John Reed (1887–1920) was a journalist, activist, poet, and author. In addition to chronicling the Russian revolution, he reported on US labor strikes, the Mexican revolution, World War I, and was a founder of and international delegate for the Communist Labor Party. He is buried at the Kremlin Wall in Moscow.

From David Laibman's New Introduction

The Revolution chronicled in John Reed's classic account, then, has not been deprived of its historical importance. On the contrary: if this Revolution brought forth a vision, and an early reality, of a modern, complex economy and society run by its working people, through massively democratic procedures, ensuring cooperative engagement of the resources of Planet Earth toward the ends of human development and preservation of all life, and without a predatory, unprincipled capitalist ruling class imposing its own need for power and wealth between the Planet and its working inhabitants-then that reality/vision/Revolution will only gain in historical significance, as the world’s people return to the offensive.

Those people will then need to return to John Reed's amazing account of the struggles and pain, the visions and triumphs, of their 1917 forebears who toppled a Tsarist monarchy, then stared down the country's internal bourgeois elites, the international capitalist empire-builders and invaders, and all of the "friendly" professional problem-solvers, to start off on a long and still-unwinding road to a future worthy of them-and us. I conclude that we must still read Ten Days, and learn from it, because there is so much still to be done.

From Chapter 4: The Fall of the Provisional Government

The massive facade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous elephant-colored armored automobile, with two red flags flying from the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and at the outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bonfire. At the inner gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the sentries slowly spelled out our passes and looked us up and down.

The canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on each side of the doorway, and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike from their breeches. A dun herd of armored cars stood under the trees in the court-yard, engines going. The long, bare, dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder of feet, calling, shouting ... There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd came pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders, soldiers in rough dirt-colored coats and grey fur shapki pinched flat, a leader or so-Lunatcharsky, Kamenev-hurrying along in the center of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces, and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet was over.

John Reed (1887–1920) was a journalist, activist, poet, and author. In addition to chronicling the Russian revolution, he reported on US labor strikes, the Mexican revolution, World War I, and was a founder of and international delegate for the Communist Labor Party. He is buried at the Kremlin Wall in Moscow.

From David Laibman's New Introduction

The Revolution chronicled in John Reed's classic account, then, has not been deprived of its historical importance. On the contrary: if this Revolution brought forth a vision, and an early reality, of a modern, complex economy and society run by its working people, through massively democratic procedures, ensuring cooperative engagement of the resources of Planet Earth toward the ends of human development and preservation of all life, and without a predatory, unprincipled capitalist ruling class imposing its own need for power and wealth between the Planet and its working inhabitants-then that reality/vision/Revolution will only gain in historical significance, as the world’s people return to the offensive.

Those people will then need to return to John Reed's amazing account of the struggles and pain, the visions and triumphs, of their 1917 forebears who toppled a Tsarist monarchy, then stared down the country's internal bourgeois elites, the international capitalist empire-builders and invaders, and all of the "friendly" professional problem-solvers, to start off on a long and still-unwinding road to a future worthy of them-and us. I conclude that we must still read Ten Days, and learn from it, because there is so much still to be done.

From Chapter 4: The Fall of the Provisional Government

The massive facade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous elephant-colored armored automobile, with two red flags flying from the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and at the outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bonfire. At the inner gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the sentries slowly spelled out our passes and looked us up and down.

The canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on each side of the doorway, and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike from their breeches. A dun herd of armored cars stood under the trees in the court-yard, engines going. The long, bare, dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder of feet, calling, shouting ... There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd came pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders, soldiers in rough dirt-colored coats and grey fur shapki pinched flat, a leader or so-Lunatcharsky, Kamenev-hurrying along in the center of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces, and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet was over.