The Red Arrow is the special train No.1 between Leningrad and Moscow. The film is set in the 1980s during perestroika in the Soviet Union. Valeriy Kropotov is CEO of a big industrial company in Leningrad who is crafty and successful in getting a major order from the Soviet Government: building an automated assembly line. But his style of management clashes with his subordinates, talented engineers. Their potential is strangled by Kropotov's manipulative control. The government order is not accomplished and Kropotov gets fired. He is rethinking his outdated business style while on the train No.1 to Moscow.

In order to negotiate with West German financiers about the construction of the gas pipeline between Siberia and Western Europe, a delegation of Soviet foreign trade collaborators flies to Germany, where they immediately come under CIA surveillance: U.S. intelligence agencies are interested in disrupting the 'contract of the century.' ”...