The action of the movie takes place during a possible future war. A foreign state is preparing an attack on the Soviet Union. Professor Runge in his laboratory conducts an experiment with a new deadly gas. The plan of aggression is carried out. On a major Soviet industrial center the enemy command sends squadrons of planes with high-explosive and chemical bombs, with an airborne landing force led by White Guard officers.

A hapless loser (with the surname of Loser) undergoes misadventures with avaracious clergy, a tired horse, and a walking granary (among other things) on his road to collectivized happiness.

During a freezing WWII winter, two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the temperature, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.