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

“Sablin is a traitor!” Potulniy shouts again.

Standing in front of Shein are three of the warrant officers who voted with white backgammon pieces: Gomenchuk, Kalinichev, and Borodai.

“What’s going on?” Sablin demands. “The crew has assembled up on deck. They’re waiting for me!”

“I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen,” Shein stammers.

“Stop who?” Sablin shouts.

“Valery, is that you?” Potulniy cries. “Let me out of here. Don’t be a fool.” It’s more than obvious that the captain is hopping mad, and the warrant officers are clearly distressed. They didn’t count on this complication.

“A couple of sailors down here heard the captain and they tried to be heroes and rescue him,” Borodai explains. “We stopped them.”

But there is no one else in the corridor. “Where are they?” Sablin wants to know. He’s getting shaky again. “Have you locked them away?”

Borodai shakes his head. “There was no reason for it. They won’t cause any trouble now.”

“They’ll tell the rest of the crew!”

“Comrade zampolit, isn’t that exactly what you intend to do on deck?” Borodai asks politely. “By now just about everybody aboard knows that something is going on. So maybe you should get up there and explain the situation.”

Sablin’s heart is racing. He is torn with indecision, even though he knows what has to be done. “Shoot the next man who tries to release the captain,” he gives the order to Shein. “Do you understand me?”

Shein nods that he understands.

Sablin gives the warrant officers a bleak look, then turns on his heel and, holstering his pistol, races back up to the assembled crew on the quarterdeck.

On deck, in the shadows just around the corner from where the men are assembled, Sablin stops a moment to compose himself. The message he’s going to tell these boys is the same one he told the officers an hour ago. Only this time he’ll use easier words, simpler sentences, more clear-cut concepts, and above all a flair for the dramatic and an appeal to their patriotism.

There’s probably not a boy among them, not even among the cynics, the self-proclaimed tough guys, who doesn’t get misty when the idea of defending the Rodina is presented to them. These boys have the black Russian soil beneath their fingernails and the sad Russian songs in their souls; they will jump at the chance to come to the Motherland’s rescue against all enemies—Americans or Moscow bureaucrats.

When Sablin steps out into the light, someone calls the crew to attention, and they snap to.

When Sablin takes his position at the head of the formation he does not guess that word of the mutiny has already spread like wildfire among the crew. Shein and the few other enlisted men Sablin has taken into his confidence have convinced the others that once this necessary business is over they can all go home.

Zampolit Sablin has given his solemn promise.

He hesitates for a moment, mustering the correct words. This is a singular moment in time. He actually feels the long history of the Russian navy stretching back four hundred years. He is becoming an important part of that history.

“We cannot go on like this any longer,” he begins. “You have been lied to. We all have been lied to, even the officers. The Rodina is on the verge of defeat. But the real enemy is not across the ocean, he is right here in the Motherland, and we must do something before it is too late for us all.”

Not one of the 150 enlisted men assembled says a word. No one moves a muscle. It’s obvious that they are surprised by what their zampolit is saying to them, even if they don’t yet fully understand what they are being told. But like Sablin they understand that this is a moment in time that none of them will ever forget.

“I offer no criticism of the Communist Party or of the October Revolution. Those are pure. But there are men in Moscow who are bringing the Rodina to her knees like a common whore. Your mothers and sisters have been told so many lies that they may have to go begging on the streets. They may have to get down on their hands and knees just to feed their families! To feed you fine boys!”

There is a stirring now among the assembly. Sablin is painting a dramatic, if dreary, picture of what will happen unless they do something about the sickness and corruption that has gripped Moscow.

“The people of Russia—your fathers and your brothers—have no rights! They’re starving while a few old men in the Kremlin drink champagne and eat caviar and blinis.

“Brezhnev and his pals are making fools of you. It is finally up to us, the men in the military, to protect our Motherland from the real enemy, and we must let the people know what we are doing.

“Russia must finally become the democracy that Lenin promised us, or else we will remain a backward country, a poor country with no opportunities.”

The first of the rumbling dissent begins, and Sablin’s heart picks up a pace. He has them now!