Red Mutiny (12 page)

A few boatswains and petty officers, twelve in total, followed Golikov's command, but most of the sailors remained in place, looking to one another for support. As long as they stayed together, Matyushenko thought, the officers were helpless.

"Come on!" Gilyarovsky screamed at the men. "Come on! Hurry up!"

Still the sailors held fast, maintaining their lines on either side of the quarterdeck. A few shouted at Golikov, shielding their mouths with their hands so as not to be singled out. "Eat it yourself, dragon! This is the devil's ashes." Another yelled, "Whoa there," as if the captain was a galloping horse that needed to be slowed.

Golikov looked out at his sailors, giving them one last chance to obey him. They refused. "Call out the guard!" he ordered. A boatswain's whistle momentarily pierced the tension. The sailors went silent at the sound of the armed marine guard approaching, their feet ominously pounding on the deck below. They arrived in two columns of ten, each blue-jacketed guard carrying a rifle fixed with a bayonet. Stopping in front of Golikov, their backs to the sailors, the guards awaited their next command.

"Those who are willing to eat the borscht—step forward," Golikov ordered again.

Now faced with the marine guards, the first row of sailors hesitated and then advanced a step, then two. Another row followed. Along
with Vakulenchuk and several other sailor revolutionaries, Matyushenko stood still, but it was becoming clear to him that many of the sailors would abandon the protest.

Vakulenchuk realized this as well and was the first to retreat to the protection of the twelve-inch gun turret, having no intention himself of surrendering. Matyushenko followed, as did Denisenko, then dozens of other sailors. Quickly, rank-and-file sailors broke from the starboard and port sides of the ship. Nobody wanted to be left alone in line. From the capstan, Golikov watched helplessly; his guards were not sure what to do either. Order disintegrated; sailors pushed and shoved one another pell-mell as they herded around the turret.

Life-and-death decisions were made in seconds, based on instinct, anger, confusion, or desperation. Anger drove Gilyarovsky. Trying to stop complete mayhem from overwhelming the ship, he blocked the path of the remaining sailors on the quarterdeck's port side, aided by Lieutenant Liventsev. Gilyarovsky also barked at a boatswain to take down the names of anyone else who broke rank. Yet sailors continued to retreat toward the turret. Golikov stayed on the capstan, looking on quietly as he lost control of his crew.

"Those who record names will hang today from the yardarm with Golikov," a sailor near Matyushenko warned the officers.

After directing the guards to block any other sailors from escaping via the port side, Gilyarovsky screamed in a bone-chilling cadence, "So it's mutiny, is it?...All right ... we know how to deal with that. If you think there's no discipline in the navy, I'll show how wrong you are. Bosun, bring the tarpaulin."

The order sent a tremor through sailors and officers alike—those who had been in the navy long enough to understand Gilyarovsky's intent. Matyushenko knew well what the second officer had planned: the tarpaulin would be laid out on the deck; those chosen by Gilyarovsky for execution by firing squad would be ordered onto the canvas; and then they would be shot. No sense in bloodying the decks. The order far surpassed the commander's authority; by regulation, he was limited to punishing a sailor with a month's imprisonment or fifteen strokes of the lash. Nonetheless, Golikov failed to countermand the order; at this point, he would back whatever measures it took to regain control of the
Potemkin.

While several guards collected a tarpaulin from a sixteen-oar boat,
Gilyarovsky made sure those corralled against the railing, who had hesitated in following the others toward the turret, stayed in place. That these sailors were the most innocent—or simply the most confused—of the crew appeared not to bother Gilyarovsky. An example needed to be made. One conscript was as good as another.

"Those who will eat their borscht are dismissed," Gilyarovsky said, giving his sailors one final opportunity to back down. If they refused this time, he would be forced either to follow through on his threat or face mutiny. At best it was a desperate gamble, and at worst, a deadly failure in judgment. He finished by saying, "Anyone who remains will see for himself what we do with mutineers."

For several seconds everybody was still. Then, from the starboard side, Matyushenko began to push his way through the sailors by the turret toward the two lines of guards. Their bayonet blades glinted as they caught the sun. Ahead of the guards stood Gilyarovsky, waiting for the tarpaulin so he could give the command to fire. To his side cowed the thirty sailors. Several sobbed, "Sir, don't shoot. We aren't mutineers."

The rage that had gathered within Matyushenko for years surfaced at the instant the tarpaulin appeared on the deck. Gilyarovsky was going to kill these defenseless sailors, who had done nothing. They would die for the same thing: nothing. This thought turned over in Matyushenko's head again and again as he advanced. Vakulenchuk was by his side, urging the sailors around him to follow their lead. Neither Matyushenko nor Vakulenchuk could allow their comrades to be shot. The time had come. No more patience. Revenge and revolution only.

"Brothers! What are they doing to our comrades? Enough of Golikov drinking our blood," Matyushenko roared, his heart pounding fast in his chest. This was it. Sailors began to follow him forward. "Grab rifles and ammunition! Beat these boors. Take over the ship!" Similar war cries echoed across the deck. Gilyarovsky hesitated over whether to order the guards to fire.

Matyushenko and Vakulenchuk dashed through the hatch leading down to the gun deck. Two other sailor revolutionaries followed them. They ran to the armory at the aft section of the deck, scattering the sentries at their post and rushing inside to seize several rifles
stacked in a pyramid. The ammunition was locked away, but the revolutionaries had anticipated this problem. Matyushenko knocked aside an icon of St. Nicholas outside the armory, where several boxes of ammunition had been hidden in preparation. Racing back to the quarterdeck, they loaded the rifles. Other revolutionaries spread throughout the
Potemkin,
some to take control of the engine room, others to stop Sevastopol from learning of the uprising by wireless telegraph, still others to prevent the opening of the seacocks and the scuttling of the ship. Their plans to take control of the ship had been mapped out weeks before during Tsentralka meetings on the fleetwide mutiny.

When Matyushenko tried to reach the upper deck, he found a sentry positioned at the hatch. Gilyarovsky was by his side, having heard the clatter of rifles falling to the steel deck as the traitors hurried to grab them. Behind Gilyarovsky and the sentry stood the captain, who still believed his words could make a difference.

"What are you doing? Put down that rifle!" Golikov commanded.

"I'll put down the rifle when I don't have to live like a corpse," Matyushenko said. Then he drove the sentry and Gilyarovsky out of his way with the rifle butt. Vakulenchuk and several others rushed forward, following him onto the deck. They dashed around the turret to the other side of the ship. Golikov scrambled for safety behind the guards while Gilyarovsky and Artillery Lieutenant L. K. Neupokoyev attempted to assert their last shred of authority, shouting for the loyalty of the sailors and ordering them to come to their aid against those who dared to mutiny and tarnish the honor of the Russian navy.

The guards continued to aim their rifles at the sailors against the railing, unsure of what to do or whom to follow as the majority of the crew huddled by the turret. Only the officers and the revolutionaries had made it clear which side they were on. The rest waited for some turn of events that would choose their course for them. This was the decisive and terrible moment, Matyushenko thought, for the officers and the crew. Their lives hung in the balance. If the officers survived the next few minutes, they might be able to calm the crew. Then he and the other revolutionaries would be lost, as would their cause of freedom. No doubt many innocent sailors would be arrested to face the firing squad as well.

More revolutionaries streamed onto the quarterdeck with guns.
Then Gilyarovsky ordered the guards to shoot. They hesitated. Everyone on the quarterdeck was still.

"A mutiny!" Gilyarovsky yelled. "Wait! I'll teach you to mutiny." He grabbed one of the guard's rifles.

Stoker Nikishkin, who stood armed beside Matyushenko, fired a shot in the air as a warning to Gilyarovsky. And the red mutiny began.

A man-of-war is the best ambassador.

—
OLIVER CROMWELL

I'm awfully fond of forging metal. In front of you is the red formless mass, malicious, fiery. To beat the hammer on it is a joy. It spits at you with fizzing, blazing sparks, seeks to burn out your eyes, blind you. It is living, malleable, and with mighty blows from the shoulder you make of it what you need. I know I'm no hero, only an honest healthy man. And yet I say: never mind! We shall win. And with all the powers of my soul I satisfy my desire to plunge into the very depth of life, to knead it this way and that, to prevent this and help the other. This is the joy of life.

—
MAXIM GORKY,
Townsfolk

O
N JUNE
14, as mutiny seized the
Potemkin,
Nicholas II was enjoying life in his bubble of splendor and routine.

For the summer months, he had moved his family from Tsarskoye Selo to their seashore dacha at Peterhof, an imperial estate eighteen miles from St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. Called the Lower Palace, the dacha's central feature was a yellow and terra cotta brick tower. Four floors of living quarters stretched around the tower; barely a room lacked its own balcony or covered terrace overlooking the sea or the surrounding forests of maple and linden trees. From the tower's six-story belvedere, the family could see the Kronstadt naval base to the west and, on a clear day, the cupolas of St. Petersburg to the east. Peterhof also contained the Grand Palace (often called the "Russian Versailles"), extensive parks, several elegant summer pavilions, and, most fantastic of all, innumerable fountains—marble fancies with staircases of flowing water, soaring cascades, and jets spouting from scores of statues depicting man, fish, god, and horse alike. Of these, the most spectacular was the huge gilded figure of Samson forcing open the jaws of a lion, symbolizing Russia's triumph over Sweden in 1709. From this fountain stretched a canal wide enough to bring in sailboats from the sea. Peterhof was the kind of place where such details pertaining to the tsar's leisure were attended to with religious devotion.

Nicholas began each day at 8
A.M.
He dressed, prayed, and then went down to have a simple breakfast with his daughters. At 9
A.M.
sharp he went to his study on the tower's second floor, which looked out over the Gulf of Finland. The dark walnut-paneled study was
filled with bookcases and black Moroccan leather sofas. Nicholas sat at a small desk by the window and began reading the newspapers, telegrams, and ministry summaries that had been prepared for him. He did not care for a personal secretary but wrote his notes by hand on the papers. Nicholas had forbidden anyone to disturb the arrangement of family portraits, writing utensils, books, and calendar on his desk. As he told visitors, he wanted to be able to come to his study in the middle of the night and find whatever he needed in the dark.

The rest of his day would proceed along its usual schedule. As it was Tuesday, his war and foreign ministers would arrive in an hour for an audience. Monday was set aside for the naval minister, Wednesday for the minister of justice, Thursday for the minister of the interior, Friday for the minister of finance, Saturday for the minister of education, and on the seventh day he had no meetings. After his ministerial audience, he would take a morning walk (anything less than an hour and a half was unsatisfactory), often with his children. At 1
P.M.
, he would lunch with his family for a couple of hours and then receive more visitors and attend any required formal events. If he had time before 5
P.M.
tea (two cups, never more or less), he always went out for a second bout of exercise—riding, shooting crows, kayaking, bicycling, or swimming. Nicholas craved physical activity to clear his mind. Once tea concluded at 6
P.M.
, Nicholas would return to his study for two more hours of work, preferably alone, and then spend an hour and a half at dinner, starting at 8
P.M.
He shared his evenings with his family, reading or pasting court photographs into green leather albums. At 11
P.M.
, he would have some tea, write in his diary, take a brief bath, pray again, and go to bed.

He rarely had trouble falling asleep, although reports in his morning newspapers and telegrams could have turned him into an insomniac. The conservative
Novoye Vremya
alone provided ample disturbing news: yet another Russian retreat from the Japanese army; a cost study on the fortune needed to care for wounded veterans; unrest in Warsaw and Odessa; rumors quoted from French newspapers that Sergei Witte, Nicholas's former minister of finance, supported peace negotiations with Japan; peasants in Kharkov asking for more land rights; and liberals meeting in Moscow to discuss a constitutional government. Then there was the editorial about the Battle of Tsushima, rehashing the disaster that had shaken Nicholas to the
core, this time blaming the defeat on a navy that "stubbornly refuses to choose officers for their abilities." Nicholas preferred not to read the liberal newspaper
Russkiye Vedomosti,
but that morning its editorial page almost openly supported his regime's demise. And these were the articles that had made it past his censors.

The uncensored truth in his ministry reports and telegrams revealed much greater problems. His generals reported that the Japanese were building on their March victory at Mukden, pushing back the Russians in Manchuria as they had in Korea, though his generals sweetened their news with promises of future success. In Warsaw and Lodz, "unrest" was, in truth, outright revolution. Workers had erected street barricades, boiling tar and bombs had been thrown at the tsar's troops, and peasants armed with scythes were marching into town. The developing situation in Odessa might offer more of the same in the coming days. Thirteen other cities within his empire were also experiencing some kind of strike. As for the peasants outside Kharkov, their request for more land rights came in the indelicate form of burning their landowners' estates.