Summary
Gleb Chumalov returns from the blood-soaked battlefields of the Russian Civil War to a home that feels more like a graveyard than a town. His former pride, the massive cement factory, sits as a silent, rusting skeleton of its former self. Appointed by the Party to resurrect this industrial titan, Gleb finds himself fighting a new kind of war—one fought against the apathy of a broken workforce and the strangling red tape of a new Soviet bureaucracy. As he navigates the treachery of 'technical specialists' who harbor secret loyalties to the old world, Gleb must forge a new collective identity from the ashes of the old. It is a story of grit, where the hardening of concrete serves as a metaphor for the hardening of the revolutionary spirit against impossible odds.
Synopsis
Gleb Chumalov, a former factory worker, returns to a cement plant destroyed during the Civil War. The party entrusted him with a great job - to become the head of reconstruction work. Chumalov has to deal with the inertness of some demoralized unemployed, deserted workers, the bureaucracy of old and new officials of the Soviet apparatus, interruptions in obtaining the necessary money and materials for construction, and the vicious machinations of disguised enemies from among technical specialists. Gleb Chumalov, who gathers together a friendly team of party members and enthusiastic workers, manages to overcome all the obstacles - the cement plant become one of the operating enterprises of the young Soviet republic.
