Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed

John Reed, Harvard Class of 1910, epitomized the best of the pre-World War I bourgeois radicals. Unlike the vast majority of his Class and class he cast his fate with the working people and oppressed of America at a time when the dominant left bourgeois movement- the Progressive movement- was busy applying band aids to the increasingly inequitable capitalist system. The radical movement is always in need, sometimes desperately in need, of intellectuals to tell its side of the story. Despite some exceptions, like Reed, the intellectuals then, as now, either stood on the sidelines or at most acted as `fellow travelers' to the movement. Reed on the contrary put all his energies into the movement. As a journalist he sought out all the radical hotspots of his time starting with his coverage of the Mexican Revolution, through the various workers' strikes of the 1910's in America culminating in his coverage of the heroic period of the Russian Revolution. His journalistic account of the Bolshevik seizure of power, Ten Days That Shook the World, stands even today as one of the best eyewitness accounts of that turbulent time in Russia. John Reed's political development also offers today's militant leftists an insight into how the swirl of events drives the best militants leftward. Reed started out in the typically Bohemian milieu of New York City's Greenwich Village and imbibed its avante guarde cultural offerings and its pretensions. However, as the United States lurched into participation into World War I he grew stronger as an anti-war advocate and placed himself on the line to oppose that war. This was the great dividing point in the radical movement of the time. This separated the dilettantes and mere reformists from serious revolutionaries. Not an unusual political development, but an important one. Under the influence of the Russian Revolution Reed led the left wing of the American Socialist Party on a program of opposition to the war and defense of the Bolshevik Revolution. When the left wing was forced out of the Socialist Party he formed a communist organization based on the centrally of the native American working class as the vanguard of the American Revolution. Opposed to that were left-wingers, mainly foreign born elements based on the various language federations of the old Socialist Party, who essentially wanted to act as cheerleaders for the Russian Revolution-and no much else. The result was the creation of two communist organizations that caused no end of problems both in America and in the Communist International. But the fights to lead the Socialist party leftward and later between the communist organizations are stories for another time, and worth separate space. Read this book for starters.

An epic tour-de-force which examines the fascinating life of John Reed, the only American to be buried in the Kremlin Wall. An ecclectic mix of personalities - from Lenin to Gertrude Stein, from Lincoln Steffens to Teddy Roosevelt - pass thru the tapestry which was Reed's life, each having their own unique impact on the art which remains. From his childhood in stoic Portland Oregon to his years in Harvard and New York to his coming of age in Mexico covering the Villa revolution, Reed absorbed experience and reflected his concept of justice and equality in his writing. Each stop along the way was preparation for Reed's ultimate mission - to report on the earth-shattering 1917 Russian Revolution. The book "Ten Days in October" is still the seminal work on the topic, and this book delves into the evolution of Reed from middle-class dabbler to full-blown Socialist commentator. Mr. Rosenstone does the man justice - well-documented, fair, and without overt "gushiness". An exceptional read.

This is the book the academy-award winning movie "Reds", starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton, was based on. An epic (but true)love story, you finish reading it in awe at how much life was packed by these people in such a short time.