During the Stalinist era, a bricklayer was encouraged by the Party to become an exemplary worker and further the Communist cause. A young activist, he was promoted and, he says, “I became a jack-in-office instead of an activist. I got a desk job and gasped for breath, I had to let in fresh air through the window. And then came the year 1956 and everything tumbled down all of a sudden. It was a little painful. The question was: What now? And in 1956 I asked them to relieve me and send me back to my job in production. I returned to where I had come from.” The camera follows the bricklayer – a man whose life has been used up by ideological powers above him – during a May Day parade, alternating with scenes from his daily life.