Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt for Red October

The first officers through the door into the corridor pull up short when they are confronted by the sailor with the gun and try to turn back, creating a logjam.

Gindin spins around, but Shein has stepped out of the projector closet and he, too, is holding a big Makarov pistol in his meaty hand, and he, too, looks as if he means business. There will be no turning back. They have no other choice than to cross the hall and take the companionway stairs down to the lower deck, though what awaits them below is anyone’s guess, but Gindin is truly afraid for his life now. Not only from the authorities when word of the mutiny gets out but also from his zampolit and his armed crewmen.

Gindin makes a last, mute appeal to his roommate, but Firsov looks away. He cannot meet Gindin eye to eye. Vladimir is embarrassed, and Gindin believes that is a positive sign.

He turns back again to follow the other officers out of the midshipmen’s dining hall, and he feels a faint glimmer of hope that Firsov will come to his senses at some point and stop this madness from going any further.

It’s up to Firsov now.

Across the corridor they climb down the steep, vertical stairs about three and half meters to where another enlisted man with a pistol is waiting for them at an open door into one of the sonar parts compartments.

The situation is bizarre. No one says a word at first; no one is objecting; no one is giving orders. The officers climb down the stairs and one by one soundlessly enter the compartment.

When everyone is inside, the sailor looks in at them with utter contempt in his eyes. “Sit down,” he tells them. “Keep your mouths shut and no one will get hurt.”

Suddenly the situation is filled with high melodrama, like the American cowboy movies that the theaters sometimes show.

The sailor slams the door and dogs the latches, locking them in.

One of the officers bangs an open palm against the bulkhead. “Hey!” he shouts at the top of his lungs. “We’re in here; let us out!”

“Shut your mouth!” the sailor just outside the door shouts back. “No noise!”

“In one instant everything had been turned upside down,” Gindin says. “We were in the position of taking orders from an enlisted man with a gun. We had to obey his instructions. There was nothing else for us to do.”

27. THE GATHERING STORM

Sablin’s wife, Nina, has gotten the letter about the mutiny that her husband posted four days earlier at Baltiysk, but she’s not told anyone in authority about it. So far as Moscow is concerned, nothing has happened yet, nor is anything about to happen. It’s just another day after a holiday in the Soviet Union. Tomorrow morning everyone will get back to work. Yesterday, when Seaman Shein was ashore on liberty after the parade he sent letters to his sister and best friend back home telling them what he was about to do. His biggest worry was that Sablin was actually a spy and intended to defect to the West. Probably to Sweden. In that case they would be doomed. There would be no way out of it for any of them. Shein wanted to explain that he believed the zampolit was a man of his word, who merely wanted to send a message to the Russian people about their rotten government. In return for helping him, all the sailors were promised an early out from the navy. No one wanted to be a traitor. All of them loved the Soviet Union; so Shein maintained. But all of them wanted to get out of the military and go home. Was that so terrible?

And no one was really afraid of the KGB’s retaliation after this thing was finished, if they didn’t think about it too hard. Sablin was the zampolit; his word was practically the same as a promise from the Communist Party itself.

In the West the workers have to accept the fact that there will be rich people and that there will be poor people, Sablin tells Shein and the other enlisted men. It’s a fact of life that cannot be denied. But in a socialist system all that is supposed to be different. There cannot be rich people and poor people. We’re all alike! We must all be equal!

Communism is the highest form of civilization.

“So, what has gone wrong in Mother Russia?” Sablin asks rhetorically. “There is a clear contradiction between the words and the deeds in the Soviet Union. Everyone knows this in his heart of hearts. It is up to us to talk openly about the issues. Force Moscow to listen to the hearts and minds of our people.”

“What is the use of all this stupid window dressing?” Shein asks Sablin at one point. Shein’s comment is typical of the cynicism throughout the country. “When we go to war, who are we supposed to defend with all this fancy talk?”

None of Sablin’s enlisted crew think much about the consequences of their support of the zampolit. They’re going home soon, and that’s all that counts.