Shostakovich's symphony "To October," known as his Second Symphony, was commissioned by the propaganda department of the Soviet state music publisher to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution and premiered in Leningrad in 1927. It is a brief, through-composed work of approximately twenty minutes, structured in four sections. It begins with a Largo, meant to represent the original chaos from which order emerged, and concludes with a choral setting of "To October," a poem by Alexander Bezymensky that praises Lenin and the October Revolution. The symphony stylistically diverges markedly from Shostakovich's First Symphony and is far more modern and avant-garde.

The Second Symphony made little impact either in Russia or in the West and is rarely performed. The Fifth Symphony, by contrast, received a standing ovation at its premiere, which lasted more than half an hour, and was celebrated by both government officials (because it fulfilled everything they had asked of Shostakovich) and the public (who saw it as an expression of the suffering they had endured under Stalin). The Fifth Symphony is one of Shostakovich's most famous and frequently performed works and now forms part of the standard repertoire of orchestras throughout the world.