A woman, having lost her husband during the war, devoted her life to the collective farm. Many people did not like Alexandra Potapova (Nonna Mordyukova) for her frankness and uncompromising character, but she was elected president of the collective farm. It was not easy for her to recover from a collapsed economy, to put to work those who used to do nothing. A young man Ivan Lykov (Vasily Shukshin) used to go to see her before, so now she chased him away. The secretary of the district committee Danilov (Mikhail Ulyanov) helped her a lot. Alexandra loved Danilov, this intelligent and energetic person. An unexpected love for the secretary of the district committee made her life both happy and difficult.
But Danilov gave up: a party member could not afford "criminal sex" ...