Ten Days That Shook My World

By Daysi Valera

One of the readings that most marked my life was the book Ten Days that Shook the World, by John Reed, an outstanding revolutionary and US journalist. For the brilliance with which he wrote his eyewitness account of the Bolshevik Revolution, and his great value as a communist, he is buried with other heroes alongside the Kremlin Wall in Moscow.

Reed must have felt every second of his story as a singular experience. In each page of his work, I found myself shoulder to shoulder with the people, who shouted and organized as they took each step toward what belonged to them. What they took would never again be surrendered to the Czar because it had been conquered with the roughened hands of workers and farmers.

People were mobilized throughout the entire Russian Empire. I could feel their fatigue, their rage, and that force that was intensified as they gained consciousness in each struggle that they won.

In each paragraph, I found myself alongside the main character, the people, the only protagonist possible in a revolution heading for socialism. I read about their debates, discussions and agreements, as the Bolshevik leaders advanced the slogan “All power to the Soviets,” which was the key that opened the door to a new road to follow.

I will never forget that concerned and tired Lenin, who never stopped for a moment. The Russian people, broke the ice, drew up the path and cleared the road.

After living these pages, how could I not try to walk that same path? Fighting for the advance of socialism and to feel around me the capacity for decision-making by this Cuban people to which I belong, struggling against bureaucracy and capitalism, building a system in which each one of our voices is respected.

While feeling the drive of that capable Soviet people, why not attempt to draw closer to their same goals and make them ours?

As Salvadoran communist Dalton Roque would say, “I have decided to be a communist, and this implies having a constant headache, but we will not rest until the realization of paradise on earth: Communism will be, among other things, an aspirin the size of the sun.”