Natalya Melekhova gives birth to twins. Aksinya's husband, Stepan, arrives home, and soon Aksinya joins him from Yagodnoye. In late October 1917, following the overthrow of the Provisional Government, power in the country passes into the hands of the workers and peasants. Russia plunges into the throes of a bloody redistribution. Almost all the Tatar Cossacks return to their farmstead without permission. Grigory also returns home. The Revolutionary Committee believes that he is the one rousing the people against Soviet rule. A wave of uprisings sweeps across the Don region, with the village of Veshenskaya becoming the center of events.