Blood for the Revolution

At the end of June 1905, Russian society, which had still not cooled off from the crushing defeat by the Japanese at Tsushima Strait a month previous, was shaken by news of a mutiny. The impossible had happened — the crew of the Black Sea Fleet’s powerful, brand new battleship, the Prince Potyomkin of Tavridia, had ousted its officers, set sail for Odessa and opened fire on the town.

The mutiny shook Tsar Nicholas II much more than the death of Baltic Fleet commander Admiral Rozhdestvensky at Tsushima. He wrote in his diary: “I simply can’t believe it. God knows what is happening in the Black Sea Fleet. Three days ago the crew of the St. George the Victorious joined the Potyomkin... Everything must be done to keep discipline on the other ships of the squadron! Then we must punish the ringleaders heavily and the mutineers harshly.”

With uncharacteristic mercilessness Nicholas gave the order to destroy the battleship. But harsh repressions against the rebels did not have the desired effect. In 1905-7, a wave of mutinies rocked naval bases in the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Far East, involving the crews of 22 ships and over 20,000 land-based sailors.

The unrest of 1905 had deep roots in the old Russian navy. In the numerous and modern vessels of the tsarist fleet built in the early 20th century, all was far from well. Peasants and skilled workers came to the fleet with their centuries-old traditions and ideas, from a world full of clear-cut behavioral mores and spiritual absolutes.

Yet life in the navy confronted the recruits with a completely different, unknown world, one much more alien to them than the army. From their simple, beloved peasant izbas (cottages), they were plunged into a world of steel, electricity and steam engines.

The new sailors found themselves learning new ideas. The training schools for new specialists (electricians, radio operators etc.) became, in the words of revolutionary sailor P. Dybenko, ‘schools of revolution’ — the new, conditional truths of new technology were accompanied by equally conditional revolutionary ‘truths.’ Many sailors developed split sets of values: their traditional peasant world view and abstract ideas forced on them from outside.

In addition, feelings of being cut off from real life, the sense of responsibility of each man before the whole crew and the privileges of foreign travel, good food and clothing encouraged an elitist spirit and made the navy a tempting target for the revolutionary opposition.

The authorities began to perceive the navy as a kind of powder keg beneath the foundations of Russian statehood. Defense Minister Rediger remarked that, “At present, the navy is not an element of strength, but an element of danger to the state. The security of the state requires its liquidation...”

However, such radical measures were not needed — the government managed to fend off the first onslaught of revolution. Indeed, it took the revolutionary parties some time to take root in the navy. The spontaneous Potyomkin mutiny actually served to thwart a general naval revolt then being planned by the Marxist RSDRP. The Kronstadt mutiny of 1905 was clearly not properly organized either. According to the 1926 chronicles Uprising in the Baltic Fleet, “a crowd of armed sailors poured out into the street and had a genuine pogrom: looting and setting fire to private houses and government buildings...”

One Black Sea Fleet sailor of the day pointed out in his memoirs: “...It is said that extremist parties had a powerful influence over us. I don’t know who influenced who, but I was strongly influenced by the injustice of our leaders...”

Many of these injustices came to light on the eve of the mutiny: on the battleship Chesma 10 sailors drowned due to the negligence of a watch officer, though no one was found guilty; on the St. George the Victorious, a midshipman struck a sailor awarded the St. George’s Cross in the Japanese war with a dirk, although the latter could not be subjected to corporal punishment.

The sailors usually targeted their anger carefully, and this sometimes led to very unexpected behavior. During the Black Sea revolt of 1905, sailors of the 32nd naval depot who had armed themselves and thrown out their officers, decided to hold a parade and prayers for the birthday of the Dowager Empress. “The prayers,” said one of the participants, “were to prove that we were not a riotous rabble...”

Bloodshed becomes the norm

And yet, even in the early days of naval unrest, the mood could become ugly very quickly. In the 1906 Kronstadt uprising, unexpected resistance from the Yenisei Regiment caused them to turn their frustrations elsewhere. They began looting and rampaging, killing any officer who came in their sight. Thus began the unhappy tradition of the mass murder of the officer corps, reminiscent of the killing of landowners during peasant revolts.

After constitutional changes, an uneasy calm returned. In fact, in 1909 a new naval ‘renaissance’ began in Russia and a powerful ocean fleet was built. The process was only interrupted by the First World War.

In wartime, the situation in the navy remained relatively stable. Everything changed on the night of March 1, 1917. Sailors on the garrison island of Kronstadt (off St. Petersburg) reacted murderously to news of mass unrest in the capital. The supposedly ‘bloodless’ February revolution began at Kronstadt and other bases with the mass murder of officers by sailors. Between March 1 and 4, 120 officers were killed and over 600 arrested. Events in the navy added a worrying note to the euphoria of the first days of the revolution, and became a threatening herald of the 1918-21 civil war...

In Helsingfors (Helsinki), meanwhile, it took just the words “Deal with any disagreeable officers” from a neighboring vessel for ship of the line Poltava’s otherwise calm sailors to turn nasty. Someone in the crowd even shouted: “Brothers, we need blood!..”

Often officers were killed not because they were cruel and unjust, but because, on the contrary, they had real influence over their crews and the revolutionaries saw them as a danger. At the funeral of Midshipman Bittenbinder of the torpedo-boat Gaidamak, meanwhile, the whole crew was present and many wept — while being terribly sorry for him, they considered him an inevitable victim of the revolution.

Vanguard of the Revolution

By the end of the February revolution, sailors had already crossed their Rubicon, into a world of hatred and distrust — officers looked at ordinary sailors as murderers, while the sailors feared vengeance from the officers should there be a reaction. From this point on, Kronstadt was a pro-socialist bastion, controlled by the soviets (worker’s councils) and sailors’ committees, where the Bolsheviks were the main influence.

Meanwhile, the lack of military activity at sea meant that sailors did not suffer from the fatigues of war as the soldiers did. As a consequence, they were much more eager to come to the defense of the revolution. Their characteristic cohesion and camaraderie turned them quite naturally into a mobile shock force. With a feeling of their own exclusiveness and superiority over land forces firmly instilled in their minds, sailors did not limit themselves to acting on orders from above.

For example, able seaman Malkov of the cruiser Diana decided of his own accord to close the newspaper Birzheviye Vedomosti. He remembered afterwards: “It was a nasty little black hundreds* paper, and kept slandering the Baltic sailors. I just went to see the Baltic crews, told the lads: ‘It’s time to close [Birzheviye Vedomisti], let’s not stand on ceremony!...’ Several volunteers appeared at once... when we came out of [the offices] I noticed the magazine Ogonyok next door... Another hostile magazine. We spoke to the lads, and decided to close it as well...”

Thus it was that Lenin singled out sailors’ units, along with blue-collar youth “for participation everywhere, in all the most important operations...”

Sailors stood out in another way, too. They were mostly well-built, and wore uniforms which were distinctly memorable in comparison with the grey soldier’s greatcoat. Also, because of the traditional shortage of firearms in the navy, sailors were inclined to hang weapons on themselves. While from a purely practical point of view the presence of ammunition belts and grenades on the body was extremely uncomfortable, it certainly had a powerful effect on civilians.

And so come October, sailors were again at the forefront of revolution. At the decisive moment, 10,000 sailors and 11 navy ships (including the famous Aurora, which fired the first shot in the revolution and is regarded as its symbol) arrived in Petrograd and took an active part in the overthrow of the Provisional Government, capturing key buildings like the telephone exchange, post office and the Admiralty. A composite unit of sailors was sent to Moscow to seize power, then to the Don, the Urals, Kiev, wherever the Bolsheviks opened a front.

Turning against the masters

The sailor had become a symbol of victorious revolution. Which is why the mutiny of Baltic sailors less than three years later, in the spring of 1921, came as a deep shock.

In fact, the situation in the Baltic Fleet by the beginning of that year was very similar to February-March 1917. Though the ships remained, the Civil War had left the fleet virtually useless for battle. The peasant-sailors aboard ship at Kronstadt awaited their demobilization with bated breath, and listened avidly to the news of peasant revolts like the Antonov uprising in Tambov.

Most of all, sailors were unhappy about the injustices of the new authorities. Letters from home and stories told by colleagues returning from leave gave plenty of fuel for dissatisfaction. People were sick of the policies of ‘war communism’ which had brought impoverishment and famine.

The apathy of the navy command also played a role — it made no attempt to react to these ‘injustices’ or in some way revive the fading attraction of the ideas of the Bolshevik Revolution. This apathy merely strengthened sailors’ discontent.

The revolt was triggered by the Petrograd city government, who did the (until then) unthinkable — i.e. put down unrest by workers by force. News of the violence fell on fertile soil, and on March 1 the revolt began...

From the start, the sailors tried to emphasize the ‘legality’ of their actions. Order was kept in Kronstadt, and people were encouraged to continue at their posts. Their main slogan was “Power to the Soviets, not parties!” an attempt to prove that they were not rioters.

This time, however, they miscalculated, and the country did not come to their aid. A change of course at the Party Congress towards the New Economic Policy deprived the revolt of its political base and raison d’etre. By the summer the mutiny had been virtually quelled — partly by delegates from that same Congress, as the media of the day triumphantly proclaimed.

This marked an end to the period of great upheavals, with the symbol of October consigned to the history books. Together with the rest of the country, the Red Navy entered a period of relative stability and renounced its revolutionary fervor. The authorities maintained a tough discipline  designed to prevent a repeat of 1921.

But even this proved ultimately not to be watertight. In 1977, the year of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, Captain Sablin of the Baltic Fleet ship Storozhevoi attempted to take his vessel to the West, and along with his sub-lieutenant was captured and executed for treason. This time Kronstadt’s mutinous tradition was reversed, though — it was the officers, not the crew, who protested against the authorities of the day.