Oktyabr': Desyat' dney kotorye potryasli mir / October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

Commissioned by the U.S.S.R for the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution in 1917, this celebratory documentary film portrays events in revolutionary Petrograd (St. Petersburg). In documentary style, events are re-enacted from the end of the monarchy in February of 1917 to the end of the provisional government and the decrees of peace and of land in November of that year. Lenin returns in April. In July, counter-revolutionaries put down a spontaneous revolt, and Lenin's arrest is ordered. By late October, the Bolsheviks are ready to strike: ten days will shake the world. While the Mensheviks vacillate, an advance guard infiltrates the palace. Anatov-Oveyenko leads the attack and signs the proclamation dissolving the provisional government. This film is the final installment of Eisenstein's revolutionary triology, preceeded by Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Strike (1925)