 The most sourced and best @-@ known version focuses on Stepok , a young boy in a collective farming village , who is a member of the local Young Pioneers Communist organization , as are other local children . His father Samokhin , a farmer , plans to sabotage the village harvest for political reasons by burning down the titular meadow , but Stepok organizes the other Young Pioneer children to guard the crops . Samokhin grows progressively more frustrated by his son 's actions and success . Eventually , Stepok reports Samokhin 's crimes to the Soviet government authorities , and is in turn slain by his own father for betraying his family . The other Young Pioneers break into the local church , singing songs , and desecrate it in response to Stepok 's death . The visuals of the film shift during the destruction of the church , with the villagers becoming that which they are destroying — the angry villagers , by the end of the set piece , are depicted as Christ @-@ like , angelic , and prophetic figures . 
