A peasant goes to the capital looking for work and becomes involved in a strike, war, and a revolution.
On a farm the mother is dying, and a peasant (Ivan Chuvelyov) goes to the city. In the capital, St. Petersburg, factory workers hold on while the stockbrokers buy and sell people. An owner orders a factory manager to lengthen the work day. The manager tells the workers that they got a government contract and must work longer, but the workers refuse. The worker (Aleksandr Chistyakov) tells his wife (Vera Baranovskaya) that they are on strike. He says his relative, the peasant, came at a bad time. The wife worries they will starve, and she tells the peasant to go look for work.
People from Novgorod are brought in to break the strike, and the peasant gets a job too. The strikers block the gate and appeal to them as brothers. Officials blame the bald one. The peasant leads them to the worker, and the manager gives the peasant a note to work and a coin. The worker fights with the manager and demands to see the boss. He is arrested and interrogated. The chief of police has a man beat him.
That night Russia goes to war to stop the revolution. People cheer. The chief of police has the prisoners enlisted. Serbia gets Turkey. Men fight for the Czar, Russia, and money. Soldiers advance, and stocks go up. Men are killed, and the transaction is complete.
The war goes on for three years. Bombs are manufactured, but people want bread, freedom, and peace. A coalition government replaces the Czar and is applauded. They promise to win the war. Communists speak against the capitalists and their war.
The worker comes home to his wife and goes out for tobacco. Soldiers ask her where her husband is and wait. She warns him by breaking a window, and he runs away. Outside of St. Petersburg troops have been called back to support the coalition government. A Communist speaks to the soldiers to support the workers, and they shoot the traitors. The Soviet demands that the Winter Palace transfer power. They attack the Winter Palace, and St. Petersburg is changed into Leningrad. The wife looks for her husband. She finds him and distributes food. Then she walks into the cathedral in the city of Lenin.
This propaganda film was made to commemorate the tenth
anniversary of the revolution, and so it naturally reflects the
Communist view of the Russian revolution that overthrew capitalism
and ended Russia's participation in the world war.