Due to the fact that the old regiment has not yet left for the front, and the barracks remain overcrowded, recruits are sent to quarantine and kept in inhumane conditions.

Constant malnutrition, cold, dampness, and lack of basic conditions are compounded by conflicts between conscripts and their commanders, and many religious recruits are forbidden to pray or mention God in any way.

Before the eyes of the boys, the commander beats to death a recruit suffering from incontinence, two twin brothers are shot, who unknowingly left their unit temporarily; a demonstration trial is held over a soldier-manipulator Zelentsov.

The author describes the hopeless picture of soldiers 'life in spare parts, young people whose life before that was "mostly miserable, humiliating, impoverished, consisted of standing in queues, receiving rations, coupons, and even fighting for the harvest, which was immediately withdrawn in favor of society."

The book shocked me.The novel is largely autobiographical: the author himself, at the age of 17, went to the front as a volunteer, was a signalman, and when crossing the Dnieper, he witnessed the most brutal meat grinder described in the second part of the novel, Bridgehead.

The title of the novel is taken from a stichera that the Siberian old believers had, "it was written that all those who sow turmoil, war and fratricide on earth will be cursed and killed by God".

Based on the novel, a play was staged at the Moscow Chekhov's art theater directed by Viktor Ryzhakov (the premiere took place on 5 September 2010).