This is a gritty tale about Communist Poland from one of the original 'Angry Young Men' Marek Hlasko. When Party member Franciszek Kowalski drunkenly insults a police man, his outburst is taken as criticism of the government, and he is both arrested and expelled from the Party. Kowalski, a true believer, attempts to rehabilitate himself by gathering testimonies from the men he fought alongside as an anti-Nazi partisan in the People's Army; but each meeting with his former comrades takes him further down into the underworld that has been there all along.
