Silent film set in 1919 during the Russian Civil War. The Red Army liberated a small town, but a unit of White Russians is still operating in the suburbs. A group of Red Army officers are posing as a gang of Batka Knysh to provoke the White Russians before the final blow.

Little dog Kashtanka is stolen, sold, tossed out into the street and saved by a clown. Young Fedyushka gets lost looking for the dog and ends up a prisoner of the sinister Mazamet who compels him to rove from house to house to make money, while Fedyushka’s father wanders through the streets in search of his lost child.