Vittorio is running as a Socialist candidate for the municipal office, but he gets overwhelmed by love, family and political entanglements.

A pair of working class lovers - a secretary and an accountant, scheme to marry into the rich landed gentry. Their targets are a professor, Vittorio Gordini Malvezzi ,(Glauco Mauri), who is running for municipal office as a Socialist candidate, and his sister Elena, (Elda Tattoli), a great lady who lets every man in town climb on top of her but won't marry because socially they're all beneath her. Vittorio doesn't get what is going on. Their little brother Camillo, a seventeen year old seminary student turned Maoist provides the title of the film when he scrawls 'China is Near' on the walls of the Socialist Party building, his brother's campaign headquarters.—Andreas Var