Ten Days That Shook the World

Ten Days that Shook the World, in the original English Ten Days did Shook the World, is a novel by the American journalist and convinced socialists John Reed (1887-1920) about the October Revolution of 1917. Reed points out in his preface ( January 1919 ) that he will allow the reader ends by conscientious journalism wants to trace the details, " what took place in November 1917 in Petrograd, the spirit that animated the people looked like their leader, as they said and how they acted. " Reed's preface provides a brief introduction to the Russian revolution in their world-historical context.

The book to which Lenin wrote a positive scarce preface, appeared in 1919 and was censored in the Russian edition of Stalin later for alleged sympathy for Leon Trotsky. With the book Reed became world famous. Reed describes the October Revolution and the fate of many other revolutionaries like Grigori Zinoviev and Karl Radek, whom he knew personally, and then accompanied them.

International reception

A German translation of the book appeared in 1922 in the publishing house of the Communist International, Hamburg, and expanded in 1927 " publisher of literature and politics ", Vienna and Berlin, with a foreword by the well-known journalist Egon Erwin Kisch.

George Orwell writes in the preface to the English edition provided by Animal Farm ( Animal Farm ) from 1945 that the Communist Party of Great Britain brought out an edition of the book, where Reed mentions of Trotsky as Lenin's preface were completely censored.

The book was one of the works that were against the Un-German Spirit 1933 also burned during the Nazi book burnings action.

In the GDR, a first edition appeared in Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1957, four years after Stalin's death.

The New York Times chose the book in 1999 to 7th in the hundred most important journalistic works.

Film presentation

Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei Eisenstein created after the original book published in 1928 the script for the, black and white silent film in October. Ten Days that Shook the World (Russian: Октябрь / Десять дней, которые потрясли мир ). The film disappeared because of mentions of Trotsky and other then considered as a non-person revolutionaries in the young Soviet Union into oblivion. The script, with its suggestive effect of these pictures managed a decidedly autonomous reproduction of the book.

Warren Beatty et al used in turn Alexandrov's and Eisenstein's film for its 1981 first published in the U.S. production Reds - A man fights for justice. as in parts template.

Sergei Bondarchuk directed in a two- part work Red Bell (1981-1983) on revolutions in Mexico and Russia. The first part is called Mexico in flames and the second part: I saw the birth of a new world is created according to the book Reeds. Both are characterized by mass scenes.

Book editions

Available in book editions:

• John Reed: Ten Days did Shook the World. Publisher: . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011 238 pages. English. ISBN 1463683979
• John Reed: Ten Days that Shook the World. Translator Willi Schulz. Mehring, Essen, 2011. 273 pages. ISBN 3886340929