Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October (15 page)

“Comrades, take a seat, please,” Sablin tells the officers as they shuffle in. Perhaps he is stepping nervously from foot to foot.

There are fourteen of them, but the tables are only meant to seat twelve, so they have to crowd together. Gindin figures it doesn’t really matter, hoping they’ll be out of here and back to their quarters in a few minutes, maybe a half hour.

“We ought to have a few drinks tonight,” Firsov says, sitting down
with his roommate. “Proshutinsky was right: You’ve got enough
spirt
to go around.”

“We’ll see when we get done with this stupid meeting,” Gindin replies half under his breath. He looks over his shoulder as the last of the officers come in. “Where’s the captain?”

“He’ll be here,” Firsov says.

Everyone is talking at once, ignoring the
zampolit.
Yesterday was a holiday and no one is in a mood to listen to what is probably going to be another patriotic speech about serving the great Soviet people.

Sablin holds up a hand. “Settle down, please. This is important.”

“Pardon me, Comrade Sablin,” Gindin speaks up. “Where is the captain?”

“Stop talking now, so we can get on with this meeting,” Sablin says.

Gindin looks over his shoulder just as Alexander Shein, one of the ratings, closes the door on them. Their eyes meet for just a moment, but then Shein slips into the projection booth and closes that door. “What the hell—?”

“What’d you say?” Firsov asks.

“That was Shein. He’s in the projection room.”

Firsov glances over his shoulder at the door, a look of puzzlement on his face. “What the hell are you talking about? What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Gindin says, but his stomach is doing a slow roll.

Every sailor aboard is assigned a duty area that he has to keep clean. Shein’s duty area includes Gindin’s and Firsov’s cabin. He did his job without complaining, but he’s also struck Gindin as being a little bit sneaky. The other sailors are watching a movie in their own dining hall, so what is Shein doing up here, closing the door and hiding in the projection room?

No one else has noticed, but gradually the other men begin to settle down, until finally the dining hall is quiet.

“To answer your question, Lieutenant, Captain Potulniy is in his quarters resting,” Sablin says. He isn’t smiling, like usual. “In fact, he told
me that I was to conduct this meeting and he did not want to be bothered.”

“Why is the door closed?”

Sablin shrugs indifferently. “So we will not be disturbed, Lieutenant.” He looks at the others crammed together at the tables. “What I have to say to you tonight is very important; I want you to know that from the start.”

“This is a holiday; what’s the problem?” one of the other officers asks. Gindin isn’t sure who it is, but the others grumble their agreement.

There is a tightening in Sablin’s eyes, as if he is a little uncertain what to do next. Gindin has never seen this look of hesitancy on the
zampolit’s
face before, and it adds to Boris’s already tense mood.

Something wasn’t right. But Sablin was a senior officer and they had to follow the chain of command. If he said there was to be a meeting of all officers, then there was no questioning such an order. But all of them thought it was a damned odd thing just then.

All of a sudden Sablin stops his fidgeting and stands a little taller, his shoulders squared, his expression set. It’s as if he’s made a difficult decision and he’s just realized that it’s the right one. He blinks as if he’s coming out of a sleep, but he is not smiling, and this is the most disturbing thing of all. The Sablin standing in the middle of the room, facing the eight officers and six midshipmen, isn’t the Sablin whom they have come to know. He is a completely different man, all of a sudden.

“His face did not reflect any holiday mood,” Gindin relates. “There wasn’t so much as a hint of a smile, or some kind of friendliness, his usual sociable self. Nothing like that. He was different. It was like seeing another side of him that we’d never seen before.”

Gindin looks around the room at the other officers, and he can see that they share his misgivings.

“What I am saying to you tonight, and what I am asking you to do, is not a betrayal of the Rodina. I want to make that very clear. I’m simply making a political declaration about the bureaucracy and the corruption that has taken over our country.

“Everyone here knows exactly what I am talking about. The great principles of Marx and Lenin have been totally perverted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party.”

Gindin cannot believe what he is hearing. He glances over at Firsov and then at the other officers, and he can see by their expressions that they are as confused as he is. Is this some sort of a test that Sablin is giving them? To find out how deep their loyalty to the Motherland runs?

“You know that all Russians are not treated equally. You can see that very problem here aboard ship, and everywhere you go you can see that the poor dumb
muzhiks
never have their day in court. They never have the same rights as we do.”

Firsov catches Gindin’s eye and he shrugs.
Eb tvoiu mat,
what the fuck is going on?

Gindin shakes his head, completely baffled. It’s even possible that Sablin has lost his mind. It’s happened to other sailors and officers during or just after a difficult rotation. Maybe Sablin is having troubles at home with his family. Maybe he’s just found out that he has an illness. Maybe cancer.

“Each of us has to admit, to honestly confess, that we have no control whatsoever over what happens in the Kremlin or anywhere else in the Soviet Union. That means we can’t do a thing to help fix the problems the Rodina is faced with. We are powerless to force our state and political institutions to make right what is wrong.”

Gindin suddenly begins to get a glimmer of where Sablin is going with this speech, and his blood runs cold. There is a sharp, hard knot in the pit of his stomach that feels like a ball of molten steel.

For the first time in his life Gindin is truly frightened to the depth of his soul. Not only for himself but also for all of his fellow officers in this room, including Sablin, who most certainly has lost his mind to even hint at criticizing the Party.

It’s treason!

“I have studied the problem for a long time. Our leaders over the past fifty years have done nothing more than produce a system in
which the Russian people are trapped in a foul atmosphere where they are required to blindly follow orders with never a question.

“We live in a system of censorship and tyranny where everyone is afraid to make any criticisms of the Party, even though we can all plainly see that the Party has lied to us. Is lying to us!”

“Just wait a second,” someone from Gindin’s left shouts. Maybe it’s Kuzmin, but whoever it is, he’s angry.

Some of the others are grumbling, too.

Sablin holds up a hand for silence, and after a few seconds the room settles down.

“The system needs to be changed, Comrades. We are quick to make jokes, but we are just as quick to shed tears when we think of the future of the Rodina. The situation in our country has become dangerous. The Party tells us that everything is fine, yet the people can see that is a lie. The older people are afraid to speak up for fear of losing their pensions. And the young people like you know the difference between Party slogans and Party deeds.”

“What are you saying, Comrade
zampolit?”
one of the officers asks.

“The system must be changed in order for us to achieve the true democracy that Lenin promised us,” Sablin says, his voice clear and firm, totally without doubts. “The Party must be overthrown. It is time again for revolution.”

Gindin is more than shocked, he is stunned. No one talks about these things. No one is allowed, by law, to talk about these things. Even to
think
this way is treason. Even to
listen
this way is treason. To be in the same room with a man talking this way is treason.

Still, Gindin holds out the slim hope that the
zampolit
is merely testing their loyalty to the Communist government and to the Party. He is the political officer, after all, and it is his job to find out whom to trust. But not this way.

Sadkov is half off his seat, his eyes narrowed, his jaw set, but again Sablin holds up a hand to calm them down.

“How can you even suggest such a thing?” the doctor shouts.

“You’re the political officer aboard this ship! You’re a Communist and a member of the Bolshevik Party.”

“It’s because I am a good Communist that I am raising my voice—,” Sablin tries to interrupt, but Sadkov won’t hear it.

“Where were you raised? How can you even talk about these things?” Sadkov shouts. He looks at the other officers for their support. “This is against our country’s morals!”

Proshutinsky jumps to his feet. “Enough of this!” he shouts. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”

Senior Lieutenant Vinogradov gets up. He, too, has had enough, and he’s going to leave.

“Sit down!” Sablin cries. “Right now! That’s an order!”

For a very long, pregnant moment, no one in the room moves a muscle. But ever so slowly Sadkov sits down, followed by Proshutinsky and Vinogradov. Sablin is a superior officer. His orders are to be obeyed. It’s the same system in every military organization.

Gindin cannot comprehend what is happening. Everything he’s grown up with as a good Russian, everything he has been taught in the academy, and everything he’s learned aboard ship tells him that the situation he finds himself in is not possible.

Gindin wonders if Sablin is trying to defect to the West. It has happened before, though nothing was ever officially published about such treasonous acts. But everybody knows that things like that happen. And everybody knows what the punishment is. It’s called Russian insurance. Nine ounces. In other words, a 9mm bullet to the back of the head.

A strange, uneasy silence descends upon the midshipmen’s mess. Everyone is sitting down, looking at Sablin, and he’s standing up looking at them.

“I want to sail the
Storozhevoy
to Kronshtadt,” he tells us. It’s about six hundred kilometers to the northeast and is at the entrance to Leningrad.

No one says a thing. None of them know
what
to say.

“When we get there we will ask the Kremlin to, first of all, treat us as a separate military base and then give us access to a television station and a radio station. I will speak directly to the Russian people and ask them to join us in the fight against injustice.

“This day of celebration for the October Revolution will be symbolic of our struggle. The people will understand. They will be with us, you’ll see. It will be just like when the
Potemkin
and
Aurora
rose up in protest. The people rose up in support and the revolution began.”

The irony of this situation strikes Gindin right between the eyes. In the first place, Sablin is the one officer aboard the
Storozhevoy
whose loyalty is completely beyond question. He is the Communist Party aboard ship. His is the final word in anything that has to do with politics.

And in the second place, all of them in this room are condemned men as of this moment. It won’t just be Sablin preaching treason who will be punished; it will be all of those who listened.

“Now you must make a decision,” Sablin says. “Each of you must search your conscience to find out what is right for you but, more important, what is right for the Rodina.”

He takes the plastic container from the table on the left. The bin holds backgammon pieces, white and black. He sets a white piece and a black piece in front of each officer.

“Now you must choose,” he tells them. “If you are with me, put a white piece into the bin. But if you oppose my effort to save the Motherland, then put a black piece in the bin.”

He’s standing in the middle of the room looking at them, challenging the officers to do the
right
thing, whatever that might be.

“I promise you that your vote will be secret, if you want it to—,” he says. But all of a sudden he stops speaking. Perhaps he realizes just how stupid his promise really is. After this evening, nothing any of them will do aboard the
Storozhevoy
will be secret.

Especially not from the KGB.

Russians have been ruled by lousy systems for most of their history. The tsars with their absolute authority listened to no one but their own caste of nobility. After all, they had God on their side. Who was in the kulaks’ corner? Indeed, what could a rabble of uneducated farmers or street sweepers or factory workers or even merchants understand about governing a country as vast as Russia? That arrogance cost the tsars their nation when in February of 1917 Nicholas II abdicated his power because he refused to take Russia out of the war with the Germans and his loyal subjects objected. Loudly.

The nobility tried to hold on when Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich and then Aleksandr Kerensky formed a provisional government, but neither of them pulled Russia out of the ruinous war, nor would they change the system that denied the peasant-farmers ownership of their own land. This was a dumb move by Moscow, because the peasants constituted 80 percent of the population.