In ten contrasting movements, the cantata relates the story of the Bolshevik Revolution and the birth of the Soviet Union, from the battle for the Winter Palace in 1917, through the suffering of 1918 and Lenin's funeral in 1924, to the building of factories and collective farms in the early thirties, and the final consolidation of Stalin's control over the country with his new constitution of 1936.

[citation needed] Even though he utilized texts for the piece published by Marx, Lenin and Stalin, Prokofiev was not able to win political approval of his gigantic cantata.

In fact, Platon Kerzhentsev ripped into Prokofiev, accusing him of "...taking texts that belong to the people and setting them to ... incomprehensible music".

The Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution movement "The philosophers" was used in the opening and closing titles of the film Red Heat.

[citation needed] Also, the leitmotif of the seventh movement (Victory) was widely used by James Horner in his soundtrack of the film The Land Before Time.