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he_slaughtered's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
lcbosoundsystem's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Absolutely staggering to imagine being there in Red Petrograd with John Reed, dawn till dusk, asking anyone he can to talk to him. Walking into the Smolny Institute and seeing Trotsky speak, watching the last days of the muncipal Duma. Just an incredible document.
gossamerwingedgazelle's review against another edition
3.0
This book was clearly written by someone who was excited about the Russian revolution. If you want to read about how bad Communists were, this isn't the book for you. However, if you are interested in hearing about the revolution from someone who was there, this book is an enjoyable read. Of course, it is biased, but I still found it worth reading.
peebee's review against another edition
5.0
Something about reading this in 2022, the story of a bunch of people with an actual program seizing power from a group of do-nothing centrist libs who want to sit on their hands while the right wing destroys the poor... Something about them deferentially bowing and scraping before the people who LOST the revolution and forming something like two or three separate armies to literally punch left while oh by the way WW-fucking-I is going on and those troops could probably use those bullets, rations and men... Real, real nice to see each and every one of those cynical lords and generals and intellectuals scream about 'betrayal of the people' only to have the people drag them out of their cars and kick them to death on station platforms.
However else it went - and to be clear, every socialist project that DIDN'T bring in a heavy dose of authoritarianism got Allende'd or Lumumba'ed, and the US Expeditionaries would actually invade St. Petes within the year - goddamn it's great to see the worst pieces of shit get theirs.
I'd happily let the US end up like the USSR for the next 80 if I got to see that Rat Mayor get the Avktsentiev treatment.
That said, the version I read is like the sixth printing, and they kept the footnotes inserted by the CPGB (who published the first English translation) disputing things he said about people what would become the main politburo, and how their commitment and politics wavered (one could say evolved) with events, with reference to a book the CPGB published like, one year prior to their translation and like 15 AFTER the events that the author was an eyeball witness to. A book that is not a work of history but just speeches by the subjects, essentially going 'nuh uh, I was actually the good guy with perfect politics and always made the right choices!' Literal vandalism and I can't understand why a second, separate publisher would bother including it for their edition.
Jesus fucking christ, if we could clear out the leftists who only use their politics as an outlet for dumb churchgoing gossipy meangirl point scoring praxis-as-inscrutable-pamphleteering, it would be world revolution in a month's time.
However else it went - and to be clear, every socialist project that DIDN'T bring in a heavy dose of authoritarianism got Allende'd or Lumumba'ed, and the US Expeditionaries would actually invade St. Petes within the year - goddamn it's great to see the worst pieces of shit get theirs.
I'd happily let the US end up like the USSR for the next 80 if I got to see that Rat Mayor get the Avktsentiev treatment.
That said, the version I read is like the sixth printing, and they kept the footnotes inserted by the CPGB (who published the first English translation) disputing things he said about people what would become the main politburo, and how their commitment and politics wavered (one could say evolved) with events, with reference to a book the CPGB published like, one year prior to their translation and like 15 AFTER the events that the author was an eyeball witness to. A book that is not a work of history but just speeches by the subjects, essentially going 'nuh uh, I was actually the good guy with perfect politics and always made the right choices!' Literal vandalism and I can't understand why a second, separate publisher would bother including it for their edition.
Jesus fucking christ, if we could clear out the leftists who only use their politics as an outlet for dumb churchgoing gossipy meangirl point scoring praxis-as-inscrutable-pamphleteering, it would be world revolution in a month's time.
batriq's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
5.0
tuckerm's review against another edition
3.0
didn’t know much about the Bolshevik revolution, and i really enjoyed the energy of this book. would’ve loved an afterword! maybe later editions have one.