Lend lease activities at an air field in Persian Gulf. A plane flies over an Anglo Iranian oil refinery serving Allied planes. Containers containing disassembled air crafts unloaded and aircrafts assembled. Russian pilots onboard from a plane. Brigadier General Macmillan with a Russian General. Mechanics work on planes. A P-40 takes off for Tehran and then to Russia. (World War II period).
Animated map shows changes in borders and nations surrounding Poland up until 1937. A map with strategic importance city of Danzig in Poland. Map shows Czechoslovakia, Russia, Hungary, Ottoman Empire, and Germany.
Describes European immigration to America from 1880 to 1914. Elderly European immigrants recall their experiences to interviewers in 1975. Still photo montage scenes circa 1900: Immigration officer with a woman. Large number of immigrants wait for immigration check at Ellis Island. Children lined up. Immigrants at port and going through health examinations. During physical examination, immigrants with disease of Trachoma marked and segregated. In 1975 an old lady describes her experience of being misdiagnosed with Trachoma and almost sent back to Russia. She was reexamined and allowed to remain in America.
European immigration to America from 1880 to 1914. A farmer and team of horses are silhouetted against the sky as they move in a field. They pull what appears to be a field kitchen and a thresher. Scene changes to men working at a drilling site. They appear to be discharging water from a well. Men with horses and rigs, lined up near a passing steam locomotive and railroad train. A dirt road in a town, cluttered with horses and wagons. Telegraph poles and lines are visible. A woman immigrant from Russia, recounts her imagined views of America being a land of milk and honey where fortunes could be easily made. View of an immigrant family. View of shanty houses clustered together around 1900. A family poses outside their rough dwelling in a city. Children pose near a huge cotton bale by a city storefront. A family poses on a rickety 2nd story iron porch on a building. Brief views of new immigrant families inside their slum dwellings. An historian speaking, notes that the East side (of New York City) had population density equivalent to that of Bombay,India.
Russian troops eating while settled in a field during a snow storm, in World War 1. They are all dressed in warm clothing. Their rifles are stacked amongst them. Several soldiers entertain others by dancing, accompanied by a violinist and a man playing accordian. A mascot dog is held on leash by an onlooker. Scene shifts to infantrymen marching loosely, behind mounted officer, along path in a snowy field. Later, they proceed single file through snow. A town square in Russia is seen jammed with soldiers and civilians around time of Russian Revolution. Several hold large banners. A uniformed man passes out paper fliers to the crowd. Troops are seen carrying flags as they march through the snow. Then they form in a large circle, and are addressed by a senior officer, as a clergyman stands behind him. Inserted view of Lev Kamenev addressing troops, in a warmer time and place. Sequence then reverts back to troops in the snow, displaying red flag, and seemingly pledging allegiance to the Bolsheviks. Final scenes show troops parading in snowy Red Square, in Moscow.
Opening of film shows image of famous statue being projected on a screen. The statue depicts a Soviet worker and a collective farm woman, respectively, raising a hammer and sickle high above their heads. The statue is a stainless steel art work created by Vera Mukhinafor the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, France. (It was later moved to Moscow, Russia.) Next a field and forest is shown on the Western front of the Soviet Union (Eastern Front of World War 2, in Europe). Soviet soldiers are preparing for combat during a temporary lull in their defense against German forces in their Operation Barbarossa offensive ,begun in June, 1941. Soviet soldiers place branches and foliage upon a BT tank as camouflage. Others assemble loose ammunition rounds into machine gun belts. Soldiers camouflaging an artillery field piece with foliage. Soviet soldiers refueling a tank. Soldiers moving through wooded area past another camouflaged gun. Several Soviet soldiers at a shelter in the woods, placing ammunition rounds in a clip. A printer producing a daily newspaper for soldiers. A soviet soldier picks one up to read. Closeup of the newspaper. Soviet munitions handlers inserting fuses into noses of artillery shells. A T-34 tank sitting in foliage. Soldiers looking at charts as they sit in the woods. A Soviet soldier running (possibly to deliver a dispatch).