John Reed (journalist)

John "Jack" Silas Reed (October 22, 1887 – October 19, 1920) was a journalist and a Communist activist, famous for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution called Ten Days that Shook the World. He was the husband of the writer and feminist Louise Bryant and was the subject of a 1981 movie Reds.

Communism

Reed was a leading figure in the Socialist Party left wing in America. As such he was instrumental in the foundation of the Communist Labor Party. This party was illegal and only one of two parties vying for the support of the newly founded Communist International (Comintern).

Related Topics:
Communist Labor Party - Communist International

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From Russia in 1917 came news that the Tsar was overthrown. A revolution was in progress. Here at last, Reed thought, was an entire population which refused to go on with the slaughter, turned on its own ruling class.

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With Louise Bryant, he set sail for Finland and Petrograd. The revolution was bursting all around them, and they were involved in the mass meetings, the workers taking over factories, the soldiers declaring their opposition to the war, the Petrograd Soviet electing a Bolshevik majority. Then, on November 6 and 7, the swift, take-over of the railroad stations, telegraph, telephone, post office. And finally, workers and soldiers rushing ecstatically into the Winter Palace.

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Racing from scene to scene, Reed took notes with incredible speed, gathered up every leaflet, poster and proclamation, and then, in early 1918, went back to the United States to write his story. On arrival, his notes were confiscated. He found himself under indictment with other editors of The Masses for opposing the war, but at the trial, where he and Eastman testified about their beliefs, the jury could not reach a decision and the charges were dropped.

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Now Reed was everywhere in the country, lecturing on the war, the Russian Revolution. At Tremont Temple in Boston he was heckled by Harvard students. In Indiana he met Eugene Debs, who would soon be sentenced to ten years for speaking against the war. In Chicago he attended the trial of Bill Haywood and a hundred other IWW leaders, who would get long prison sentences. That September, after he spoke to a rally of four thousand people, Reed was arrested for discouraging recruitment in the armed forces.

Related Topics:
Eugene Debs - Bill Haywood

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He finally got his Russian notes back, and in two months of furious writing produced Ten Days that Shook the World. The style and voice of his writing reflect strong influences by the frenetic and vigorous writing of Thomas Carlyle.It became the classic eyewitness account of the Bolkshevik Revolution: "Up the Nevsky, in the sour twilight, crowds were battling for the latest papers.... On every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered; arguing soldiers and students...The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to take part in the debate, Trotsky, Kamenev, Volodarsky speaking six, eight, twelve hours a day..."

Related Topics:
Ten Days that Shook the World - Thomas Carlyle

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In 1919, the war was over, but Allied armies had invaded Russia, and the hysteria continued in the United States. The country that had made the word "revolution" glorious throughout the world now was frightened of it. Non-citizens were rounded up by the thousands, arrested, deported without trial. There were strikes all over the country, and clashes with police. Reed became involved in the formation of the Communist Workers Party, went to Russia as a delegate to the meetings of the Communist International. There he argued with party bureaucrats, wondered what was happening with the revolution, met Emma Goldman in Moscow, and listened to her cry out her disillusionment.

Related Topics:
Communist Workers Party - Emma Goldman

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He rushed from meeting to meeting, from a conference in Moscow to a mass meeting of Asians on the Black Sea. He was wearing himself out, and he fell sick, feverish, delirious. It was typhus. At thirty-three, in a Moscow hospital, he died.

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John Reed's body was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis as a hero, the only American buried in the Kremlin.

Related Topics:
Kremlin Wall Necropolis - Kremlin

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According to Bryant's letters after his death, Reed attended the Oriental Congress in Baku.

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