Nadezhda Vysokovskaya

Tanya Morozova, an illiterate but industrious textile factory worker, finds happiness through her education and the Stakhanovite movement. She becomes a shock labourer and ascends through the Party ranks, ultimately being elected as a member of the Supreme Soviet.

While a factory director is distracted by production problems, his adolescent son suffers from loneliness. His mother is dead, and the father – a kind man and exemplary communist, winner of a Lenin Prize – is unable to find the time to educate his son, or a way to express his feelings. After an argument, the young boy runs away and, at his own risk, joins a band of criminals.