John Reed (journalist)

John "Jack" Silas Reed (1887 - 1920), journalist and activist, famous for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution called Ten Days that Shook the World. He was the husband of the writer and feminist Louise Bryant and was the subject of a 1981 movie Reds.

Biography

Reed was born in Portland, Oregon. Despite recent pride by Portlanders in John Reed, he was not fond of the city of his birth. According to his own writings, he left Portland as soon as he could, to attend Harvard University in 1910, and never looked back.

He became well known for his journalism particularly for his sympathetic coverage of workers strikes and his reporting of the Mexican Revolution. Reed and his wife were also close friends of Eugene O'Neill's. While in Europe covering the events of World War I, Reed heard about the brewing Bolshevik Revolution, and went to Russia in 1917. His experiences and interviews with Vladimir Lenin became the subject of a book.

Returning to America he threw himself into the embryonic Communist movement and was a leading figure in the Socialist Party left wing. As such he was instrumental in the foundation of the Communist Labor Party. This party was illegal and only one of two parties vying for the support of the newly founded Communist International. it was as a delegate of this party to the Comintern that Reed returned to Russia. He died in Moscow and became the only American buried in the Kremlin Wall in Red Square.

A perennial urban legend in Reed's home town is that Reed College was named for this journalist. Although Reed College's unofficial and tongue-in-cheek motto is "Atheism, Communism, and Free Love", there is no truth to this rumor. The film Reds starring Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, and Jack Nicholson, was based on his life and won several Academy Awards.

External link

Project Gutenberg e-text of Ten Days That Shook The World