This book is the author's eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution. Writing in the first flush of revolutionary enthusiasm, he gives a gripping account of the events in Petrograd in November 1917, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks finally seized power. Containing verbatim reports both of speeches by leaders and of the chance comments of bystanders, and set against an idealized backdrop of soldiers, sailors, peasants, and the proletariat uniting to throw off oppression, his account is the product of passionate involvement and remains an unsurpassed classic of reporting. --Back cover.