Red Mutiny (18 page)

"Who's that?" Vakulenchuk muttered, confused.

"Nikishkin and Matyushenko."

"Where are they?"

"Grisha, we're with you," Matyushenko said.

Vakulenchuk finally recognized his voice. His eyes fluttered open for a moment. "How's it with the ship?"

"On the mast there is a red flag, Grisha. We control the ship."

Vakulenchuk managed a thin smile.

"We shot Golikov," Nikishkin added.

"And Gilyarovsky?" he asked.

"We finished off the dog," Matyushenko answered, hovering over Vakulenchuk.

"Good, good." He tired with each word. "Brothers, I want to ask you something: don't quit."

"We won't," the sailors promised.

Matyushenko leaned closer to Vakulenchuk, whose voice faded to a whisper. "Don't throw it away, Afanasy."

These were the last words he spoke to Matyushenko. A couple of hours later, Vakulenchuk died. The sailors brought his body to the ship's church and lit candles around him. They swore to give him a hero's burial once they arrived in Odessa.

Afterward, Matyushenko wandered the
Potemkin
almost in a trance. The closer they came to Odessa, the more excited the crew grew—having lived so long with each day resembling the next, the unknown
electrified them. Matyushenko, however, thought mostly of Vakulenchuk.

They had first met when Vakulenchuk was assigned to the
Potemkin
as an artillery quartermaster two years before. At the time, Matyushenko was already a crew member and looked to as the leader of the battleship's revolutionaries. But Tsentralka wanted a more seasoned, less impetuous sailor to take charge of their activities and prepare the crew for future uprisings. When they first met at a garden in Sevastopol popular with sailors on leave, the two were skeptical of each other, not even mentioning politics. Once Vakulenchuk had a better sense of the crew and Matyushenko's role in its revolutionary activities, he spoke to him again. Each won the other over in this second meeting. It was obvious to Matyushenko that Vakulenchuk was better suited to lead the sailors. He was a great organizer, and the men admired his temperate, even-handed personality. He was more cautious than Matyushenko, but no less ambitious in his desire to overthrow the tsar.

Likewise, Vakulenchuk respected Matyushenko for the work he had already accomplished and his unyielding courage in fighting for the cause. Matyushenko also had a keen sense of how to motivate the sailors. The two drew closer as Matyushenko shared this insight and introduced him to the crew. Over the next two years, they struggled together: spreading literature, organizing meetings, hiding their revolutionary activities from their officers, and developing plans for mutiny. Vakulenchuk would never see the fruits of their struggle, nor be there to provide counsel to the rest of the sailors—or to Matyushenko, as he so often had. In a way, though they were only a few years apart in age, Matyushenko had lost a father figure in Vakulenchuk.

"Don't throw it away," Vakulenchuk had said to him, no doubt believing they had taken over the ship too early and that his friend might be too tempestuous to lead the sailors well. Much as Matyushenko yearned to fight, he had never coveted the role of leader.

After roaming the ship awhile, he went to speak with Lieutenant Kovalenko, as he had earlier promised. But Matyushenko was still too lost in his own thoughts to discuss what lay ahead. He simply told
Kovalenko that he was free to move about the ship and then went off to be on his own again.

Kovalenko had paced about the wardroom impatiently with the other officers ever since the sailors had weighed anchor and directed the battleship toward Odessa. A few times he had caught himself wondering if he were trapped in a dream. But he had only to look at the armed guard outside the door, and his menacing glance, to dispel any hope that he might wake up to discover Captain Golikov still in charge of the battleship.

Once Matyushenko had told this guard to allow Kovalenko to pass, the officer left the wardroom and went down to the engine room. There the sailors told him how the mutiny had unfolded just a few hours before. They spoke as if they could not wait to explain their actions. They talked mostly of the rotten meat that had sparked the violence, but Kovalenko knew there was much more to the frenzy that had swept over the
Potemkin.
Sailors had
always
grumbled over the food served to them. Although their daily life was difficult, the roots of unrest ran much deeper. While the sailors recounted the first shots fired, Kovalenko tried to put himself in their shoes and understand their actions. He later wrote down his thoughts:

Can a sailor or a soldier be satisfied with the fact that he's well fed, if he can't get away from the idea that at the same time his family sits at home without any bread on their table? Can he go to bed at night without worrying that the next morning will bring news that his brother or father had been killed on the street? Can he calmly and effectively perform his duties when every time he takes a gun in his hands, he involuntarily thinks that he could be sent with the same gun to kill his brothers in spirit and even in flesh? Can he be respectful or thankful towards the officers when he sees in them—with few exceptions—the faithful servants of a dying regime so hated by the people?

Kovalenko knew he had to choose whether to help the sailors in their mutiny, if given the opportunity. The crew had yet to confirm what they would do with the officers and petty officers. They had spoken of sending them ashore to Odessa but had yet to deliver their decision. Kovalenko believed they had made a mistake in selecting
Alekseyev to captain the ship. Even though a figurehead, he had never shown a leaning toward progressive ideas that would align him with the sailors. He had surely taken the position only because he feared the alternative.

When Kovalenko finally returned to the other officers, he found them equally anxious as to what would happen next. Most sat on the edge of the sofas, including Colonel Schultz, looking as if they had just been told to walk the plank. Kovalenko was not scared for his life because of his relationship with the sailors. Rather, he debated with himself whether he should track down Matyushenko and ask to join the cause.

On the evening of June 14, as the
Potemkin
steamed westward, the Odessan revolutionary Kirill led forty quarry workers across the steppe toward a peasant village that lay eight miles outside the city. Stars shined bright as diamonds overhead in the clear night sky. The crops beside the road rustled slightly in the wind as the workers marched forward. They carried a pair of banners: one was red, with the words
BREAD, LAND, AND FREEDOM
, and the other was black, promising
DEATH TO TYRANTS
. In the village, they hoped to rally more men to join the strikes in Odessa.

That morning, workers throughout the city walked off their jobs and poured into the streets. There was little organization to these strikes. They began in different sections of the city, small conflagrations that steadily expanded as factories emptied and workers called on their neighbors to join them in the streets. As the situation worsened, some factory owners tried to negotiate with their people—offering shorter working days and the elimination of general searches—but it was too late for compromise.

By late afternoon, the strikes of the previous day looked minor in comparison. Thousands gathered on Preobrazhenskaya Street, the city's finest thoroughfare. Every shop, merchant office, and bank along the wide street had shuttered its doors. The crowd, armed only with rocks and their rage, surged forward against the police. This scene played out throughout Odessa; tens of thousands took part.

Children and teenagers joined the workers behind barricades of upended carriages, wooden planks, and telegraph poles. At the corner of Kanatnaya and Yvreiskaya Streets, a handful of girls employed at a
tea factory joined an advancing line of workers; they were met head-on by a company of policemen. Sabers flashed and rifles cracked, leaving what one witness described as "bloody hills of flesh where people had been only minutes ago." Workers ambushed isolated police and soldier patrols, administering a similar brand of street justice. Soldiers marched into the city in the hundreds to protect city hall and other government buildings.

At 10
P.M.
, a policeman chased a man in Sobornaya Square; he tossed a bomb at his pursuer. The explosion rocked the city, decapitating the policeman and mortally wounding the man who threw the bomb. The tension between the workers and the police escalated. Into the night, sirens blared throughout Odessa.

A couple of hours before dawn on June 15, Kirill and his party of workers reached the village and rang the bell in the square. Unfortunately, Kirill found the peasants were more interested in cutting their landowner's crops than in joining a struggle within the city. They even threatened to arrest him for stirring up trouble. Disheartened, he left the village with only ten peasants joining his countryside army. Halfway to the city, the spirits of his followers waned. Many had walked all night, and they knew that their hundred rounds of ammunition and three revolvers were a pathetic arsenal to bring against the well-armed mounted soldiers. When they stopped to discuss their next move, the majority curled up to sleep. Finally, Kirill abandoned them all to return to the city alone. He left instructions on where to meet if some decided to join him later. Reaching Odessa's outskirts after dawn, he walked, half passing out from exhaustion, across the cobblestone streets, feeling that he had failed. Cheerless and defeated, he could think only of finding a bed and sleeping for days.

In the city he stopped at a fellow Menshevik's apartment. Before he had a chance to knock, his comrade swung open the door, beside himself with excitement. He reported that a battleship had entered the harbor during the night. Some suspected that General Kakhanov had called for the navy to support his troops and to frighten the workers, but rumors abounded that its sailors had actually mutinied and had come to spread revolution.

Kirill hurried to the port to see for himself. As news of the battleship's arrival spread through the city, a crowd started to swell. Reaching the embankment above the harbor, Kirill spotted the
Potemkin
outside the breakwater. Charged by the thought that the battleship might be in the hands of sailors who would support the strikes, Kirill rapidly descended the embankment.

From Primorsky Boulevard another revolutionary, Konstantin Feldmann, stared down at battleship. A tall, dark-bearded student, Feldmann had joined the fight against the tsarist system in large part because of its treatment of his fellow Jews. He had spent the night in Peresyp, participating in the strikes and narrowly escaping being trampled by Cossacks. As disheartened as Kirill at having no way to resist the soldiers, he was dumbstruck at the sight of the colossal battleship floating in the harbor and flying the red flag. At first he thought it simply an apparition but then realized his eyes were not deceiving him; he ran down to the harbor as well. In the moment of their retreat from the government's forces and their superior weapons, he thought, the workers had received reinforcements of overwhelming strength. He meant to get on board and lead the battleship to the people's triumph.

A
MILE OUT
in the harbor, on the
Potemkin,
the boatswain's whistle roused the crew. "Get up! Make the beds! Wash!" came the command at 5
A.M.
on June 15. Feet pounded on the decks; Father Parmen came out to deliver the morning prayer, and then the crew assembled for tea and breakfast. Half an hour later, the pumps ran and hoses splashed water across the decks as the sailors began to clean the ship. In the officers' wardroom, Lieutenant Kovalenko awakened to the familiar sounds, thinking that everything was as it always had been at sea. But a glance around him at the sleeping officers scattered about the room on sofas and on the floor, still in their uniforms, reminded him otherwise.

Stepping over the sleeping guard in the doorway, who had a rifle across his knees, Kovalenko, still half asleep, went to the ship's side and looked toward Odessa. A light morning fog covered the waters. Fishermen sailed their small boats out of the harbor while seagulls floated overhead. In the distance the rising sun struck the gold crosses atop the churches. For a moment, Kovalenko lost himself in the view. When his attention returned to the
Potemkin,
he suddenly wondered what the sailor committee had resolved during the night that had prompted the crew to bustle about with so much purpose that morning. He soon learned what he had missed while under guard in the wardroom.

Shortly after the
Potemkin
and the torpedo boat
Ismail
had arrived outside Odessa's harbor at 10
P.M.
the evening before and dropped anchor, the committee had gathered in the admiral's stateroom. Few on board slept. Many sailors packed into the room to listen to the debate chaired by Matyushenko. Others manned the guns and searchlights, in case the Black Sea Fleet command had somehow already discovered the mutiny and sent a surprise attack. The majority of sailors were simply too agitated to do anything but smoke cigarettes feverishly, pace the battleship, and stare out at the distant lights of Odessa. Now that the
Potemkin
had come to port, they knew the tsar would know of their mutiny by the morning, and the consequences of their actions would turn suddenly real. The sailors now looked to the ship's leaders for their survival, knowing that the tsar would throw all his force against sailors who killed their own officers and raised the revolutionary flag.

By 4
A.M.
, the committee had settled on a number of plans: to load the ship with as much coal as possible; to buy more provisions with money from the ship's safe; to create a record of the events that had instigated the mutiny, for the officers to sign; to release the petty officers so that they might help run the battleship; and to prepare for the Black Sea Fleet's arrival, whether in the form of an attacking squadron led by Admiral Chukhnin or a revolutionary fleet commanded by fellow sailors who had successfully overthrown their officers. Finally, the committee agreed to celebrate Vakulenchuk as a revolutionary martyr, making his death and funeral a rallying point for Odessans to join with the
Potemkin
in their battle against the tsar.