John Reed e Lenin nei “Dieci giorni che sconvolsero il mondo” (7-17 novembre 1917)

Abstract

John Reed, an American journalist and poet, graduated from Harvard, in October 1917 traveled to Russia as a member of Socialist magazine «The Masses» to record the events of the revolution that changed the fate of many European peoples for seventy years. Reading a century after his testimonies, in which men, situations, smells and flavors take shape in a true and lived exposition, is a way to illuminate one of the most important historical moments of all time. His book emphasizes the firm and essential role that the two Bolshevik leaders, Lenin and Trotzki, had in the insurrection of the night of October 24, and that Stalin then sought to mystify or erase. Reed died of typhus in Moscow and was buried under the Kremlin walls. He is the only foreigner to rest under the Red Wall. That is why, one hundred years later, we wanted to recall his testimonies that, beyond a journalistic value, today have also a historical and documental importance