Red Mutiny (4 page)

By that time, Togo's fleet had already turned its broadsides on the other Russian battleships. By 7
P.M.
, the battle was effectively over. Through the night, Togo's torpedo boats and destroyers picked off those ships that had avoided the day's annihilation. By the morning of May 15, the bodies of thousands of Russian sailors littered the waters
of the Korea Strait. With his entire fleet, Togo surrounded the surviving four Russian battleships and demanded their surrender. A few vessels had escaped during the night, including a torpedo boat carrying a blood-smeared, delirious Admiral Rozhestvensky, who had abandoned the
Suvorov
before it sank. A Japanese destroyer captured him later that day.

In winning one of history's biggest naval battles, comparable in scope and significance to Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory at Trafalgar, Togo had lost a sum of three torpedo boats.

Word reached St. Petersburg the next day.

On the morning of May 16, the frozen surface of the Neva River was breaking up. From the quays and surrounding streets, it sounded as if some invisible force was striking the ice with a giant ax. First, cracks had appeared across the surface, then gaps widened between chunks of ice. The river's surface, a smooth blanket of white throughout the winter, was now crowded with clumps of soot-gray ice. Slowly, the current began to move these enormous floes downriver. They collided, spun, and broke apart into smaller pieces, loosening the stubborn ice on the riverbanks. In the weeks ahead, the Neva's flow would finally run clear into the Gulf of Finland. It was a relentless, inevitable process.

Fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg that same morning, Nicholas was horseback riding through Tsarskoye Selo. The air smelled of wet lilacs. Nicholas treasured his country estate. Set behind a tall iron fence and guarded by mounted Cossacks, Tsarskoye Selo was a paradise far removed from the city's chaos. On the eight-hundred-acre park where Nicholas galloped stood two palaces with extensive gardens, a zoo, triumphal arches, numerous chapels, paths weaving through forest groves, an artificial lake dotted with sailboats—even a Chinese pagoda and Turkish baths.

Nicholas finished his ride in front of Alexander Palace, where he had retreated after the Blessing of the Waters ceremony in January. Built a century before, the hundred-room palace was modest compared to the nearby Catherine Palace, which rivaled Versailles in size and opulence. Even so, Nicholas and his family were not at a loss for luxury amidst the long gilded halls and mauve boudoirs lit with crystal chandeliers and scented with fresh-cut flowers. There, hundreds
of smartly dressed servants tended to their needs. As Nicholas walked through the palace that morning, however, the luxurious surroundings must have been lost on him. He desperately awaited news of Rozhestvensky's squadron.

The night before, he had shut himself away with his war council in the walnut-paneled study, poring over charts to ascertain where the fleet could be. His naval minister, Admiral Avelan, had reassured him that even if Togo attempted to elude the Russian fleet, Rozhestvensky would draw the Japanese out completely, even if he had to bombard one of their ports. Such was the bravado of Nicholas's inner circle.

Wild rumors ran throughout St. Petersburg. Some talked of a great Japanese victory. Others said that the Russian fleet had arrived in Vladivostok unscathed; the newsboys in St. Petersburg were already selling that story in the streets. But if Nicholas believed every wire report or consul message, then Rozhestvensky had already successfully waged his fight a month before in the Strait of Malacca off Indochina, and the tsar's worries were over.

But they were not; he was very worried. The past four and a half months had trampled his hope for a quiet, peaceful year. On January 9, three days after he escaped death on the Neva, 120,000 workers and their families, dressed in their Sunday best, had converged on the Winter Palace to petition him to ease their oppression. The defenseless crowd, carrying icons and his own portrait, refused to disperse, and his soldiers led cavalry charges against them, killing 130 and wounding many more. "Bloody Sunday," many were calling it.

Mayhem erupted in the days and weeks that followed. As one of Nicholas's faithful described it at the time: "Strikes are rolling over Russia as feathergrass over the steppe, outrunning each other, from Petersburg to Baku, from Warsaw to the heart of Siberia. Everybody is engaged ... workingmen, students, railway-conductors, professors, cigarette-makers, pharmacists, lawyers, barbers, shop-clerks, telegraphists, schoolboys ... The atmosphere is overcharged.... People cross themselves asking 'What is going to happen? What is going to happen?'" In the countryside, Nicholas's "dear" peasants either ransacked their landowners' manor houses or simply torched them to the ground. Most high officials feared for their lives. On February 4, a terrorist assassinated the governor-general of Moscow, Nicholas's uncle, Grand Duke Sergei, by throwing a bomb into his carriage as he left
the Kremlin. Noblemen-turned-liberals pressed for a voice in ruling the country. Meanwhile, revolutionaries made it clear they would be satisfied only with the tsar's head. By May, even though Nicholas could not expect outright victory against Japan, he had to question what would happen within Russia if Rozhestvensky failed.

As he walked through Alexander Palace after his ride, Nicholas received his first reliable piece of information, a cable from the captain of the cruiser
Almaz,
which had managed to elude the Japanese and had recently arrived in Vladivostok. He reported that the
Suvorov,
the
Oslyabya,
and the cruiser
Ural
were lost and the battleship
Alexander
crippled. The
Almaz
had departed the Korea Strait before the battle had ended, but no other ships were in Vladivostok. The captain asked in his cable, "Could it be that none of the squadron's ships has reached Vladivostok?" It was inconceivable that all the others had been lost.

Over the next two days, however, the terrible facts of the battle arrived from the Far East. History has recorded different anecdotes depicting Nicholas's reaction to the developing news. One account had him at a court dinner receiving a telegram about the fleet, taking out his gold cigarette case, and having his master of ceremonies announce, "His Imperial Majesty permits smoking." In another story, he was riding on the imperial train with his minister of war and reacted to the grim reports with élan, formulating new plans for the war within minutes. Still another had him opening the dispatch while playing tennis. "What a terrible disaster," he apparently said, then was handed his racket and finished his game.

One or none of these may be true, but Nicholas was indeed famous for retreating into himself, never exposing his emotions when dealing with problems. Yet in his diary, usually reserved for pedantic accounts of his meals, leisure activities, and the weather, he was forthcoming. On May 16 and 17, he was "depressed" and frustrated at the inadequate, often contradictory news. On May 18, he wrote of a "difficult, painful, and sad" feeling in his soul. The next evening, he seemed to come to terms with the truth: "Now finally the awful news about the destruction of almost the entire squadron in the battle has been confirmed. Rozhestvensky himself is a captive!" In the same entry, he lamented how the gorgeous spring day had only deepened his sorrow.

Government ministers, liberal groups, exiled revolutionaries, and world leaders rushed to assign blame, forward their agenda, and predict the tsar's political future. The Russian and international press followed every move, often unabashedly pushing their own viewpoint. Yet nobody spoke directly for the roughly 4,830 sacrificed at the Battle of Tsushima, nor for twice that number wounded and captured. Until, that is, a band of sailors from the Black Sea Fleet made their voices heard.

A
FANASY MATYUSHENKO
, a torpedo quartermaster of the battleship
Potemkin,
climbed the steep incline of Malakhov Hill, east of Sevastopol, on the morning of June 10, 1905. Now covered with cypress and acacia trees, the hill was once a wasteland pocked with mines and fortified trenches, the site of a 349-day siege of Russian forces by the British and French during the Crimean War. That conflict had left the entire Black Sea Fleet scuttled in the harbor. Only a scarred remnant of the tower that had defended the hill fifty years before remained.

By the hill's crest, Matyushenko came across a woman resting against a tree. "Do you have any water to drink?" he asked.

"Go straight ahead. Turn right at the spring," she answered, in code.

After a few minutes, following a narrow path that was nearly lost in the underbrush, Matyushenko heard voices and smelled the drift of cigarette smoke through the trees. Finally, he came to a clearing by one of the graveyards on the hill. Over one hundred sailors in white-and-blue-striped jerseys and a handful of men and women in street clothes stood in the clearing, speaking among themselves. This was a secret meeting of Tsentralka, the revolutionary sailor organization. Scattered about the surrounding area, sailors were on the lookout for the police or naval patrols, who were desperately trying to capture any Tsentralka members.

Vice Admiral Grigory Chukhnin, the Black Sea Fleet commander, had made it clear in speeches aboard each ship that he considered any revolutionaries among his sailors to be a disease like leprosy: they
needed to be cut out before their ideas spread. He ordered frequent, surprise searches of crew quarters, looking for sailors with seditious literature. His officers kept constant watch for secret meetings. Spies and informants were everywhere. Even a ship's priest was discovered trying to flush out those sympathetic to revolution, asking sailors during confession, "And now, my child, who do you feel malice toward ... maybe your officers insult you?" Sailors suspected of revolutionary activities were transferred off battleships to auxiliary ships such as transport or training vessels. Those caught with literature or conducting propaganda campaigns were imprisoned and often sent to hard labor camps.

For Matyushenko, looking down on Sevastopol from the clearing, this was a risk he accepted in order to fight against the tsar and the type of life forced on him in the navy. The base of the Black Sea Fleet stood in the heavily fortified northern section of the city. While many of the captains lived in private houses, Matyushenko and the others were packed like cattle into poorly ventilated barracks, suffering nightly swarms of bedbugs and rats. The windows were barred and their beds were little better than planks of wood. Latrine pipes leaked filth between the walls, and the brackish river water they showered in left its own stench and a dirty film on their skin. Although the "august city," as Sevastopol was nicknamed, was primarily a military town, evidenced by the seven battleships and host of destroyers, torpedo boats, and auxiliary vessels anchored in the harbor, a sign on the city's main boulevard read:
NO ENTRY TO DOGS. LOWER RANKS PROHIBITED.

These oppressions aside, the obliteration of Rozhestvensky's fleet forcefully reminded Matyushenko and his fellow revolutionaries that they were struggling for the right cause. Some had friends who had died in the battle, and the sailors understood better than anyone the incompetent and reckless leadership that had sent so many to their graves. It was also clear to them that they might be next. "If we must sacrifice our lives against the Japanese," one Black Sea Fleet sailor noted after learning of Tsushima, "we might as well sacrifice ourselves for the liberation of Russia." Matyushenko, one of the fleet's early revolutionaries, spread this sentiment among the sailors.

Three days before the meeting on Malakhov Hill, an incident in Sevastopol proved to Matyushenko that sailors throughout the fleet
were prepared to revolt: When some garrisoned soldiers in the Sevastopol fortress struck out against their officers, Vice Admiral Chukhnin ordered his ships in the harbor to prepare to shell the fortress. Crews aboard two of the battleships refused the command. On the
Holy Trinity,
a sailor informed his watch officer, "Enough blood, we won't fire at those who protest. We ask you, Your Excellency, to inform the commander that we won't fire. Are the soldiers not our brothers?" On thé
Ekaterina II,
the crew threatened the officers that they would scuttle the ship before firing on the fortress. Although the garrison commander managed to quell the unrest on his own and seventeen sailors were arrested for their disobedience, the incident showed the strength of feeling among the crews. Soon after, Tsentralka called its members together.

From the beginning, the meeting on the hillside was combative. Usually at these gatherings, the sailors sang revolutionary songs, decided organizational tactics, talked politics with workers and local leaders from various revolutionary parties, and vented their frustrations with their officers. On occasion, they would draft resolutions demanding an end to the war and stating their goals. In March, they had proclaimed these goals in detail in a document called "The Resolution of the Black Sea Sailors," revealing their hopes for the "abolition of the autocratic regime and the creation of a democratic republic." This republic was to be led by a constituent assembly, with representatives elected by the direct, equal, secret, and universal vote of the people.

These were noble ambitions—and treasonous in substance—but writing resolutions was only the first step toward realizing such goals. Today, however, the meeting participants were to decide, after months of debate, whether to take action and launch a fleetwide mutiny to begin the revolution.

Everyone wanted to be heard; few wished to move toward consensus. Some revolutionary leaders talked only of theory—how "the revolution can't be made.... It must happen on its own." Others spoke of boldness and armed uprisings as if no lives would be put at risk by choosing this path. Matyushenko despised this back-and-forth general talk, but he was quiet. A radical from Sevastopol named Pyotr argued that a fleetwide uprising was premature. With Chukhnin purging the ranks of revolutionaries even as their group met, Pyotrurged delaying their plans until their numbers were strengthened. His words were met with shouts of protest from all quarters, each voice trying to drown out the others.