| Notes |
- Jack was portrayed by Warren Beatty in the movie, 'Reds' which wasalso produced by Warren Beatty. Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton in the same movie. (David H. Drollinger 2 Feb 2012)
Note: I am not yet entirely certain that Louise and Jack were actually married. Needs further confirmation. (David H. Drollinger 2 Feb2012)
I can find no evidence (yet) that Louise and John Silas Reed were evermarried. Given their Bohemian lifestyle, it seems doubtful they were ever married.
(David H. Drollinger 3 Feb 2012)
wikipedia.com
John Reed (journalist)
Witness to the Russian Revolution
On August 17, 1917, John Reed and Louise Bryant set sail from New Yorkto Europe, having first provided the State Department with legallysworn assurances that neither would represent the Socialist Party at aforthcoming conference in Stockholm.[30] The pair were going asworking journalists to see for themselves and report upon thesensational developments taking place in the fledgling republic ofRussia. Traveling by way of Finland, the pair arrived in the capitalcity of Petrograd immediately after the failed military coup ofmonarchist General Lavr Kornilov, an attempt to topple the ProvisionalGovernment of Alexander Kerensky by force of arms. Jack and Louisefound the Russian economy was in shambles and several of the subjectnationalities of the old empire, such as Finland and Ukraine,autonomous and seeking to forge a military accommodation with Germany.
The cover of this 1919 British pamphlet emphasizes Reed's short-livedstatus as Soviet consul.
John Reed and Louise Bryant wound up at ground zero for the OctoberRevolution, in which the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party(bolshevik) headed by Vladimir Lenin toppled the Kerensky governmentin what they believed to be the first blow struck in a worldwidesocialist revolution.
The food situation in the capital was dire. Jack later recalled:
The last month of the Kerensky regime was marked first by the fallingoff of the bread supply from 2 pounds a day to 1 pound, to half apound, to a quarter of a pound, and, the final week, no bread at all.Holdups and crime increased to such an extent that you could hardlywalk down the streets. The papers were full of it. Not only had thegovernment broken down, but the municipal government had absolutelybroken down. The city militia was quite disorganized and up in theair, and the street-cleaning apparatus and all that sort of thing hadbroken down ? milk and everything of that sort."[31]
A mood for radical change was in the air. The Bolsheviks, seeking anall-socialist government and immediate end to Russian participation inthe war, sought the transfer of power from Kerensky to a Congress ofSoviets, a gathering of elected workers' and soldiers' deputies to beconvened in October. The Kerensky government saw this as a cleareffort to replace its own regime with another and moved to shut downthe Bolshevik press, issuing warrants of arrest for the Soviet leadersand preparing to transfer the troops of the Petrograd garrison,believed to be unreliable, back to the front. A Military RevolutionaryCommittee of the Soviets, dominated by the Bolshevik Party, determinedto seize power on behalf of the future Congress of Soviets and at 11pm on the evening of November 7, 1917, it captured the Winter Palace,seat of Kerensky's government.[32] Reed and Bryant were present duringthe fall of the Winter Palace, the symbolic event which initiated theBolshevik Revolution.[33]
Jack was an enthusiastic supporter of the new revolutionary socialistgovernment and he went to work for the new People's Commissariat forForeign Affairs, translating decrees and news of the actions of thenew government into English. "I also collaborated in the gathering ofmaterial and data and distributing of papers to go into the Germantrenches," Reed later recalled.[34]
Jack was close to the inner circle of the new government. He met LeonTrotsky and was introduced to Lenin during a break of the ConstituentAssembly on January 18, 1918. By December, his funds were nearlyexhausted and he took employment with an American, Raymond Robbins ofthe Red Cross. Robbins wished to set up a newspaper promoting Americaninterests; Reed complied, but in the dummy issue he prepared heincluded a warning beneath the masthead: "This paper is devoted topromoting the interests of American capital."[35]
The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly left Reed unmoved, and twodays later, armed with a rifle, he joined a patrol of Red Guardsprepared to defend the Foreign Office from counter-revolutionaryattack.[36] Reed then attended the opening of the Third Congress ofSoviets, where he gave a short speech promising to bring the news ofthe revolution to America, where he hoped it would "call forth ananswer from America's oppressed and exploited masses." Americanjournalist Edgar Sisson told Reed that he was being used by theBolsheviks for their propaganda, a rebuke he accepted.[36] In January,Trotsky, responding to Reed's concern about the safety of hissubstantial archive, offered Reed the post of Soviet Consul in NewYork; as the United States did not recognize the Bolshevik government,his credentials would almost certainly have been rejected and he facedprison (which would have given the Bolsheviks some propagandamaterial). The appointment was viewed as a massive blunder by mostAmericans in Petrograd, and the businessman Alex Gumberg directlyapproached Lenin, showing him a prospectus in which Reed called formassive American capital support for Russia and for the setting up ofa newspaper to express the American viewpoint on the negotiations atBrest-Litovsk. Lenin found the proposal unsavory and withdrew thenomination; thereafter, Reed only mentioned Gumberg's name with astring of epithets attached.[37]
Both Jack and Louise netted books from their Russian experiences, withLouise's Six Red Months in Russia appearing first and Jack's 10 DaysThat Shook the World, published early in 1919, garnering the mostnotice.
While Louise had made her way home to the United States in January1918, Jack did not reach New York City until April 28, 1918.[38] Onhis way back to the USA Reed traveled from Russia to Finland; hedidn't have a visa or passport while crossing to Finland. In Turkuharbor, when Reed was boarding a ship on his way to Stockholm, Finnishpolice arrested Reed and took him to Kakola prison in Turku until hewas released. From Finland, Reed traveled to Kristiania, Norway viaStockholm. Because he remained under indictment in the Masses case,Jack was immediately met by federal authorities, who held him on boardhis ship for more than eight hours while they searched his belongings.Reed's irreplaceable papers were seized, the raw material from whichhe intended to write his book, and he was released upon his ownrecognizance after his attorney, Morris Hillquit, promised to make himavailable at the Federal Building the next day.[38] His papers werenot returned to him until seven months later in November 1918.
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1887 - 1920 (32 years)
