A soldier returns to Kyiv after surviving a train crash and encounters clashes between nationalists and collectivists. The story of the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising at the Arsenal factory in Kyiv by the Central Council troops.

The film is set in one of the regions of Western Ukraine in the 1920s. A poor peasant, Vasyl, openly opposes the arbitrariness of the lord's authorities. While hunting in the lord's forest, he is captured by soldiers and imprisoned in a dungeon. His beloved girl Lesia, with the help of the villagers, opens the dam, and water begins to flood the manor. Amid the commotion, Vasyl escapes from his captivity.