Episodic story of the resistance to the German invasion of Ukraine in 1918 during World War I, and made as an example of the guerrilla warfare and fierce spirit in which Ukrainian peasants were again resisting Teuton onslaughts in 1939. Highlights a small band of guerrillas and their battles using scythes, shotguns and, often, just clubs against the Kaiser's army in the Ukrainian forests.

The Soviet intelligence officer Martha Shirke honorably fulfills the command mission, but the Nazis expose her.

In search for a better life, Anna leaves her Ukrainian village for a big city. Three years later, she finds herself working two jobs and spending most of her days in a rooming house inhabited by broken people.

The film tells about a band of demobilized Red Army men and two civilians who cross a Middle Asian desert. They are forced to do battle with superior forces of Basmachi rebels for the dry draw-well.