Russia. Peter Akimovich Palchinskii, an innovative mining engineer, deported to Siberia by the Tsarist secret police, manages to escape to Ukraine and then to the West, where he becomes a renowned consultant. His greatest contribution lies in seeing the industrial enterprise as a whole, as a political, social, economic, and engineering transformation. In 1913, he receives pardon from the Tsar and returns to Russia. Soon after, Russia will transform into the Soviet Union, and in 1929, he falls victim to Stalinist paranoia, is tried in secret, and is executed. His wife, Nina, is arrested and disappears into the Gulag.
