In the early 1920s,
Symon Petliura negotiates in
Poland for a joint invasion of Ukraine with Polish forces. The "allied" interventionists openly plunder Ukrainian peasants, sending trains loaded with grain, sugar, and other goods to Poland. Ukrainian villagers mockingly reinterpret the acronym PKP (standing for
Polish State Railways) as "Piłsudski bought Petliura." Against the Polish invaders stands the cavalry of
Grigory Kotovsky, which defeats the enemy forces and drives them back to Poland. Petliura's influence among emigrants wanes, and leadership passes to General Yurko Tyutyunnyk, who heads an insurgent staff. Tyutyunnyk (played by
Yuriy Tyutyunnyk himself, who had returned to the
Soviet Union and been rehabilitated) organizes officers from internment camps, under the direction of a Polish spy, Dombrówska, to infiltrate the
Ukrainian SSR. These officers are issued "pink tickets," which serve as identification for Polish spies. Meanwhile, in peaceful Soviet Ukraine, nationalist underground groups conspire against the government. Meeting secretly in the
Saint Sophia Cathedral in
Kyiv, they form the "All-Ukrainian Central Insurgent Committee." Their units attack villages, railroad stations, and
Kombeds (committees of poor peasants), burning telegraph poles and infrastructure. However, Kotovsky's cavalry crushes these insurrectionists. The underground sends a courier, Fedor Dnistro (alias Ataman Nakonechny), abroad to meet with Petliura and Tyutyunnyk. They task him with organizing an uprising in Ukraine to coincide with a planned invasion. However, a Bolshevik agent infiltrates the network and exposes the plot. Tyutyunnyk launches a new campaign against Ukraine but is intercepted and defeated by Kotovsky's forces. The anti-Bolshevik rebellion is decisively suppressed. ==Production==