Graphics: There are 17 graphic figures in the text. These are indicated
by a reference to the page number in the original book. These figures
are available elsewhere (www.geocities.com/norm_90) where images of the
pages involved are available in tiff or pdf format. These are--
page 33 46 49 96 104 166 184 205
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Epilogue: The original book of this text had a number of newspaper
clipings from the 1920's and 1930's included. Most of these relate to
the violent deaths encountered by those playing a part in this book.
Others reveal that Eisenstein made a film of "Ten Days". Stalin, who is
not mentioned in the book, suppressed the work. Louise Bryant,
mentioned in the text, was married to John Reed, and after his death
married William Bullitt in 1923 (divorced 1930) and died in Paris in
1936 at age 41. Mr. Bullitt was the first ambassador to Russia in the
Roosevelt administration, and later to France. Harvard University
accepted a commissioned portrait of Reed in 1935 from a group of his
classmates and hung it in Adams House, site of the boarding house where
Reed lived at Harvard. ]

Ten Days That Shook the World

by John Reed

Table of Contents

Preface.

Notes and Explanations.

Chapter 1. Background.

Chapter 2. The Coming Storm.

Chapter 3. On the Eve.

Chapter 4. The Fall of the Provisional Government.

Chapter 5. Plunging Ahead.

Chapter 6. The Committee for Salvation.

Chapter 7. The Revolutionary Front.

Chapter 8. Counter-Revolution.

Chapter 9. Victory.

Chapter 10. Moscow.

Chapter 11. The Conquest of Power.

Chapter 12. The Peasants’ Congress.

Appendices I - XII

Preface

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
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.

Naturally most of it deals with “Red Petrograd,” the capital and heart
of the insurrection. But the reader must realize that what took place
in Petrograd was almost exactly duplicated, with greater or lesser
intensity, at different intervals of time, all over Russia.

In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must confine
myself to a chronicle of those events which I myself observed and
experienced, and those supported by reliable evidence; preceded by two
chapters briefly outlining the background and causes of the November
Revolution. I am aware that these two chapters make difficult reading,
but they are essential to an understanding of what follows.

Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. What
is Bolshevism? What kind of a governmental structure did the Bolsheviki
set up? If the Bolsheviki championed the Constituent Assembly before
the November Revolution, why did they disperse it by force of arms
afterward? And if the bourgeoisie opposed the Constituent Assembly
until the danger of Bolshevism became apparent, why did they champion
it afterward?

These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In another
volume, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,” I trace the course of the
Revolution up to and including the German peace. There I explain the
origin and functions of the Revolutionary organisations, the evolution
of popular sentiment, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the
structure of the Soviet state, and the course and outcome of the Brest-
Litovsk negotiations….

In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to understand
that Russian economic life and the Russian army were not disorganised
on November 7th, 1917, but many months before, as the logical result of
a process which began as far back as 1915. The corrupt reactionaries in
control of the Tsar’s Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in
order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the
front, which had caused the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the
lack of food in the army and in the great cities, the break-down of
manufactures and transportation in 1916—all these we know now were part
of a gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in time by the
March Revolution.

For the first few months of the new régime, in spite of the confusion
incident upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions
of the world’s most oppressed peoples suddenly achieved liberty, both
the internal situation and the combative power of the army actually
improved.

But the “honeymoon” was short. The propertied classes wanted merely a
political revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give
it to them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like
France or the United States; or a constitutional Monarchy, like
England. On the other hand, the masses of the people wanted real
industrial and agrarian democracy.

William English Walling, in his book, “Russia’s Message,” an account of
the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of mind of the
Russian workers, who were later to support Bolshevism almost
unanimously:

They (the working people) saw it was possible that even under a free
Government, if it fell into the hands of other social classes, they
might still continue to starve….

The Russian workman is revolutionary, but he is neither violent,
dogmatic, nor unintelligent. He is ready for barricades, but he has
studied them, and alone of the workers of the world he has learned
about them from actual experience. He is ready and willing to fight his
oppressor, the capitalist class, to a finish. But he does not ignore
the existence of other classes. He merely asks that the other classes
take one side or the other in the bitter conflict that draws near….

They (the workers) were all agreed that our (American) political
institutions were preferable to their own, but they were not very
anxious to exchange one despot for another (i.e., the capitalist
class)….

The workingmen of Russia did not have themselves shot down, executed by
hundreds in Moscow, Riga and Odessa, imprisoned by thousands in every
Russian jail, and exiled to the deserts and the arctic regions, in
exchange for the doubtful privileges of the workingmen of Goldfields
and Cripple Creek….

And so developed in Russia, in the midst of a foreign war, the Social
Revolution on top of the Political Revolution, culminating in the
triumph of Bolshevism.

Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian Information
Bureau, which opposes the Soviet Government, has this to say in his
book, “The Birth of the Russian Democracy”: The Bolsheviks organised
their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon Trotsky—
Minister of Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their coming into
power became evident almost immediately after the March Revolution. The
history of the Bolsheviki, after the Revolution, is a history of their
steady growth….

Foreigners, and Americans especially, frequently emphasise the
“ignorance” of the Russian workers. It is true they lacked the
political experience of the peoples of the West, but they were very
well trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more than
twelve million members of the Russian consumers’ Cooperative societies;
and the Soviets themselves are a wonderful demonstration of their
organising genius. Moreover, there is probably not a people in the
world so well educated in Socialist theory and its practical
application.

William English Walling thus characterises them:

The Russian working people are for the most part able to read and
write. For many years the country has been in such a disturbed
condition that they have had the advantage of leadership not only of
intelligent individuals in their midst, but of a large part of the
equally revolutionary educated class, who have turned to the working
people with their ideas for the political and social regeneration of
Russia….

Many writers explain their hostility to the Soviet Government by
arguing that the last phase of the Russian Revolution was simply a
struggle of the “respectable” elements against the brutal attacks of
Bolshevism. However, it was the propertied classes, who, when they
realised the growth in power of the popular revolutionary
organisations, undertook to destroy them and to halt the Revolution. To
this end the propertied classes finally resorted to desperate measures.
In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry and the Soviets, transportation
was disorganised and internal troubles provoked; to crush the Factory-
Shop Committees, plants were shut down, and fuel and raw materials
diverted; to break the Army Committees at the front, capital punishment
was restored and military defeat connived at.

This was all excellent fuel for the Bolshevik fire. The Bolsheviki
retorted by preaching the class war, and by asserting the supremacy of
the Soviets.

Between these two extremes, with the other factions which whole-
heartedly or half-heartedly supported them, were the so-called
“moderate” Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries,
and several smaller parties. These groups were also attacked by the
propertied classes, but their power of resistance was crippled by their
theories.

Roughly, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries believed that
Russia was not economically ripe for a social revolution—that only a
_political_ revolution was possible. According to their interpretation,
the Russian masses were not educated enough to take over the power; any
attempt to do so would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of
which some ruthless opportunist might restore the old régime. And so it
followed that when the “moderate” Socialists were forced to assume the
power, they were afraid to use it.

They believed that Russia must pass through the stages of political and
economic development known to Western Europe, and emerge at last, with
the rest of the world, into full-fledged Socialism. Naturally,
therefore, they agreed with the propertied classes that Russia must
first be a parliamentary state—though with some improvements on the
Western democracies. As a consequence, they insisted upon the
collaboration of the propertied classes in the Government.

From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The “moderate”
Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the
“moderate” Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being
obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while
the propertied classes grew more and more insistent.

And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise,
the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting
on the side of the propertied classes…. In almost every country in the
world to-day the same phenomenon is visible.

Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the
Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program
and the power to impose it on the country. If they had not succeeded to
the Government when they did, there is little doubt in my mind that the
armies of Imperial Germany would have been in Petrograd and Moscow in
December, and Russia would again be ridden by a Tsar….

It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government,
to speak of the Bolshevik insurrection as an “adventure.” Adventure it
was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon,
sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking
everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had
been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed
among the peasants. The Factory-Shop Committees and the Trade Unions
were there to put into operation workers’ control of industry. In every
village, town, city, district and province there were Soviets of
Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, prepared to assume the task
of local administration.

No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the
Russian Revolution is one of the great events of human history, and the
rise of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of world-wide importance. Just as
historians search the records for the minutest details of the story of
the Paris Commune, so they will want to know what happened in Petrograd
in November, 1917, the spirit which animated the people, and how the
leaders looked, talked and acted. It is with this in view that I have
written this book.

In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the
story of those great days I have tried to see events with the eye of a
conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth.
J. R.
New York, January 1st 1919.

Notes and Explanations

To the average reader the multiplicity of Russian
organisations-political groups, Committees and Central Committees,
Soviets, Dumas and Unions-will prove extremely confusing. For this
reason I am giving here a few brief definitions and explanations.

Political Parties

In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, there were seventeen
tickets in Petrograd, and in some of the provincial towns as many as
forty; but the following summary of the aims and composition of
political parties is limited to the groups and factions mentioned in
this book. Only the essence of their programmes and the general
character of their constituencies can be noticed....

1. _Monarchists,_ of various shades, _Octobrists,_ etc. These
once-powerful factions no longer existed openly; they either worked
underground, or their members joined the _Cadets,_ as the _Cadets_
came by degrees to stand for their political programme.
Representatives in this book, Rodzianko, Shulgin.

2. _Cadets._ So-called from the initials of its name,
Constitutional Democrats. Its official name is "Party of the People's
Freedom." Under the Tsar composed of Liberals from the propertied
classes, the _Cadets_ were the great party of _political_ reform,
roughly corresponding to the Progressive Party in America. When the
Revolution broke out in March, 1917, the _Cadets_ formed the first
Provisional Government. The _Cadet_ Ministry was overthrown in April
because it declared itself in favour of Allied imperialistic aims,
including the imperialistic aims of the Tsar's Government. As the
Revolution became more and more a _social economic_ Revolution, the
_Cadets_ grew more and more conservative. Its representatives in this
book are: Miliukov, Vinaver, Shatsky.

2a. _Group of Public Men._ After the _Cadets_ had become unpopular
through their relations with the Kornilov counter-revolution, the
_Group of Public Men_ was formed in Moscow. Delegates from the _Group
of Public Men_ were given portfolios in the last Kerensky Cabinet.
The _Group_ declared itself non-partisan, although its intellectual
leaders were men like Rodzianko and Shulgin. It was composed of the
more "modern" bankers, merchants and manufacturers, who were
intelligent enough to realise that the Soviets must be fought by
their own weapon-economic organisation. Typical of the _Group:_
Lianozov, Konovalov.

3. _Populist Socialists,_ or _Trudoviki_ (Labour Group).
Numerically a small party, composed of cautious intellectuals, the
leaders of the Cooperative societies, and conservative peasants.
Professing to be Socialists, the _Populists_ really supported the
interests of the petty bourgeoisie-clerks, shopkeepers, etc. By
direct descent, inheritors of the compromising tradition of the
Labour Group in the Fourth Imperial Duma, which was composed largely
of peasant representatives. Kerensky was the leader of the
_Trudoviki_ in the Imperial Duma when the Revolution of March, 1917,
broke out. The _Populist Socialists_ are a nationalistic party. Their
representatives in this book are: Peshekhanov, Tchaikovsky.

4. _Russian Social Democratic Labour Party._ Originally Marxian
Socialists. At a party congress held in 1903, the party split, on the
question of tactics, into two factions-the Majority (Bolshinstvo),
and the Minority (Menshinstvo). From this sprang the names
"Bolsheviki" and "Mensheviki"-"members of the majority" and "members
of the minority." These two wings became two separate parties, both
calling themselves "Russian Social Democratic Labour Party," and both
professing to be Marxians. Since the Revolution of 1905 the
Bolsheviki were really the minority, becoming again the majority in
September, 1917.

a. _Mensheviki._ This party includes all shades of Socialists who
believe that society must progress by natural evolution toward
Socialism, and that the working-class must conquer political power
first. Also a nationalistic party. This was the party of the
Socialist intellectuals, which means: all the means of education
having been in the hands of the propertied classes, the intellectuals
instinctively reacted to their training, and took the side of the
propertied classes. Among their representatives in this book are:
Dan, Lieber, Tseretelli.

b. _Mensheviki Internationalists._ The radical wing of the
_Mensheviki,_ internationalists and opposed to all coalition with the
propertied classes; yet unwilling to break loose from the
conservative Mensheviki, and opposed to the dictatorship of the
working-class advocated by the Bolsheviki. Trotzky was long a member
of this group. Among their leaders: Martov, Martinov.

c. _Bolsheviki._ Now call themselves the _Communist Party,_ in
order to emphasise their complete separation from the tradition of
"moderate" or "parliamentary" Socialism, which dominates the
Mensheviki and the so-called Majority Socialists in all countries.
The _Bolsheviki_ proposed immediate proletarian insurrection, and
seizure of the reins of Government, in order to hasten the coming of
Socialism by forcibly taking over industry, land, natural resources
and financial institutions. This party expresses the desires chiefly
of the factory workers, but also of a large section of the poor
peasants. The name "Bolshevik" can _not_ be translated by
"Maximalist." The Maximalists are a separate group. (See paragraph
5b). Among the leaders: Lenin, Trotzky, Lunatcharsky.

d. _United Social Democrats Internationalists._ Also called the
_Novaya Zhizn_ (New Life) group, from the name of the very
influential newspaper which was its organ. A little group of
intellectuals with a very small following among the working-class,
except the personal following of Maxim Gorky, its leader.
Intellectuals, with almost the same programme as the _Mensheviki
Internationalists,_ except that the _Novaya Zhizn_ group refused to
be tied to either of the two great factions. Opposed the Bolshevik
tactics, but remained in the Soviet Government. Other representatives
in this book: Avilov, Kramarov.

e. _Yedinstvo._ A very small and dwindling group, composed almost
entirely of the personal following of Plekhanov, one of the pioneers
of the Russian Social Democratic movement in the 80's, and its
greatest theoretician. Now an old man, Plekhanov was extremely
patriotic, too conservative even for the Mensheviki. After the
Bolshevik _coup d'etat, Yedinstvo_ disappeared.

5. _Socialist Revolutionary party._ Called _Essaires_ from the
initials of their name. Originally the revolutionary party of the
peasants, the party of the Fighting Organisations-the Terrorists.
After the March Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been
Socialists. At that time it stood for the abolition of private
property in land only, the owners to be compensated in some fashion.
Finally the increasing revolutionary feeling of peasants forced the
_Essaires_ to abandon the "compensation" clause, and led to the
younger and more fiery intellectuals breaking off from the main party
in the fall of 1917 and forming a new party, the _Left Socialist
Revolutionary party._ The _Essaires,_ who were afterward always
called by the radical groups _"Right Socialist Revolutionaries,"_
adopted the political attitude of the Mensheviki, and worked together
with them. They finally came to represent the wealthier peasants, the
intellectuals, and the politically uneducated populations of remote
rural districts. Among them there was, however, a wider difference of
shades of political and economic opinion than among the Mensheviki.
Among their leaders mentioned in these pages: Avksentiev, Gotz,
Kerensky, Tchernov, "Babuschka" Breshkovskaya.

a. _Left Socialist Revolutionaries._ Although theoretically sharing
the Bolshevik programme of dictatorship of the working-class, at
first were reluctant to follow the ruthless Bolshevik tactics.
However, the _Left Socialist Revolutionaries_ remained in the Soviet
Government, sharing the Cabinet portfolios, especially that of
Agriculture. They withdrew from the Government several times, but
always returned. As the peasants left the ranks of the _Essaires_ in
increasing numbers, they joined the _Left Socialist Revolutionary
party,_ which became the great peasant party supporting the Soviet
Government, standing for confiscation without compensation of the
great landed estates, and their disposition by the peasants
themselves. Among the leaders: Spiridonova, Karelin, Kamkov,
Kalagayev.

b. _Maximalists._ An off-shoot of the _Socialist Revolutionary
party_ in the Revolution of 1905, when it was a powerful peasant
movement, demanding the immediate application of the maximum
Socialist programme. Now an insignificant group of peasant
anarchists.

Parliamentary Procedure

Russian meetings and conventions are organised after the continental
model rather than our own. The first action is usually the election
of officers and the _presidium._

The _presidium_ is a presiding committee, composed of
representatives of the groups and political factions represented in
the assembly, in proportion to their numbers. The _presidium_
arranges the Order of Business, and its members can be called upon by
the President to take the chair _pro tem._

Each question (_vopros_) is stated in a general way and then
debated, and at the close of the debate resolutions are submitted by
the different factions, and each one voted on separately. The Order
of Business can be, and usually is, smashed to pieces in the first
half hour. On the plea of "emergency," which the crowd almost always
grants, anybody from the floor can get up and say anything on any
subject. The crowd controls the meeting, practically the only
functions of the speaker being to keep order by ringing a little
bell, and to recognise speakers. Almost all the real work of the
session is done in caucuses of the different groups and political
factions, which almost always cast their votes in a body and are
represented by floor-leaders. The result is, however, that at every
important new point, or vote, the session takes a recess to enable
the different groups and political factions to hold a caucus.

The crowd is extremely noisy, cheering or heckling speakers,
over-riding the plans of the _presidium._ Among the customary cries
are: _"Prosim!_ Please! Go on!" _"Pravilno!"_ or _"Eto vierno!_
That's true! Right!" _"Do volno!_ Enough!" _"Doloi!_ Down with him!"
_"Posor!_ Shame!" and _"Teesche!_ Silence! Not so noisy!"

Popular Organisations

1. _Soviet._ The word _soviet_ means "council." Under the Tsar the
Imperial Council of State was called _Gosudarstvennyi Soviet._ Since
the Revolution, however, the term _Soviet_ has come to be associated
with a certain type of parliament elected by members of working-class
economic organisations-the Soviet of Workers', of Soldiers', or of
Peasants' Deputies. I have therefore limited the word to these
bodies, and wherever else it occurs I have translated it "Council."

Besides the local _Soviets,_ elected in every city, town and
village of Russia-and in large cities, also Ward _(Raionny)
Soviets_-there are also the _oblastne_ or _gubiernsky_ (district or
provincial) _Soviets,_ and the Central Executive Committee of the
All-Russian _Soviets_ in the capital, called from its initials
_Tsay-ee-kah._ (See below, "Central Committees").

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