€ cca ing of the Winter Palace in Leningrad, October 25-26, 1917. tening day and night in expectation of the steps hurrying to our aid. But also tell them that no matter how long we shall have to wait, we will remain firm. Never will the Russian workers betray their revolution. At this time John Reed became acquainted with Lenin especially closely. Occupied by thousands of _ important affairs, the head of the Soviet government _ frequently talked with the American, sometimes until the small hours of the morning. Lenin viewed his ac- tivities with approval, while reproaching him for his careless attitude towards his health. Reed shared his creative plans with Lenin: he was collecting material for a new work in which he wished to record the Civil War era, to show the heroism of the Russian proletariat. It was precisely in this period that Lenin got ac- quainted with Reed’s book, Ten Days That Shook the World. In the three decades of his work as a publicist Lenin had not written a single foreword for any artis- tic literary work. The only exception he made was in the case of John Reed’s epic work. The head of the Soviet government most sincerely wrote in his pre- face to the American edition: Here is a book which I should like tosee pub- lished in millions of copies and translated into all languages. It gives a truthful and most vivid €xposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Pro- letariat. On Lenin’s personal request Reed wrote some notes on the communist movement in America. He Provided information on the events in the American _ Socialist movement that preceded the creation of the Painting by E.\. Deshallt Communist Party USA, on the influence of the great October Socialist revolution on the American socialist workers, and exposed the betrayal of the basic politi- cal interests of the working class by the oppor- tunists, etc. Reed was one of the six American delegates to the Second Congress of the Comintern, where he worked together with Lenin in the committee on the trade union movement. On July 26, 1920, Reed delivered a long speech at the Congress. He spoke about the difficult situation of American Blacks, especially in the southern states, and reminded the audience of the courage shown by Black soldiers during the Civil War, the Spanish American and the First World wars. Reed divided his life into two-periods—before meeting Lenin and the October Revolution, and after this meeting. The American journalist stated more than once that no other man had given him as much as Lenin. John Reed died in October 1920 of typhus. Five days he lay in his coffin under the lowered banners in the Union House, where usually people say farewell to important political and public figures of the USSR. A military escort accompanied him on his last trip—to _the burial ground. On Lenin’s instructions, Reed was buried on Red Square. : Deeply grieved at the death of the American publi- cist, Lenin charged the workers of the Communist International with immediately translating the an- nouncement of the writer’s death and sending it abroad. ee John Reed left a kind'memory in the hearts of the Soviet people. His Ten Days That Shook the World became a handbook for millions of people. Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife and colleague, wrote in the preface for the Russian edition of this book: - John Reed was not an indifferent observer, but. a passionate revolutionary, a Communist who understood the meaning of the events, the meaning of the great struggle. This understand- ing gave him that sharp insight, without which such a book could never have been written... John Reed associated his life with the Rus- sian Revolution. Soviet Russia became dear te him. “The American jour- nalist stated more than once that no other man had given him as much as Lenin.” This book was put out in 11 editions in the Russian language. Soviet literary scholars, historians and people who had known Reed personally told about the splendid American journalist in hundreds of news- Papers and magazines. John Reed’s Selected Works and Revolutionary Mexico and the stories Broadway and Daughter of the - Revolution, as well as many other works, were trans- lated into Russian in the Soviet Union. Those who had worked side by side with John Reed left invaluable recollections of him. The artist I. Brodsky, author of many paintings devoted to Lenin, met Reed for the first time at the end of 1917 in Petro- grad, when Lenin was making a speech in the People’s House. During the Comintern’s Second Congress in Moscow the artist visited Reed in his hotel suite twice. He remembers: I was amazed by his indefatigible energy. He was all the time on the move, calling, talking, writing... I told Reed that what he writes was dear to me, and that I like the way he writes. I liked the authenticity of all that had been written by him, the absence of false pathos, and vital contem- poraneity. During their stay in Moscow in the spring of 1925, Albert Rhys Williams and his wife Lucita learned that an agricultural colony organized in the Volga area near Khvalynsk had been named after John Reed. At first Lucita, and then also Albert, visited the colony that was bringing up children who had lost their pa- rents during the Civil War and during the 1921 famine in the Volga area. - A book by A. Startsev, John Reed’s Russian Notebooks, came off the press in 1968. Visiting Har- vard University, Startsev got acquainted with the John Reed archives and read for the first time Reed’s notebooks that had been kept there half a century. John Reed’s Russian Notebooks was met with great interest by billions of Soviet readers. John Reed remains in the memory of Soviet people as a fighter, journalist, writer, a friend of the land of triumphant socialism, the pioneer of American- Soviet friendship. Reprinted from Novosti, translated by A. Krivoviaz d aiy ppom Ayreq John Reed’s works are published and popular in the Soviet Union. His Ten Days That Shook the Worid became a hand- book for millions of people. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 15, 1982—Page 7