[2] The film depicts events following the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the subsequent Russian Civil War, and is a highly symbolic and poetic portrayal of the revolutionary spirit and the struggle for power.

The expressionist imagery, camera work and original drama were said to take the film far beyond the usual propaganda and made it one of the most important pieces of Ukrainian avant-garde cinema.

The film concerns an episode in the Russian Civil War in 1918 in which the Kiev Arsenal January Uprising of workers aided the besieging Bolshevik army against the Ukrainian People's Republic’s Central Rada council who held legal power in Ukraine at the time.

The film showcases the escalating tensions, political intrigues, and class struggles during the revolution, the January uprising of workers in Kyiv, their confrontation with gangs of haidamak paramilitaries serving the bourgeois Central Rada of the Ukrainian People's Republic, and the massacre of the rebels.

The film includes symbolic scenes that represent the spirit of the revolution, such as a statue of a Cossack warrior coming to life and an allegorical figure of death.