1920s, the beginning of the New Economic Policy. Ivan Nikolaev, a man with a rich biography, returns to his native village, located not far from Cherepovets. He managed to be an officer in the Russian army during the war with the Germans, and a Red commander in the Civil War, and serve in the transport Cheka. He had not been home for a long time, but he had no idea how much everything had changed in the village. People live in poverty, distill moonshine from rotten potatoes, hide captured weapons left over from two wars, and in their rare leisure hours they curse the Soviet government, which only knows how to close churches and rename streets. Ivan Nikolaev looks at all this and does not want to serve the Soviet government anymore, even though an old front-line friend offered him a position... The story told in the novel is based on real events and supplemented by authentic documents of that time.