Near the city of Verny, surrounded by Cossack patrols, the paths of three friends diverge. Instead of his native aul, Nartai finds only ruins. The death of his mother, the disappearance of his fiancée, and the oppression from the stanitsa ataman — all this forces Nartai to join the revolutionary struggle. Hunger and poverty, and pleas for bread greet the blacksmith Azim in his native Zhetysu. A Cossack horse kills Azim’s little son with a kick of its hoof when the boy reaches for scattered grains of bread. Grief turns the blacksmith into the leader of a starving, rebellious crowd. The fate of the third soldier is not easy either. Pavel Zernov, pausing only briefly at the bedside of his dying little son, hastens to rejoin his comrades who have gone underground.