A British spy tries to get a countess out of the new Soviet Union.

In 1913, after a visit to Ascot, Alexandra Vladinoff returns to the Russian court, where she is engaged to marry Colonel Adraxine. A. J. Fothergill, a former English reporter who has been in Russia for six years, is now translating novels, but he is expelled from the country by the police because of a political article he once wrote. His career ruined, Fothergill accepts the invitation of Colonel Forrester to lose British protection and join the Secret Service, as his fluency in the language allows him to pass as a Russian. Fothergill, adopting the identity of Peter Ouranoff, is enlisted in a revolutionary group headed by book dealer Axelstein. One of their members, Maronin, bombs a carriage carrying Alexandra's liberal father, but he survives. Maronin is later shot and dies in the apartment of Fothergill, who is arrested and sent to Siberia. World War I breaks out, and Adraxine is delighted, but soon leaves Alexandra a widow. After more than two years of cold hell in the Eastern snows, Axelstein predicts to Fothergill that the war will prompt a revolution. In 1917, the Siberian exiles are liberated and cheered upon their return; Axelstein is made a Commissar of Khalinsk and asks Fothergill to assist him. One morning, Alexandra is shocked to find that the servants have deserted the estate. The masses then take over the grounds and make her a prisoner. Soldiers, under the leadership of Tonsky, pillage the Vladinoff home, and many are executed. Axelstein arrives and demands discipline, assigning Fothergill to take Alexandra to Petrograd for trial. However, they are unable to leave the station because the trains are no longer running. The peasants flee the region, which has been retaken by the White army, and Fothergill leads Alexandra to the lines. The White general recognizes her, and that night she is given elegant dresses to wear to dinner as executions are conducted not far away. The next day, Reds recapture the town, and Alexandra is once more a prisoner. Fothergill manages to release her and helps her to evade pursuers in the forest; the couple now realize they are in love. They join a mob as it storms an overfilled train by laying across the tracks. Arriving at Kazan, Alexandra is nearly recognized, and Poushkoff escorts them to the next station, Samara. Along the way they become friends, and after outlining an escape plan, Poushkoff commits suicide. Fothergill and Alexandra take a boat down the Volga, where she becomes ill. Going ashore, they are retaken by the Whites. Fothergill is about to be shot when he is caught in crossfire as Reds try to sabotage the rails. Learning that Alexandra is on a Red Cross train for Bucharest, Fothergill eagerly joins her.