A film about a series of catastrophes that befell Russia: revolutions, civil war, collectivization, the Great Patriotic War, perestroika. Chronicle: May 1924. Delegates of the XIII Congress of the RCP (b) on the territory of the Kremlin. Filming of the leaders of the party and the state, including K. B. Radek, L. D. Trotsky, N. I. Ezhov, N. I. Bukharin, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, G. E. Zinoviev, G. L. Pyatakov, I. V. Stalin, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, K. E. Voroshilova, S. M. Kirov, L. M. Kaganovich, L. P. Beria, G. M. Malenkova, M. I. Kalinina, V. V. Kuibyshev. V. I. Lenin and V. D. Bonch-Bruevich on the territory of the Kremlin. Procession. Domes fall from churches. The soldiers are loading church supplies into the truck. Anti-religious demonstration. There is a column of prisoners. Prisoners sawing wood, working on the construction of a canal on the Volga River. The city of Leningrad. View of the Kresty prison. The coffin with the body of A. Akhmatova is brought into the church. D. Shostakovich at the piano. Sketches for the painting by P. Korin "Departing Russia". NS Khrushchev with writers M. Sholokhov, Solzhenitsyn. Members of the government, headed by Nikita Khrushchev on the hunt. Leonid Brezhnev pins the Order of Lenin to Nikita Khrushchev. NV Podgorny pins Leonid Brezhnev an award. Mikhail Gorbachev on the sidelines of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. Boris N. Yeltsin among the people. Panorama of the burning White House. The rally at the White House. Demonstration on the streets of Moscow. The story of one of the authors of the film script I. R. Shafarevich.