Marshal Zhang Xueliang, Commander of the North Eastern Army, grows progressively disillusioned by Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek's policy to engage the Chinese Communist Party rather than fight the Japanese invaders which are occupying Manchuria. Despite numerous pleas, Chiang does not budge. After discussing with fellow general Yang Hucheng, the two take events into their own hands and place Chiang Kai-shek under arrest on December 12, 1936, forcing Chiang into a coalition with the CCP.
In 1918, shortly after the Soviet Socialist Revolution in October, the Red Army soldier Savelyev went to Moscow and was assassinated by counter-revolutionaries at a small station. The sons Vasya and Misha have just lost their mothers, and now they have lost their fathers, and they have no choice but to wander into Moscow. Lenin and Dzerzhinsky met the two children and took them in and took care of them.
