In 1919, during the post-revolution Russian Civil War, a naval detachment (made up of communist Reds) defends the strategic city of Petrograd from the White Russian counterrevolutionary forces. Director Yefim Dzigan had himself fought for the Bolsheviks in the fleet, so the Red sailors are the heroes of the film. The young Soviet State was besieged by enemies on all sides, and the Revolution was fighting for its life. While clearly propagandistic, the film is often quite poetic visually, not naturalistic as was prescribed by authorities at the time. The film was honored at the 1937 Paris World's Fair. The video version is in Russian with English subtitles.