Authors: Neal Bascomb
To avoid a trap, Matyushenko had his signalman order the
St. George
to cut its engines. Yet the
St. George
continued to approach, now less than one thousand meters away. Alekseyev pressed the sailors to fire if the battleship came any closer. Then they saw the
St. George's
signalman rapidly flag the
Potemkin.
"The crew of the
St. George
is asking comrades from the
Potemkin
to come to their ship."
The
St. George
slowed down and dropped anchor. Through the telescope, Matyushenko saw Captain Guzevich still standing on the bridge. "Arrest your officers," Matyushenko relayed, "and bring them to us."
"The situation is bad. Not everybody agrees. We can't manage. Send help as soon as you can," the
St. George
signaled.
Stirred to action by the plea and disregarding Alekseyev's further cautions, Matyushenko called the torpedo boat
Ismail
to the
Potemkin's
side and boarded it with Kirill and several committee members, including Dymchenko and Kulik. They sped toward the
St.
George.
Some sailors waved their caps enthusiastically at the torpedo boat; others eyed them suspiciously from the lower decks.
When they arrived at the
St. George,
a rope ladder was sent down, and Matyushenko climbed aboard with the others. Then the torpedo boat moved to the
St. George's
stern, its firing tubes aimed at the battleship's side in case the invitation to board was an ambush. Matyushenko warmly greeted Koshuba and his revolutionary comrades on the quarterdeck, but their reunion was cut short when Matyushenko recognized the dangerous situation on the battleship.
Half the crew welcomed them with shouts of triumph, and Koshuba obviously had control of the battleship's key stations. But others on the
St. George
treated them like intruders. They wanted the
Potemkin
sailors cast off, so they could reconnect with the squadron. Equally troubling, the ship's officers looked down on them from the bridge. Though they were under guard and looked scared, their presence alone signified that the mutiny had yet to be secured. Suspecting the sailors could turn against them, Matyushenko sent one of his shipmates back to the
Potemkin.
He wanted an armed guard sent as soon as possible.
Then Matyushenko stepped up on a capstan on the forecastle to attempt to inspire the sailors to join them. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, but he found that from overuse and lack of sleep, his voice was strained and robbed of its strength. Turning to Kirill, he asked him to take his place.
The Odessan revolutionary mounted the capstan and looked across the sea of faces. Those sailors close to him eagerly awaited his words, but others, near the hatches at the back, frowned and watched with hostility. Believing his words might decide the fate of the
St. George
mutiny, Kirill spoke with thunder in his voice. "Our exhausted people, stripped of the most basic of rights, can no longer bear their humiliation and powerlessness. They're coming out on the streets of the cities and villages, fighting the tsar who's torn apart Mother Russia. Will our sons and brothers, dressed in soldier's clothes, be the tyrant's butchers, punishing our very own who only seek a better life? We, proud men of the
Potemkin,
refuse to murder our own people, and won't allow anybody else to either."
He paused, turning his gaze to the officers on the bridge. "You gentlemen ... You're rotten servants of the tsar. You're responsible for rivers of innocent blood. They lie on your conscience. But the day of judgment has come.... Now there's no place for you here. This ship, built by workers, has now passed into the hands of men who will serve and
protect
these workers, not enslave or oppress them."
His words provoked an outcry from the crew: "Up for the people's freedom! Off with the tyrants!"
Kirill pointed at the officers. "In the name of the people, you're under arrest and will be taken to shore."
When a handful of armed
St. George
sailors attempted to usher the officers from the bridge, Lieutenant Grigorkov suddenly shrugged off his captors. Disgusted by the thought of being taken captive and shamed by his captain, he stepped to the end of the bridge. Without hesitation, he raised his pistol, put the barrel to his temple, and fired. His body fell over a railing and into the sea. Everyone stood, astonished, for a moment. Then Kirill told the sailors to take the other officers to the admiral's stateroom.
After Guzevich's removal and another stirring speech by Kirill, most of the crew committed to siding with the
Potemkin
âor at least they raised their voices to that effect. By the time the armed party led by Feldmann had arrived, the crew had already assembled to elect a committee of sailors to lead the battleship. Meanwhile, the officers packed their belongings. Once ready, Matyushenko led Guzevich and his subordinates down into the steam launch. Sitting between the sailors, the officers, eyes downcast and uniforms stripped of epaulettes, looked pathetic. One kept muttering wretchedly, "That I should live to see such things." Revolver in hand, Matyushenko guarded them on the way toward the
Potemkin.
When they drew up to the battleship's side, Kovalenko came down to see the officers, several of whom he knew well. Yet he no longer felt a bond with them, and they traded glances like complete strangers.
A half-hour later, the two battleships weighed anchor and steamed together toward Odessa, the
Ismail
following behind. As before, Kirill and Feldmann wanted to chase after the squadron, but the
Potemkin'
s leaders thought they had tempted fate enough that day.
Once back on the
Potemkin,
Matyushenko was flushed with success. The sailors had won their revolutionary squadron, and the rest of the Black Sea Fleet was shamed into retreat, its captains weakened by crews obviously sympathetic to the rebels' cause. The days without sleep, the constant concern about betrayal, the false starts in Odessaâall were worth the victory they had now won. Many shared his elation. Kovalenko imagined the great steps they would make the next day. Nothing seemed impossible now. Kirill also looked to the future with optimism, later describing the crew's mood that afternoon on their return to the harbor:
Looking at the sailors, sensing their eagerness, we felt good in our hearts. The nightmare of fear that our efforts would fail was replaced with confidence in our success and victory over our age-old enemy.... Tomorrow we would take over Odessa, establish a free government, create a people's army, march on Kiev, Kharkov, and other cities, join with the peasants in the villages. After that, we would march on the Caucasus, along the shores of the Black Sea. Everywhere we would bring freedom and independence from slavery. Then on to Moscow and finally St. Petersburg.
Sixteen miles southeast of Odessa, the Black Sea Fleet squadron hove to and anchored. For the final time that day, Krieger called a meeting of his captains to decide their next move. Shaken by the
St. George's
defection, Krieger wanted to know if they believed their crews could be relied on to reengage the
Potemkin.
Their response was unanimous: no.
The captains of the
Sinop
and
Twelve Apostles
had narrowly escaped outright mutiny on their battleships; they did not want to test their good fortune by going after the
Potemkin
again. If given the order to fire, their crews would assuredly revolt. Vishnevetsky agreed that this outcome seemed likely on his battleship as well. Krieger then suggested a surprise night attack undertaken by their torpedo boats, but this idea was rejected because even the small, more easily managed crews on these ships could not be trusted. He felt they were all in an intractable situation. He could return to Sevastopol in disgrace or risk the entire fleet to mutiny. With reluctance he chose the former, but he made one last attempt to negotiate with the
Potemkin
before the squadron left.
At 7:15
P.M.
, torpedo boat No. 272 steamed toward Odessa, captained by I. N. Psiol, the second officer of the
Three Saints.
On its approach, Psiol signaled the
Potemkin
to surrender. "Never!" was the response. Still, the
Ismail
left the side of the battleship to open talks. Fearing that the
Ismail
would attack, Psiol reversed direction and sped back to the squadron.
Since even this meager attempt ended in failure, Krieger telegraphed Admiral Avelan, informing him of the
St. George
mutiny and Krieger's planned retreat to Sevastopol. Before returning, the squadron discharged its six- and twelve-inch guns. The shells fell harmlessly into the open sea.
A
PART FROM
a horseback ride through Peterhof, Nicholas spent the gray, drizzly day of June 17 in a series of long meetings while waiting to hear of the outcome of Krieger's confrontation with the
Potemkin.
Finally, in the early evening, his deputy minister of the interior, Trepov, telephoned his office, forwarding a message from General Kakhanov. The information it conveyed was, however, mistaken. Kakhanov stated that the squadron had surrounded the
Potemkin
that afternoon and that the mutinous sailors had lowered their battle flags, apparently surrendering without a shot being fired. The relief that Nicholas felt was tempered by a demand for vengeance. He wrote an order to Chukhnin directly onto the transcribed note: "After a most prompt investigation and court-martial, the execution of the sailors must be carried out in front of the whole squadron and the city of Odessa."
Nicholas felt that the embarrassment and trouble the sailors had stirred up over the past few days warranted this public reckoning. In St. Petersburg, the
Potemkin
story had spread despite his censors. At a city concert hall, some workers had interrupted the performance and demanded a song be played in honor of the sailors. Russian aristocrats feared the mutiny might precipitate revolution, and many had even left the city for the countryside. The
Potemkin
mutiny disturbed some of them more profoundly than the Battle of Tsushima or the repeated defeats in Manchuria because mutiny revealed that the tsar's regime was rotting from within. Reports of simultaneous, though short-lived, uprisings at the naval bases of Libau and Kronstadtâthousands of sailors at each place refused to work, wrecked their barracks, and broke into the armory before being brutally suppressed by infantry troopsâreinforced doubts that the tsar's government could hold out much longer.
Revolutionary groups quickly took advantage of the
Potemkin's
feat in their propaganda war within Russia. One Social Democrat leaflet called on the people to unite, promising that the sailor revolt showed that "the last support of autocracy is falling. The feelings of solidarity with working masses, long locked beneath the bark of discipline, is bursting forth ... and how!" They also distributed leaflets to army regiments, encouraging more rebellion:
Soldiers! Follow the example of the Black Sea sailors. Stand on the right side of the people! Let each of you take an oath: "I'd rather chop off my own right hand than raise it against my brother!"
Soldiers of the Russian army! Follow the example of the heroes of the
Potemkin!
Go to battle for the truth and the people's freedom!
Inspired by the mutiny, workers at several major St. Petersburg factories went on strike on June 16, announcing their solidarity with the sailors while also pushing for better conditions for themselves. Similar scenes occurred in Moscow and other cities within the empire. Of course, a series of strikes had erupted throughout Russia since Bloody Sunday, but so hopeful were the revolutionaries that the
Potemkin
marked the launch of an armed uprising that the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries in the Russian capital formed an inter-party committee to coordinate efforts with workers for the first time.
Among the liberal opposition, the drive to institute a constituent assembly gained further momentum. In Moscow, representatives from eighty-seven towns and cities were meeting to put together a reform program. The recent events on the Black Sea had convinced some liberal leaders, such as Milyukov and Struve, that they had taken the wrong path after Tsushima, when they called for allying with the revolutionaries and fighting the tsar's power in the streets. Sailors killing their officers and the destruction in Odessa were examples enough that Russia risked outright ruin if they continued their militant stance. In part, the
Potemkin
mutiny renewed their commitment to using peaceful efforts to achieve reforms.
In the foreign press, Nicholas faced a parade of bad publicity. Regardless of how often Russian ambassadors assured reporters that the Black Sea revolt was an isolated situation perpetrated by drunks who would soon quit their mad scheme, Nicholas felt hounded by a spate of news stories and editorials arguing that his regime was in serious jeopardy. Although most journalists doubted that the entire Russian military was a honeycomb of sedition, they predicted that disloyalty could easily spread if the tsar was seen as vulnerable. "Insurrection follows mutiny," the
New York Herald Tribune
editorialized. "Its ominous gravity can scarcely be exaggerated." The Parisian
Temps
reported that even Russian officers had been caught spreading seditious literature.
The intense violence incited by the
Potemkin
in Odessa and expectations of a massive strike in St. Petersburg to protest mobilization orders only reinforced the opinion that Nicholas was in an intractable situation. His only hope was to end the war with Japan and summon a representative assembly. The Associated Press forecast, "Not since the insurrection in December 1825, when a portion of the Guard regiments joined in an attempt to set up a republic in Russia, has the situation of the Romanov dynasty been so serious. Nevertheless, the crisis may be passed in a few days. Either the open revolt will by that time be stamped out or the flames will have spread, possibly beyond the hope of control."