An important moment in the life of the future writer was the communication with the workers of the cotton ginning plant at Kızıltepe station, where he worked from September 1915 to April 1916.

But before becoming a writer, before unconditionally and joyfully accepting the October Revolution, Ayni had to pass another moral and physical test.

He would have shared the hard fate of many of his fellow citizens, if soon Bolsheviks, whom the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of Kogon had sent to help the victims of the Emir's terror, had not come to the rescue.

By purporting national identity in his writings, he was able to escape the Soviet censors that quieted many intellectuals in Central Asia.

He was member of the Supreme Soviet of Tajikistan for 20 years, was awarded the Order of Lenin three times, and was the first president of the Academy of Sciences of Tajik SSR.

[citation needed] In 1934 and 1935, leading Russian director Lev Kuleshov worked for two years in Tajikistan at a movie based on Dokhunda but the project was regarded with suspicion by the authorities as possibly exciting Tajik nationalism, and stopped.

[citation needed] In 1956, Tajik director Boris (Besion) Kimyagarov (1920–1979) was finally able to get approval for a movie version of Dokhunda.

[5] Ayni's early poems were about love and nature, but after the national awakening in Tajikistan, his subject matter shifted to the dawn of the new age and the working class.