![]() ![]() The majority of sailors’ refused to eat the fetid meat and was met with an ultimatum from the captain and first officer: Eat the meat or be summarily executed on the deck. Supply officers purchased rotting meat for the Potemkin in Odessa, an important trading city. Less than ten days later, the Black Sea Fleet mutiny began ahead of schedule. Sailor Afanasy Matyushenko was present and took it upon himself to prepare the Potemkin’s crew. They set the date for September or October in order to give themselves time to prepare the fleet. The committee decided there that the time for action had come, and that the navy-wide mutiny they had been plotting was now necessary to both support the workers and peasants and to put an end to the brutality that soldiers faced. In the beginning of June, members of the Tsentralka-a sailors’ revolutionary committee-met in Sevastopol to discuss the strikes and uprisings around the country. The mutiny played an important part in propelling the revolution forward, as well as reflecting the corruption and injustice in Russia that the tsars had created. The Russo-Japanese War had been raging for more than a year and was exacting losses of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers and sailors as it destroyed the economy. The tsar was pressing a poorly planned and worsely executed war against the Japanese. The struggle against the tsar’s despotism had turned revolutionary in January 1905 after Bloody Sunday, when the tsar’s troops killed hundreds of men, women, and children who had joined a peaceful march to plead for the creation of an elected parliament. It’s important to understand the Potemkin mutiny was part of a larger struggle shaking Russia. Nevertheless, within Bascomb’s masterful representation telling of the harrowing struggle aboard the Potemkin and the social conditions the sailors faced, a compelling story emerges that negates his narrow conception of revolutionary parties or the role they play in advancing struggle. Leon Trotsky’s book, 1905, is recommended to supplement Red Mutiny for more of a representation of the Russian Revolution as well as a truer representation of the workings of soviets (workers’ councils) and the RSDLP (Russia’s socialist party). In fact, his stated purpose is to rescue the mutiny from all those who had used it to serve their own ends or glorify themselves (he never says this outright, but he means the socialists). ![]() Throughout the book, Bascomb is anti-Leninist, and derogatory towards organized socialists in general. But he also weaves an exciting tale of clandestine meetings, how the sailors came to form elected committees, what challenges dictated each move the mutineers made, and the mutiny’s impact internationally. He takes great care to explain a certain amount of history, and the amount of introductory material makes it an accessible book for people not at all familiar with this historical period. Neal Bascomb’s book is an engaging account in the best form of history-as-mystery. ON JUNE 14, 1905, more than 700 sailors wrested control of the Potemkin, the mightiest battleship in the Russian fleet, away from their officers and tried to use it for the revolution. Excerpt from the Declaration of the Potemkin Mutineers For these demands we are all prepared to fight, and to perish with our ship, or to attain victory. We demand the immediate convocation of a constituent assembly through direct elections. We are their defenders, and our common cry is-“Death or Liberty to the People!” We demand the immediate end to bloodshed in faraway Manchuria. We are not the butchers of our own people. May all those peasants and workers, our brothers, who have fallen in the fields of our fatherland by the bullets and bayonets of the soldiers, release us from their curse now! We are not their murderers. Thus do we, the crew of the battleship Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky, resolutely and unanimously take the first great step. Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin For ISR updates, send us your Email Address ![]()
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