Lenin in October 1937

Set during the feverish days of 1917 in Petrograd, this film traces Lenin’s central role in organizing the October Revolution, offering a clear-eyed view of the worker unrest that drives the uprising. Boris Shchukin embodies Vladimir Ilich Lenin, anchoring the story with a measured, purposeful presence as the plot unfolds behind the scenes. Lenin secretly arrives at the Petrograd train station and is escorted through the security cordon by his bodyguard Vasily, portrayed by Nikolai Okhlopkov.

Soon after, Lenin meets with the pivotal ally Josef Stalin, skillfully brought to life by Semyon Goldshtab as Stalin, and the film then moves to a clandestine meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee where the uprising is mapped out with meticulous care. The tension in the factories and workshops of Petrograd comes alive as workers rally to the cause, setting the stage for a sequence of defining moments that will change history.

Key moments unfold in stark, cinematic detail: preparations for the revolution spread through Petrograd’s factories and workshops, the iconically eerie blank shot fired by the cruiser Aurora signals the start of the assault on the Winter Palace, and the storming of the Winter Palace itself becomes a dramatic culmination of the planning and ambition that preceded it. The narrative also emphasizes pivotal betrayals by Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev, yet these treacheries fail to derail the Bolsheviks’ grim ascent to power.

The film culminates with the revolution’s victory proclaimed at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, as Lenin issues a thunderous, defining declaration. > “Comrades! The workers’ and peasants’ revolution, the necessity of which the Bolsheviks have always spoken of, has been accomplished!”