Red Mutiny (49 page)

What caused the
Potemkin
mutiny to fail? Sailor memoirs and socialist polemics list many specific reasons, including its premature launch without the rest of the fleet, the difficult logistics of obtaining coal and water, a diffuse leadership structure, the betrayal of the
St. George
, an absence of support from those on land, and an unwillingness to remove the petty officers. But even if the crew had managed to endure for longer and bring more of the Black Sea Fleet to their side, their chances of instigating a mass uprising beyond the region looked doomed from the start, particularly given the overall impediments to revolution in Russia at the time.

For their efforts, Matyushenko and Vakulenchuk lost their lives, as did Petrov, Koshuba, and several other Tsentralka members. Of the entire
Potemkin
crew, some of whom returned to Russia in the years before Nicholas abdicated, 173 were court-martialed. Collectively, they earned 322 years of prison and forced labor in Siberia.

Most remained in exile, staying in Romania or scraping out a new existence in Switzerland, Argentina, Canada, Australia, the United States, England, Ireland, and elsewhere. Lieutenant Kovalenko became a schoolteacher in Geneva. Kirill and Feldmann followed similar paths, writing memoirs of their time aboard the
Potemkin
and then dying during Stalin's great purges in 1937. Some sailors returned to Russia after the tsar's fall in 1917, but only a few held positions in Lenin's new state, most notably committee member Lychev, who became an ambassador to Great Britain. For all of them, their eleven days of mutiny on the Black Sea marked the rest of their lives.

The battleship
Potemkin
itself fought no more for revolution. Not wanting to hear the battleship's name again, Nicholas had the
Potemkin
rechristened the
Panteleimon
("all merciful"). The tsar's admirals used it to attack Turkish ships during World War I. Later, during the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution, embroiling the entire country, its engines were blown up so that it would not fall into Bolshevik hands. By 1925, the
Potemkin
had been ignobly scrapped for metal. A portion of its mast was even used for a lighthouse.

No doubt the mutiny fell short of its lofty goals, and the sailors suffered from this result, but this does not diminish the
Potemkin'
s significance, much as the failure of the 1905 Revolution overall did not preclude its impact on Russia's future. The Black Sea uprising struck at the heart of the tsar's pillar of support: the military. This came at a critical point in 1905, when Nicholas was contemplating peace with Japan and mandating a reform proposal developed by his interior minister, Bulygin. Although Nicholas never spelled out why he agreed to end the war and approve the August 1905 consultative duma, which then led to the October Manifesto, the mutiny affected him too deeply not to have influenced his thoughts.

The tsar and his allies dreaded a repeat of the mutiny and the wholesale loss of the military to revolution's side. As one monarchist said, "Each time the Black Sea Fleet sails, I fear lest another
Potemkin
be among them, and another Matyushenko amongst its crew." In February 1917, carrying on the
Potemkin's
legacy, mutinies at the Petrograd garrison and Kronstadt naval base proved to be the decisive blow that forced Nicholas from the throne. The gunshot from the light cruiser
Aurora,
signaling the Bolshevik military coup in October, punctuated the part played by sailors in the Russian Revolution from 1905 to 1917.

In the Soviet Empire, the
Potemkin
mutiny became one of the revolution's most symbolic and seminal moments. The government awarded the sailors medals and lauded them as heroes. Monuments were built and a litany of books were published about the events. Most famously, Sergei Eisenstein dramatized the story in his landmark film
Battleship Potemkin,
seen and studied throughout the world. Curiously, Feldmann played a cameo role in the film as a sailor.

Lenin called the 1905 revolution a "dress rehearsal"; it confirmed that he would need ruthless methods to seize control of Russia in the 1917 uprising. After his success, history was written and filmed to serve him. The Bolsheviks hijacked the
Potemkin
story for their own propaganda, asserting their party's pivotal role on the battleship. Lenin and his faithful leveled bitter invective at Matyushenko, who had openly rejected their party, marginalizing his efforts and accentuating any missteps that he had made. According to many histories, the mutiny ended in surrender because Matyushenko was not the bold Bolshevik leader that the crew needed. These political accounts aside, the sailors who participated in the Black Sea uprising did not mutiny to bring about the repressive Soviet state dominated by Lenin and his successor, Josef Stalin.

British historian Orlando Figes aptly characterized the Russian Revolution as "the people's tragedy" in a monumental survey of the period in his book of the same name. Part of this tragedy was that men, such as Matyushenko and his fellow crewmates, who sought freedom and a better life, died in a revolutionary struggle that resulted in a Russia they would have despised as much as the one they fought against.

The truth of their lives, and the reasons they sacrificed them, are worth recovering.

Dramatis Personae

Acknowledgments

Research Notes and Bibliography

Notes

Index

To assist the reader in navigating the many names in the story, the author has highlighted a number of the key individuals—although this list is certainly not comprehensive:

Potemkin Mutineers

P. V. Alekseyev—sailor committee member who participated in the mission to buy meat in Odessa

A. P. Berezovsky ("Kirill")—Odessan revolutionary, a Menshevik, who became a member of the battleship's leadership

E. R. Bredikhin—sailor committee member, an anarchist, who was close to Matyushenko

S. A. Denisenko—sailor committee member who ran the engine room during the mutiny

I. A. Dymchenko—sailor committee member and one of the lead agitators

K. I. Feldmann—Odessan revolutionary, a Menshevik, who came on board the battleship when it first arrived in the port city

V. P. Kulik—machinist and sailor committee member, who was part of the funeral deputation to General Kakhanov

I. A. Lychev—sailor committee member and a close friend of Vakulenchuk

A. N. Matyushenko—Tsentralka member and "the soul of the mutiny," as one witness described him

F. V. Murzak—senior boatswain who was elected second officer by the sailor committee

F. Z. Nikishkin—stoker and one of the better agitators, who fired the first shot to start the mutiny

E. K. Reznichenko—sailor committee member who commanded the
Smely
to reconnaissance the squadron

G. N. Vakulenchuk—Tsentralka member and leader of the
Potemkin
revolutionaries

F. A. Vedenmeyer—senior signalman and sailor committee member

Potemkin Officers

Ensign D. P. Alekseyev—elected by the sailor committee to act as captain after the mutiny

Lieutenant I. I. Gilyarovsky—second officer on the
Potemkin,
known as one of the cruelest of the "dragons"

Dr. A. S. Golenko—assistant ship surgeon, who elected to stay on the
Potemkin
after the mutiny

Captain E. N. Golikov—first officer of the
Potemkin

Lieutenant I. M. Kovalenko—engine room officer, who elected to join the revolutionaries and became one of the ship's leaders

Ensign A. N. Makarov—supply officer who purchased the maggot-infested meat in Odessa

Dr. C. G. Smirnov—senior doctor on board the
Potemkin

Lieutenant V. K. Ton—weapons officer who directly supervised Matyushenko

Other Black Sea Fleet Sailors

S. P. Deinega—
St. George
revolutionary who helped launch the mutiny on his battleship

I. T. Yakhnovsky—founder of the revolutionary movement within the Black Sea Fleet

D. P. Koshuba—Tsentralka member who led the mutiny on the
St. George

A. O. Kuzmenko—senior boatswain, who was elected to captain
St. George
after its mutiny

L. Pykhtin—stoker and saboteur on
Stremitelny

A. M. Petrov—Tsentralka member who led the mutiny on the training ship
Prut

M. L. Volgin—revolutionary sailor on the battleship
Twelve Apostles

I. Babenko—torpedo quartermaster on the destroyer
Stremitelny

Other Black Sea Fleet Officers

Captain N. N. Banov—commanded the Russian transport ship
Psezuape,
which was in Constanza at the time of the mutiny

Captain A. P. Baranovsky—commanded the training ship
Prut

Vice Admiral G. P. Chukhnin—head of the Black Sea Fleet and chiefly responsible for suppressing revolutionary unrest and the mutiny itself

Colonel P. P. Eikhen—commanded the military transport ship
Vekha

Captain I. E. Guzevich—commanded the battleship
St. George

Lieutenant A. A. Yanovich—volunteered to lead the destroyer
Stremitelny,
manned by officers, to hunt down the
Potemkin

Lieutenant P. M. Klodt von Yurgensburg—commanded the torpedo boat
Ismail
before the mutiny

Captain M. N. Kolands—commanded the battleship
Twelve Apostles

Vice Admiral A. H. Krieger—chief flag officer of the Black Sea Fleet who led the flagship
Rostislav
in the squadron sent after the
Potemkin
in Odessa

Rear Admiral'S. Pisarevsky—head of the Black Sea Fleet training detachment, who retrieved the
Potemkin
after the mutiny's conclusion

Rear Admiral F. F. Vishnevetsky—led the battleship
Three Saints
and was second in command of the squadron sent to Odessa to sink the
Potemkin

Odessa Officiate

General'S. V. Kakhanov—military governor

General K. A. Karangozov—adjunct to Kakhanov

Mayor D. B. Neidhardt—head of civilian leadership

Brigadier General V. P. Pereleshin—head of the commercial port

N. I. Romanenko—port official and assistant to Pereleshin

Constanza and Theodosia Officials

Mayor L. A. Durante—head of civilian leadership in Theodosia

Captain N. Negru—port commander of Constanza and lead negotiator with the
Potemkin
in Romania

General F. Pleshkov—garrison commander in Theodosia

Key St. Petersburg Figures

Nicholas Romanov—tsar of all the Russias

Admiral F. K. Avelan—naval minister

A. G. Bulygin—interior minister

D. F. Trepov—deputy interior minister, a hardliner who proposed martial law be instituted in Odessa and surrounding regions.

S. Iu. Witte—former finance minister and plenipotentiary to the Japan-Russia peace talks

P. N. Milyukov—historian and one of the leaders of Russian liberalism

S. N. Trubetskoy—rector of Moscow University who represented the
zemstvos
assembly to Nicholas II to promote government reform

I am very grateful for my team of translators who helped decipher the mysteries of the Russian language (Matvei Yankelvich, Margaret Weiss, Olga Parno, Sergey Levchin, Zlata Akilova, Dima Dubson, Ludmilla Sheffer, Tanya Bass, Noam Primak, Efrem Yankelevich, and Christina Sever); the wisdom of Earl Dille and John Haley, who read the manuscript in advance and offered many improvements; the librarians at the New York Public Library, Slavic and Baltic Division, as well the archivists at the Russian State Naval Archive—your contribution to history should never go unrecognized; Elihu Rose, who illuminated me on the true nature of mutiny; my researchers in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Igor Kozyr and Irina Krivaya, who worked tirelessly by my side, cast the light down corridors I never would have discovered alone, and offered much needed guidance throughout; my friend Brett Forrest, who opened many doors in Russia; the kindness and generosity of Dr. Robert Zebroski, who provided me access to his voluminous research on the Black Sea Fleet, without which this would have been a much lesser book; the keen little red pen of Liz O'Donnell, the best of line editors, and my wonderful copyeditor, Susanna Brougham; the great representation and support of Scott Waxman and his comrade-in-arms Farley Chase; the finest editor and champion of my writing, Susan Canavan, and her team at Houghton Mifflin (with special mention for Megan Wilson and Reem Abu-Libdeh); my wife, Diane, for so many untold gifts that I almost blush at the thought of how lucky I am; and my baby daughter, Charlotte, who has taught me the meaning of joy. Finally, this book is dedicated to my grandparents, one of whom my family sadly lost during the course of my writing. His passing reminded me of how much we owe those who first help us stand on our own two feet.

When writing
Red Mutiny,
I kept by my side a quotation from a historian of the French Revolution, Albert Mathiez: "The historian has a duty both to himself and to his readers. He has to a certain extent the cure of souls. He is accountable for the reputation of the mighty dead, whom he conjures up and portrays. If he makes a mistake, if he repeats slanders on those who are blameless, or holds up profligates or schemers to admiration, he not only commits an evil action; he poisons and misleads the public mind."

In my attempt at discovering the truth behind the events of the
Potemkin
mutiny, I had the boon and bane of a tremendous amount of research material. Many participants in the mutiny wrote memoirs, including Matyushenko, Kovalenko, Feldmann, Lychev, and Kirill. In addition to these, I had access to accounts written by Chukhnin, Kakhanov, Negru, and Krieger, as well as scores of other government officials, enabling me to tell both sides of the story. Further, during the court-martial investigations of the Black Sea mutinies in 1905, interviews were conducted with hundreds of sailors and officers who witnessed the events. Then there are the reams of telegrams and correspondence that passed back and forth between the Admiralty, the squadron, Nicholas II, Chukhnin, Kakhanov, Avelan, and officials in Odessa, Theodosia, and Constanza. For many of these latter documents (among others), I am indebted to Dr. Robert Zebroski, who provided copies of the research he conducted for his fine doctoral dissertation, "The Making of a Sailors' Revolution in the Black Sea Fleet, 1902–1905."