The Journalist and the Revolution

Thank you for keeping hope alive, despite America abandoning Egyptians.

This apology for the Red Terror leaves out the executions ... that went on and on until it consumed tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions... at one point allying with Hitler to carve up Poland, opening the door to WW2 and all its horrors ... all its horrors. There is nothing to celebrate for those who aren't apologists.

No doubt that for John Reed the Bolshevik revolution was an unforgettable adventure but it turned out to be one of history’s greatest catastrophes. Tens of millions of people had to die to satisfy the whims of a few “intellectuals” whose utopian vision didn’t have any room for disagreement or mercy.

John Reed demonstrates that you cannot be a "participant observer" and carry out both roles well. You can be an involved participant who conveys how it feels, or you can be a detached observer who relates events to your audience credibly and dispassionately. The public may enjoy the first but it needs the second. This is a principle that the many present-day journalists who have signed up for the Resistance do not seem to grasp.

There is no air sweeter to the human soul than that of sudden, massive change after decades of oppression. Indeed, the very orderly march of every day events are themselves a kind of oppression if there is no sense, no possibility, of eruptions and change. I have smelled the sweet air of revolution but I know too well what is likely to follow, a big, reeking mess as various factions try to decide who will actually rule, who must go and who will be allowed to stay. In point of fact, the surging hope of revolutions is based just as much on the human heart as the mind, on the belief in possibilities that might never be realized. Revolutions, that wonderful, blinding moment when the old is thrown off and the new opens up almost as never envisioned, lead to chaos and chaos usually leads to deaths. Rare is the revolution that does not devolve quickly from the grandest hope and highest ideas into the lowest of bloody messes. Any reporter who doesn't identify with the revolutionaries is probably dead to the world and just as useless as an observer of fast moving events. There comes a time when objectivity demands a form of personally enforced blindness. Revolutions are dangerous business of a high order, but everyone should get a chance to taste one at least once in their lifetime, I say.

I agree with those who have recommended the film Reds. It's a brilliant film, brilliantly constructed and performed, and humanizes the participant and their terribly tragic story.

In this respect, an interesting companion piece is Mrs Trollope's (Anthony's mother)journey through Early America, where she encounters such wonders as a working class boy who insists on sharing the Trollope coach, and a parlor maid who can 'decide' whether she wants to continue in employment. That WAS our revolution.

When in the course of human events there's political violence (eg uprisings, crackdowns, purges, invasions, insurgencies, fascists, Stalinists, pogroms, lynchings, idealoguery or demagoguery, any unrest whatsoever), FLEE.

Reed covered the first revolution of the 20th century in Mexico. He was a friend and admired with Pancho Villa and was surely affected by his time with the revolutionaries. His reports and articles were published in 1914 in a book entitled Insurgent Mexico. He did not hide his feelings or support for the revolution.

True revolutions change not only how the society is organized but how people think. Journalists and historians as well as scholars and scientists, writers and artists, find, in revolutionary contexts, that the autonomous resources of thinking in their discipline are not so autonomous. Partisanship vs. objectivity becomes a false opposition. The first task of a journalist in Reed's position must be to discover in an intimate way how the participants in the process understand what they are doing. As the French political philosopher Alain Badiou has shown, social/political "events" divide the world between old regime and participants in the process of constructing a new. People of the old regime of thinking literally cannot grasp or understand what is happening, and so for them it is not an event but a mere anomaly to be described in existing categories of moralism or abnormal psychology. This was true already in the American Revolution, to the extent that it was one. From a radically democratic point of view, the Soviet Revolution cannot be thought mistaken at the outset, but at best flawed, and its realization failed through either constitutive imperfections or the betrayal of a conservative faction (Stalin) or both. The reason is that behind the Event is not just an Idea or ideology but a Desire, to which we must be faithful. The desire is for liberty, equality, and democracy. Failed ideas, like those of Marx, or Jefferson, are places to start.

It may be hard to stay neutral on a moving train, but that doesn't mean you have to pitch in with the coal shovel. Reed was captivating, romantic -- and, as others have noted here, out to make things happen. I'm glad we have his account of those ten days and more, but that doesn't make them a roadmap for the way a modern journalist should behave.

There are little differences in the effects of communism and capitalism: corrupted power, unlimited greed, and deaths of millions. The oligarchs of Russia are no different from the oligarchs of the US. Money and power always corrupt human beings. Until such time that wealth and power are equally distributed among the "masses," nothing will change. Most likely, we will have completely destroyed the planet before that happens. Thank you, capitalism! Thank you, communism!

Ironic how the best revolutionaries tend to end up being self serving power mongers whose only true desire is control. Evolution is good, revolution is bad.

The Russian Revolution was one of the greatest crimes in human history, a disaster that saw millions slaughtered for an ideology of lies and corruption. Thanks for glamorizing it !

Comparing the 1917 revolution to the Arab Spring in Egypt is ridiculous.

"A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head." - Georges Clemenceau

Spend some time in the John Reed Archive at Houbhton Library. Reed, who had a reputation as quite a journalist, was not in Petersburg to report. His purpose in the book was to help instigate a revolution in the U.S. If you read his personal notebooks that were written at the time, there are many contradictions with the tale told in the book. His dedication was clear. For a talented writer who could never stick with a project for very long, he remained committed to the Russian Revolution for many years.

Mr. Shenker, and the late John Reed, never got around to answering the most fundamental question of them all. "So, putting aside the heady adrenalin of those Ten Days, how did the Bolshevik Revolution ultimately work out?"

Perhaps Reporters should have to lay all their cards on the table so we know what side they are on as we begin to read their reports.

Oh my goodness, Mr. Shenker. I read your piece with an aching heart. "Ten Days That Shook The World." May I suggest a companion volume written when? around two decades later. "Homage To Catalonia." By George Orwell. The one--an account of a revolution that SUCCEEDED. In Russian--soon to become the Soviet Union. The other--popular RESISTANCE to a revolution that succeeded. In Spain--workers, peasants, plain people standing against General Franco and his fascist comrades. I say all this (with my aching heart) because--in BOTH cases--the cause of ordinary people--the workers, the peasants, the poor, the disenfranchised, the dispossessed. . . . . . . . .that cause was. . . . . . .SO MONSTROUSLY, SO PITIFULLY BETRAYED! By the power seekers. Stalin's NKVD was waiting in the wings. In the last year of the Spanish Civil War they were ubiquitous and all-powerful. Orwell himself (with his wife) was oh! so lucky to get out with his life. So many didn't! They were stood up against a wall and shot. . . . .. . .not before undergoing horrific torture. And John Reed's "revolution"? Here too--Stalin and Company were waiting in the wings. Mr. Dzerzhinsky--and then Mr. Yagoda--and then Mr. Yezhov--and then Mr. Beria--and then. . . . . . . . .the odious list goes on and on. But the scales fell from Orwell's eyes. Not so John Reed! Poor John Reed! You were "had", Mr. Reed. You and millions of others. I am sorry. They were too. VERY sorry.

Here is a lecture on the Russian Revolution that I found to be historically accurate with all the details and much more. It is worth listening to You can hear it on Public Radio. Here is my station WAMC.org. The lecturer is Todd Chretien. Don't be afraid to hear different opinions. This is History, not fantasy! https://www.alternativeradio.org/collections/latest-programs/products/ch...

A.J.P. Taylor was the child of socialists who was able to explain the origins of socialist movements from the inequities produced by the industrial revolution which led to the revolutions of 1848 and the reactions to those events which ultimately produced the reforms across the West to resolve social inequities, the movement towards more democracy in governments, as well as the nationalism which led to fascism and the total revolutions sought by Marxists. This history makes it clear that one of the big reasons that Communism in the Soviet Union collapsed while capitalism moderated by social reforms prospered was that the latter provided social justice while enabling economic prosperity and supporting liberal democracy while the former could only produce a totalitarian governance and an economy run to satisfy politicians who had only their own interests in mind. The right reacted to the collapse by asserting that social justice was injustice and equity destroyed the common welfare which only selfishness and private control of wealth could remedy. So they proceeded to undo the good work of a hundred years, mostly to the disadvantage of all.

When I attended the Students Editors conference at the Times last year, the topic of ethics within journalism was at the forefront of our discussion, and, often, the answer to questions regarding whether or not to help individuals in distress, or to simply remain close enough to report what is occurring is not clear-cut. Even if a reporter says he or she would or would not help in a situation, the reality of the moment could offer strikingly different results regardless. I often think back to the Pulitzer-Prize winning photograph taken by Kevin Carter. It is something that remains powerful and pertinent, but Carter himself suffered greatly for being unable to aid another person - a child he witnessed dying. Carter undoubtedly couldn't have done anything, but it doesn't remove the emotion that still exists within reporters. However, had Carter not taken the photo, the famine that racked South Africa during the apartheid-­era would have not received the attention that his image garnered. Still, as a reporter, I know that situations, whether it be a revolution or a sick child, are sometimes inevitably difficult to make decisions within. Before he took his own life, Carter stated, “I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain.” Reed did not regret his decisions to take part in a revolution. It's the journalists behind the pens of these incredible stories that can be stories themselves.

Marx labored hard and long with the help of Engels to create an imaginary utopian system called Communism which promised an end to history and an everlasting state of perfect equality and satisfaction of all real human needs free of the injustices which justified the imposition of order upon people by governments. It was founded upon a notion that history progressed in a manner that was as deterministic as a chemical reaction, which was termed historical determinism. One impressive hypothesis about reality integrated with excellent rationality upon a bunch of others, but never confirmed by any real tests until the U.S.S.R. was founded in 1917. Meanwhile all the goals thought to be served by this revolutionary movement were resolved by other means. In the end, the only real obstacle to the revolution were human beings. The enlightened who ran the dictatorship of the proletariat all became oligarchs in the same old fashioned as throughout history. The people remained people who simply never conformed to the soviet ideal as was necessary for the withering away of the state with the continued high level of organization needed to maintain the means of production. A world that lived in the imagination but could never exist in the real world.

Reed was a great writer and story teller, but his journalism lacked any skepticism about his subjects which meant that he failed to confirm that his experiences were as accurate representations of what actually happened as he felt. Given the total dominance of the mass media by elitists in this country, it's easy to see how Reed was seduced into this non-fiction novelist approach to reporting, but it limited the strength and endurance of his reporting. The October revolution was a coup d'état by very ruthless people not a popular uprising as he presumed, and the Bolsheviks had effectively created a new aristocracy of themselves which talked about human equality and dignity but which truly considered no life worth respecting, yet Reed could not see what was in front of his eyes.

There is no doubt about it. Revolution is thrilling. It’s a mob thing. The problem is that life goes on long after the thrill of the revolution is gone.

Very well written article, I especially liked this turn of phrase: "that curious feature of rapid political change whereby the furniture and accessories of the previous system remain dotted about the landscape, suddenly shorn of their power, both unaltered and simultaneously absurd"

"...he understood the real force of revolutionary journalism: its potential to rouse all who engage with it — not least the reporters themselves." And that willingness to be roused and engaged is neither left nor right, and neither communism nor piratical capitalism. We may be at a point where revolutionary journalism is once again manifesting itself in America. We're grown weary of gun violence; of war and mass destruction; of the power of money in politics, and of the lies of Trump. But journalists of the Washington Post and Sixty Minutes have revealed a horrendously cynical and greedy cooperation between GOP congressmen and Big Pharma in promoting the opioid epidemic. And Trump blames Mexicans and demands a wall to keep them out. We've reached a point where Trump can indeed shoot someone on Fifth Ave without losing a supporter--because they'll neither hear about the shooting nor see it on Fox.

This series has been nothing short of amazing, thank you so much for running it! Unfortunately, too many right wing and reactionary publications only dwell on the downsides of the Workers Revolution - the tens of millions killed, the need to suppress reactionary speech, and the need to redistribute food and wealth to the poor after centuries of abuse by the plutocrats, which yes, did result in the alleged deaths of many. But after a brief setback initiated by the fascist right from Reagan to Trump, with bright lights like the Obama administration to soften things, I feel like we're finally making a comeback! Yes - I consider myself an Antifa friendly, Communist. Sanders is ascendent, Clinton's multi-racial, transnational and globalist campaign did in fact win a plurality, we're tearing down symbols of hate throughout the nation and re-visioning history, and I have no doubt that our party, the Democratic Party, is going to win and win big in 2018 and 2020 with the kind of socialist and progressive policies that the grass roots really want!

It is amazing to me to read most of the comments here, ignorant in their "i-already-know-everything-about-empire-of-evil" spirit. I bet that virtually none of the people who wrote something about "century of murders and oppression" never even set a foot inside the borders of Russia, never read any serious non-propaganda texts about life before and after October Revolution, never properly understood what was going on in the world at the time. They already know everything from the books and articles they read in American newspapers in the last 50 years, which were of course absolutely objective with no agenda behind them whatsoever. No wonder that when average Americans actually spend some time abroad they realize how their convictions and behavior are often ridiculed as, at a minimum, shallow and, frequently, baseless and dangerous to the people who live there. Life is now and was back then so much more complicated and nuanced - but of course it is so much nicer to digest easy slogans and recipes no matter how deceptive or misleadng they are. Living that way is exactly what brought us our current President as well as near destruction of our "best-in-the-world" political system.

It's worth recalling that the October Revolution was Reed's SECOND Revolution. He had just been in Mexico with Pancho Villa and his "Insurgent Mexico" was the result. A movie inspired by this book was made in the early seventies by Paul Leduc.

I read "Ten Days That Shook the World" as a teenager in New York, and it was thrilling, far more thrilling than the much-later film of Reed's life and adventures before his death by disease in Russia. The book remains alive today as an on-site narrative, fascinating, ever-changing and vastly engaging of a society turned upside-down after the October Revolution. If Reed had survived he undoubtedly would have stayed in Russia to document the take-over of the revolution by unscrupulous criminals and the degradation of an egalitarian utopian dream by thugs like Joseph Stalin who used the pretext of ideological "purity" to create a vastly repressive, murderous society. The Egyptian revolutions of the "Arab Spring" are Reed's masterwork writ small, but with the same stagnant, chaotic, dictatorial results in all but perhaps Tunisia. The lesson I take from this is that when a revolution destroys social institutions and the existing power structure, it most often opens the door to unscrupulous and often murderous opportunists who give the people none of their dreams or aspirations, only continued pain, inequality, and suffering.

Lest we forget "Ten Days That Shook The World" was followed by 74 years of tyranny and murder. Idealists, the fermenters of the worst atrocities in human history.

John Reed was a communist. Here's what that means: - He hated freedom. - He hated wealth. - He hated people. - He hated life. That's all that needs to be said about John Reed.

The NY Times Red Century series looks like an attempt to whitewash the Soviet Union’s brutal history and rehabilitate Communism. While John Reed is an interesting historical figure, he was oblivious to the summary executions and nascent dictatorship going on all around him. He was intoxicated with being at the center of the a big story. Let’s bring back Walter Duranty to round out the post Lenin years with his glowing praise of the Stalin era.

I'm neither wise enough or articulate enough to take issue with anything here. And so it seems to me the only thing left is to say thank you for one of the most intriguing pieces I've read in ages. Thank you.

what reed understood is the force of his own art as a writer, the best line in this view, in the film "reds" is warren beatty's, as reed, when he scorches the an editor who made changes in his text: "you don't rewrite what i wrote!" every event, to a reporter, is like an intersection, sometimes a simple crossing, others, one of those five or six way confluences without traffic signals...if the assignment is to cover, one covers and saves the romance for sidebars or opeds. if the reporter is an independent agent, not bound by assignment, then the choice of where to stand, or indeed whom to join, is open and the result need not be reportage or, as in reed's case not exclusively, (though mr. shenker seems impatient with those departures from the "grime and dust," the "near- verbatim accounts of interminable...Soviet committee meetings...the grand showpieces that Reed witnessed...like the raucous smoke-filled meetings at Lenin’s Smolny headquarters where insurrection was hatched..." this last, the true heart of the matter. the gems cited, the argument in the rail station, the kids re-enacting, the "comrade" tears, etc. are also reportage, from a journalist standing in the intersection, which is where the "the contradictions of revolution" tangled...now and then he did get on one passing vehicle or another which is how he learned that they were all going to the same place, the hilltop of personal privilege that would destroy the revolution, same as now, here in the usa.

"The full history of Russia’s revolution contains great shafts of darkness." Over time, that shaft became an all-enveloping blanket suffocating to literal and figurative death tens of millions deemed to stand in the path of dictatorial will. Reed never foresaw this, besotted as he was by the romance of the revolutionary moment. Herein lies the journalistic trap of self-identification with the presumed glory of revolution. It is hard to see the longer term consequences of any movement embracing the term "dictatorship" even when applied to a seemingly benign "proletariat." "Proletariat" really means the concentration of power in the hands of figures who appropriate revolutionary syntax for their own lustful ends. Russia devolved into one of history's darkest, most oppressively murderous regimes. Since 1917, that news has never gotten any better.

when will the movie about the author's life come out?

Of course, we can't discuss journalism in Russia after the revolution. The communists stomped it out of existence, and that can't be mentioned. After all the purpose of this Red Century series seems to be rehabilitation of the image of communism.