This is a screening of Solomon Lazurin’s novel of the same name.
The engineer Georg Kurtniz invented a machine that replaces the work of many workers. Two powerful companies, headed by the billionaires Ringdal and Duk, compete for the right to own the machine. Ringdal wins. Kurtniz gets the billionaire’s daughter and a lot of money for the machine. The communist Jacob Miller calls workers fired by Ringdal to strike. Next to Jacob is the female worker Maika Kork. Workers want to destroy Kurtniz’s machine. The struggle is exacerbated when the second machine appears. It is even more sophisticated and threatens to put thousands of people out for work. This new machine is invented by the engineer Rebeck, a long-time competitor of Kurtniz both in the professional and personal life. This time, Rebeck receives a share of income and… Emilia, as Ringdal’s daughter abandons the looser Kurtniz. Workers declare a general strike which turns into an armed insurrection.
The story concentrates on a single 48-hour period during the Russian Revolution. The central character, played by Y. E. Samchykovski, is an old servant who staunchly supports the Royal Family. Even when his master is placed in prison and his son is appointed a commissar, the servant remains faithful to the Czarist regime. But when his village is invaded by the White Russian army and his son is summarily executed, the old man realizes that his homeland is far better off in the hands of the revolutionaries, who seek to build rather than destroy. A "cleansing" fire brings this propaganda piece to an appropriately symbolic conclusion.
The Whites enter the city, and they come over to Nadiia for search and seizure. They do not find the package, but they arrest Nadiia. A White counterintelligence officer interrogates her at the house-headquarters for a long time. However, Nadiia is silent and keeps the location of the package in secret, even though they blackmail her and threat her son, her husband and even her common sense.
