It depicts a conflict between a freedom-loving anarchist rebel named Nomakh (anagram alluding to Nestor Makhno) and Bolshevik commissar Rassvetov, who dreams of forcefully modernized Russia.
Contemporary commentators agree that questions posed by Yesenin in the poem more than eighty years ago still have immediate bearing for today's Russia: to what extent the Russian people is responsible for the current state of affairs, whether the end of the old regime was brought by peasants' love for freedom or was imposed by foreign influences, and to whom belongs the country's future.
He is confronted by irate commissar Chekistov (made-up name meaning literally "Cheka man") who engages in a long diatribe telling of his contempt for Russians being lazy, insensitive and brutal savages.
Rassvetov is on the train with gold cargo and along with other commissars (named Charin and Lobok) engaged in conversation on the future "americanized" Russia, suggesting that the present republic "is a bluff".
Litza Hun tracks Nomakh to an underground tavern where former white officers, now drunkards, are smoking opium in nostalgic dreams of the lost glory of Imperial Russia.
One of the possible interpretations [2] is that Yesenin is undecided whether the future belongs to anarchist rebel Nomakh (who emerges as a victor) or to cynical Rassvetov; however the point is made that likes of Chekistov, Litza Hun, along with featureless commissars Charin and Lobok, or drunk white officers, are clear losers.