Plot
The film opens with a quotation from Vladimir Lenin:
The strength of the working class is organization. Without organization of the masses, the proletarian is nothing. Organized it is everything. Being organized means unity of action, unity of practical activity.
На заводе всё спокойно / At the factory all is quiet
Using typography, the word "но" (but) is added to the title of the chapter which then animates and dissolves into an image of machinery in motion. The administration is spying on the workers, reviewing a list of agents with vivid code names. Vignettes are shown of them. Conditions are tense with agitators and Bolsheviks planning a strike prior to the catalytic event.
Повод к стачке / Reason to strike
A micrometer with a value equaling three weeks' pay is stolen from the factory. A worker, Yakov, is accused of the theft and subsequently hangs himself. Fighting ensues and work stops. The workers leave the milling room running and resistance is met at the foundry. The strikers throw rocks and loose metal through the foundry windows. Locked within the gates of the complex, the crowd confronts the office. They force open the gates, seize the manager, and then cart him and the foreman off in a wheel barrow before dumping them down a hill into water.
Завод замер / The factory dies down
A child wakes his father for work, ironically with no work to do; they laugh and frolic. The factory is vacant and still, with birds moving in. The children wheelbarrow a goat in a mob, acting out what their fathers had done. The owner is frustrated by orders arriving and the frozen plant. The workers formulate their demands: an 8-hour work day, fair treatment by the administration, 30% wage increases, and a 6-hour day for minors. The shareholders meet with the director, and they discuss the demands dismissively while smoking cigars and having drinks. Presumably on their orders, the police raid the workers, and the workers sit down to protest. At their meeting the shareholders use the demand letter as a rag to clean up a spill, and a lemon squeezer metaphorically represents the pressure they intend to apply to the strikers.
Стачка затягивается / The strike draws out
Scenes are shown of a line forming at a factory store which is closed, and a baby needing food. A fight occurs at a home between a man and a woman; subsequently she leaves. Another man rummages through his home for goods to sell at a flea market, upsetting his family. A posted letter publicly shows the administrators' rejection of the demands. Using a hidden camera in a pocket watch, a spy named "Owl" photographs a strike leader stealing the letter. The pictures are transferred to another spy. The strike leader is beaten, captured, and beaten again.
Провокация на разгром / Provocation and debacle
The scene opens with dead cats dangling from a structure. A tsarist police agent strikes a deal with a "King of Thieves", whose throne is made of a derelict automobile amidst rubbish, and who leads a community that lives in enormous barrels buried with only their top openings above ground. He hires a few provocateurs from among his community to set fire, raze, and loot a state liquor depot in the factory district. A crowd of workers gather at the fire and the alarm is sounded. They leave to avoid being provoked, but are set upon by the firemen with their hoses regardless.
Ликвидация / Extermination
The governor sends in the military. A child wanders off to the soldiers and his mother is struck when she goes to fetch him. Rioting commences, and the crowd is chased off through a series of gates and barriers heading to the forge, then their apartments. The police pursues and attacks them on the balconies, and one policeman murders a small child. The workers are then driven into a field by the army and shot en masse. The sequence is shown with alternating footage of the slaughtering of a cow.
