The second part of trilogy about the life of a young factory worker, Maxim. In July 1914, the Bolsheviks and Mensehviks compete for representation of the working-class in the Duma. Maksim, who just returned from exile, calls the workers to strike as a protest against the firing of six of their colleagues. The traitor Platon Dymba assaults Maksim, wounding him severely. When the strike unfolds the workers demonstrate by the thousands, the news of the outbreak of World War I suddenly arrives. Maksim gets drafted.

The Greek teacher Belikov, who works in a rural gymnasium, loved to keep things in cases, was afraid of everything and lived himself, as if in a case, on the principle: “no matter what happens”. By this principle, he literally "terrorized" the gymnasium and the villagers. Hope appeared when Varenka arrived in the village - “not a girl, but marmalade”, although she was already aged, and “did not mind being married, even if only to a teacher of the Greek language”.

The airborne trickster - Aleksei Tomylin, civil aviation pilot - one day decides to stop tempting fate and only flies directly. The airport where Tomylin works is near the border with Afghanistan. One day he receives the task to fly across the border and transfer a package with an order to catch a notorious saboteur. On his way back, Tomylin crash lands near an abandoned settlement - and soon finds himself taken hostage by a gang. The hero pretends to agree to take the saboteur abroad, and relies only on his expertise as a flying ace.....

During the "Winter War" between Finland and the USSR, Galya's father goes to the front and she's left behind to take care of grandma and the house. Despite toeing the party line, the film was still banned by censors for being insufficiently patriotic.