The Government of the fictional country Norland has unleashed a war with the neighboring Galikania and is suffering one defeat after another. A group of conspirators who were dissatisfied with this state of affairs, led by the Social Democrat Frank Frey arrange a coup to overthrew the emperor of Norland. But the working class does not like the new order either. Workers expose Frank Frey's policy of continuing the war and a revolution breaks out in the country. The leader of the socialist revolution becomes a mechanic of the name Franz Stark.

The plot is the embodiment of everyday belief about the impact of a certain evil force on a person. The action develops in a peasant environment.

A machinist on a Navy ship has two sons, both bolcheviks. When the revolution comes the Tsarist police captures the machinist to put pressure on his sons.

During the Civil War following the Bolshevik Revolution, a Red cavalry officer is warned by a staffer from headquarters about his dangerous attraction to the female leader of a band of Cossacks, a violent woman who is aroused by killing.

This film was a true peculiarity, a filmed version of the great Feodor Chaliapin in one of his most famous roles; the fact that it was a silent film, with title cards, meant that audiences could only appreciate his acting. Another curiosity is that the film also included a minor role enacted by Richard Boleslavsky, who in 1932 directed “Rasputin and the Empress.”(9)