Settlers from infertile parts of Yugoslavia arrive to rich Slavonia and Baranja, where they are faced with the decree of the Communist government by which they will be left without the land that they received in the process of collectivization just the year before. The peasants fiercely resist the government's decision. Milisa Matic is a peasant who fights against the establishment of peasant cooperatives because many peasants would lose their newly-acquired land. The Communist government has decreed the founding of cooperatives and Markan Radisic is in charge of their establishment. When Markan's son proposes to Milisa's daughter, the two men confront each other and Markan kills Milisa in self-defense, but the national court fails to find mitigating circumstances. On his way to prison he listens to the news on radio about the abolition of agricultural cooperatives.