(no subject)

[skygiants]

Remember this project? It might be slow going, but I have not given up on it! Book 2 on the revolution syllabus I have set myself is Ten Days That Shook the World, John Reed's half-accurate account of the Bolshevik takeover in Petrograd in 1917.

Please note: I have no better idea about any of the actual politics involved than I did before I read this book. This is because there are approximately five million political parties involved, most of them claiming to be Socialist and all of them in a constant process of sitting in on meetings and then storming out on each other in a huff.

(Half the time the storming out in a huff is followed by someone else shouting "YOU ALREADY STORMED OUT LAST NIGHT! WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?")

Anyway, John Reed's version is pretty partisan and only sort of accurate, so everything he says about actual facts has to be taken with a bit of a grain of salt anyway.

What his account does do is give a very good idea of the inevitable confusion that occurs when a country tries to remake all of its social and political structures overnight. Nobody has any idea what's going on in the rest of the country; social structures are in a constant state of flux; half the time half of the national infrastructure is on strike in protest against the other half; people are constantly putting up posters all around the city saying "WORKERS! DON'T LISTEN TO [OTHER POLITICAL PARTY]! WE HATE THEM AND THEIR STUPID FACES." One entire major party decides to boycott all the meetings because they're annoyed that the Bolsheviks have stolen their land reform program and THEY THOUGHT OF IT FIRST, JEEZ. John Reed, the American Socialist journalist who is narrating the whole story, almost gets accidentally executed at least three times by the Bolshevik party, which he supports and has a safe-conduct from; another three times he is blithely able to wander into government areas where he really should not have been without anybody stopping him.

History is chaos, man. Any time, any place -- it's basically amazing that anything ever gets done.

Comments

[sylleptic]

First, that sounds like an awesome project. Second, I tried to read that book in high school! I think I gave up on keeping track of anything very very quickly, and then gave up on having enough time to finish the book at all not long after that.

I have one very clear memory of him describing a cafe with a sign on the (ex-)tip jar reading "Just because a man waits tables for a living is no need to be insulting." Did I make that up or is it actually in that book?

That aside, it sounds fun and interesting, so I think I will put it back onto my (ridiculously long) to-read list.

[skygiants]

-- I know I've read that description too, but I cannot remember if it was in this book, or in Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. Then again, it might have been in both. It sounds equally plausible . . .

I think it's worth the read! It remains deeply confusing, but the political details are not exactly the point anyway (though John Reed might disagree with me.)

[tree_and_leaf]

Not tipping became a bit of a communist thing (I've encountered it in East German novels), so it could well have been in both.

[rushthatspeaks]

Fun fact: John Reed's daughter was my grandmother's best friend, which occasionally caused my grandmother some issues, since she was a Senator and kept being accused of Socialist contamination. I did not, however, actually know he'd written a book, because his politics and life were Not A Topic Of Discussion In My Grandmother's Circles Or Else Thank You. When my grandmother and I went to Russia, we strongly considered taking her best friend along to see her father's grave in the Kremlin, but it was decided that no one wanted to deal with the inevitable media attention, especially since my grandmother, who had by that time retired, was hoping the Russians would treat her as a private person. Which they did, I don't even know whether anybody noticed, we just did normal tourist stuff. But it was a fascinating issue, it was like, do we want to put up with some kind of formal government reception or not? I totally understand why this was not a thing my grandmother and her friend wanted to have happen but I would love to have been there for it...

[skygiants]

- oh, wow! That's a pretty exciting family story, I have to say. The history of Reed's book is pretty interesting in Russia, too; Lenin loved it, and Stalin then threw a hissy fit and banned it because he barely rated a mention in Reed's version of events, and then I think after Stalin died it sort of snuck back into the approved curriculum. So I wonder what kind of reception you guys might have gotten, on the balance!

[metaphortunate]

Every time I read any history, that is basically the lesson I come away with. Also "Sure, try to do what you want, maybe you'll get there; but if you don't, chances are it's because somebody got sick at the wrong time, maybe you, which there is nothing you can do about, so don't stress too much."

Just read A Place of Greater Safety (LOL IRONIC TITLE) which is Hilary Mantel's novelization of the French Revolution and wow, it is basically amazing that anything ever gets done. And in that case you could argue that it sort of doesn't in the end.

[skygiants]

I really need to reread A Place of Greater Safety! It made a huge impression on me when I first read it, but it's been years. From my recollection, though, you are absolutely right.