John Silas “Jack” Reed (1887–1920) was an American journalist and poet who wrote Ten Days That Shook the World (1919,) a firsthand description of the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917
Born in Portland, Oregon, to privileged circumstances, Reed got educated at Harvard. He earned his celebrity by reporting on U.S. labor strikes, the Mexican revolution, and World War I. As an ardent communist, he founded the Communist Labor Party.
When visiting Russia to liaise with likeminded communists, he met with Lenin and discovered a country distressed by famine, poverty, and disease. He also learned of his indictment in the United States for incitement to rebellion. He rapidly grew disillusioned with the Russian Revolution and tried several times to return to the United States. Once, he was convicted of smuggling in Finland for carrying jewels and gold worth more than $1 million that was supplied by Russia to support the American Communist Labor Party.
In failing health and aware of the dangers of returning to the United States, Reed went back to Russia. He died of typhus in Moscow and was honored with burial within the grounds of the Kremlin.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Reed
When you first start to study a field, it seems like you have to memorize a zillion things. You don’t. What you need is to identify the core principles—generally three to twelve of them—that govern the field. The million things you thought you had to memorize are simply various combinations of the core principles.
—John Reed