Thrilling eye-witness account of the Russian Revolution. What makes this one particularly interesting is that it is seen through the lens of American journalist Reed. Stands up beautifully well nearly a century after it was first published.

The popular western view of the Bolsheviks is coloured not only by our capitalist ruling class (and their very partial interest in giving a bad name even to the notion of redistribution, let alone class revolution), but also by the weight of the many harrowing things that followed in the politics of communist Russia in the 20th century, if it's even possible to reduce them to such a description.

However, this book cuts through everything that followed and everything that is superimposed upon the November Revolution in retrospect.

The reader has valuable access to eyewitness accounts and anecdotes picked up from directly on the ground in Petrograd – albeit, critics will say, from a decidedly partial reporter in John Reed, who was given passage and free movement specifically because he was considered a member of the US socialist press. Moreover, he was granted his access with the express idea of having him attest to the events of the Revolutions and report them to the world.

Make what you will of the author's various potential biases and prejudices, but he nonetheless presents ample and vital primary source material from all sides of the November Revolution, including speeches, decrees, transcripts of political debates, newspaper articles and public propaganda. And he is at least clear in his expressed opinions, making no attempt to decieve or obfuscate.

Casual readers may be put off by the jargon, ceremony, acronyms and general minefield of proper nouns that afflicts all political histories to a greater or lesser degree. However, it is worth pushing through to gain the insight into the character of the key figures, to understand where different factions drew their lines, and to see reflected in the action the will and the attitude of the mass population of Russia – the latter in stark contrast to the presumptions and wishful thinking witnessed in the reformist/bourgeois/counter-revolutionary political manoeuvrings in Petrograd and Moscow.

More simply, what makes this account so compelling is that it constitutes a snapshot of a pivotal historical moment. And in Reed's account you can truly feel the sense that history could have been going another way, on numerous occasions, as though you yourself were on the benches of these political chambers, or wandering the streets of the capital.

glad everything worked out