A film about the life and work of the Polish revolutionary Ludwik Varynski. The Russian general from the gendarmerie Orzhevsky in 1889 meets with Varynsky in the Shlisselburg fortress. The general proposes that Varynsky sign and condemn terrorist acts in exchange for a reduced prison term. In his memoirs, Ludwik returns to his student years in St. Petersburg, Warsaw, where he creates an organization of workers at the Lipopp factory, in Krakow, where he was arrested and put on trial.