The second film of The July Storms duology starts with an accident at the Pochenkov Mine in February 1990, which caused the death of 13 miners. Since the summer protests, the real situation in the mines hardly changed; this lead to the second wave of miners' protests in 1990-91. This time, the miners' slogans include political demands, mentioning the decommunization of power and Ukraine's independence. The miners' representatives meet the communist officials, in particular with Stanislav Hubenko, the last First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and Nikolay Ryzhkov, the head of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The miners meet the August coup and the final disintegration of the country of the Soviets in strike committees..