Gathered at the birthday party of one of her classmates, Iskra listens to the verses of Sergei Yesenin which are read by her friend Vika, daughter of the town's famous aircraft designer Leonid Lyuberetsky.

Iskra likes Yesenin's poetry, but she considers him an alien to Soviet culture "tavern singer."

Vika gives her classmate the book and explains to Iskra, that Yesenin was not a 'decadent' poet and that feelings are an integral part of life.

One evening, the teens learn that designer Lyuberetskiy was arrested on suspicion of subversive activities against the Soviet Union.

After that, "Valendra" invites Polyakova to office and asks her to convene a meeting, having expelled Luberetskaya from the Komsomol with disgrace.

When the head teacher sends classmate Zina for her, she returns in a semiconscious state and informs the class that "Vika is in the morgue."

Mother of Iskra asks not to read speeches and hold a memorial service; she calls Lyuberetskaya's suicide an act of a "namby-pamby".

However, she goes against the will of the mother and impressed by the school principal speech at the cemetery, reads Yesenin's verses over the grave of her friend.

The teens find Lyuberetsky among rickety frames and scattered chairs in his apartment who still remembers the NKVD search.

In the scene Red Army soldiers marching through the streets accompanied by the song The Sacred War are visible.

Epilogue reveals their further fate: Jaurès Landys became a dogfighter pilot, later decorated as the Hero of the Soviet Union.

Artyom Schaefer as an Army demolition sapper, decided to sacrifice himself to blow the bridge up manually, as the trigger wire was broken.

In his youth, director Yuri Kara read the book "Tomorrow Was the War" by Boris Vasilyev and wanted to make a film based on it.

But after the movie was finished, there was difficulty as the whole Goskino was against the film, but Armen Medvedev from the state committee defended the picture and it was released.

It was shot without sound or finished text, this is visible in many scenes where the dubbing does not fully match the mouth movements.