Ten Days That Shook the World

thing but a detailed account of the November Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the

n. But the reader must realize that what took place in Petrograd was almost exactly dupli

experienced, and those supported by reliable evidence; preceded by two chapters briefly outlining the background and causes of the Nov

set up? If the Bolsheviki championed the Constituent Assembly before the November Revolution, why did they disperse it by force of arms afterwa

to and including the German peace. There I explain the origin and functions of the Revolutionary organisations, the evolution of popular sentime

r back as 1915. The corrupt reactionaries in control of the Tsar’s Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the front, which had caused the great retreat of the summer o

olution, when one hundred and sixty millions of the world’s most oppressed peoples suddenly ach

the Tsar and give it to them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like France or the United States; or a con

the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of mind of the R

under a free Government, if it fell into the hands of ot

the workers of the world he has learned about them from actual experience. He is ready and willing to fight his oppressor, the capitalist class, to a finish.

titutions were preferable to their own, but they were not very anxio

d Odessa, imprisoned by thousands in every Russian jail, and exiled to the deserts and the arctic r

n war, the Social Revolution on top of the Political

Democracy”: The Bolsheviks organised their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon Trotsky — Minister of Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their com

hey were very well trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more than twelve million members of the Russian consumers’ Cooperative societies; and the Soviets themselve

Walling thus cha

n that they have had the advantage of leadership not only of intelligent individuals in their midst, but of a large part of the equally r

ey realised the growth in power of the popular revolutionary organisations, undertook to destroy them and to halt the Revolution. To this end the propertied classes finally resorted to desperate measures. In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry and the Soviets, tra

. The Bolsheviki retorted by preaching the class w

e so-called “moderate” Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and several smaller parties. These

ccording to their interpretation, the Russian masses were not educated enough to take over the power; any attempt to do so would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of wh

the world, into full-fledged Socialism. Naturally, therefore, they agreed with the propertied classes that Russia must first be a parliamentary state — t

urgeoisie did not need the “moderate” Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being obliged to g

and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting on the side of the propertie

d the power to impose it on the country. If they had not succeeded to the Government when they did, there is little doubt in my mind

of the toiling masses, and staking everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed among the peasants. The Factory–Shop Committees and the Trade

menon of world-wide importance. Just as historians search the records for the minutest details of the story of the Paris Commune, so they will want to know what happened

story of those great days I have tried to see events with the eye