Commissioned by Josef Stalin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution, Lenin in October was the first of Russian director Mikhail Romm's tributes to the Marxist visionary who helped orchestrate the insurrection of October, 1917.
The film tells about a band of demobilized Red Army men and two civilians who cross a Middle Asian desert. They are forced to do battle with superior forces of Basmachi rebels for the dry draw-well.