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

Readers have the right to know why, after thirty-two years, I decided to tell this story. It was not an easy decision. I still have a lot of fear of how the new KGB will react. My only hope is that Russia has taken a course toward democracy, in which perestroika—openness—actually means something.

I think that I’m doing the right thing, telling the real story behind the mutiny aboard the Storozhevoy in November 1975, because it was one event in a long chain of events that heralded the beginning of the end for the old Soviet regime, of thought police and gulags and the ever-present danger that confrontation with our enemy the United States would result in a global thermonuclear war.

Besides, I owe it to my crewmates to set the record straight.

I was born to a middle-class family who would struggle to make a decent living and educate their children. I grew up with an older sister during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev era, which was marked with pain and frustration for Russians. We thought of that time as the dark ages. People were fed up with lies from their government that a better life was just around the corner. Moscow was spending our money for military weapons, while our grocery stores were almost always empty!

Yet, when I was seventeen, I entered the St. Petersburg Military Engineering Academy because I believed the lie. I wanted to serve and defend my country and build a better future for myself. I wanted my parents to be proud of me. The academy was one of the most prestigious schools in all of Russia, and I wanted to use it to build a career in the navy.

And I did well enough in school, finishing in the top half of my class, so that I was sent to the Baltic Fleet, ending up, by the time I turned twenty-four, serving as an officer on the new Krivak-class warship Storozhevoy.

It was a great honor. But at the time I had no way of knowing that one of my fellow crewmen would mutiny, that Moscow would order us hunted and sunk, that the KGB would shoot the idealistic young officer behind the mutiny—a man who only wanted a better life for himself and all Russians—that the careers of many good men would be permanently ruined, and that an American author would make his career writing a novel inspired by the mutiny.

After the incident was over and all of us were under arrest, even those who opposed the mutiny—it made no difference to Moscow—my eyes opened to the way things were. And I began to ask myself questions. Why didn’t my government recognize the true heroism? Why were the punishments so harsh and unjust? How could the Politburo send the order to sink the Storozhevoy and kill all her crew? How could my government swear me and the others to absolute secrecy on pain of death?

There were to be no disclosures. No discussions to help us get through the pain. No getting it off our chests, not even to relatives, not even to our wives.

Do I regret that I studied at the military academy and wanted to dedicate my life to serving my country and my people? No, I do not.

Do I regret my blind dedication and firmness in following my orders, something that the Soviet government drummed into its people’s heads from the time of birth? Yes, I do.

After the mutiny, the crew of the Storozhevoy signed a KGB document promising never to tell what happened. Everything was buried. For the old Soviet Union, truth had always been the enemy. In some ways I expect that mind-set may still be the case in Moscow.

So why have I written this book? And, maybe more important, should I have told the true story?

I left Russia and I’m no longer bound to keep my promise to the secret police. I’m an American citizen now.

The mutiny was a significant event, and the facts should not be lost to history.

The men and officers who with me opposed the mutiny have had to live with the consequences. Moscow unfairly blamed them, as well as the mutineers, and their lives and careers were irreparably ruined.

With this book I hope finally to set the record straight, to clear their good names and reputations.

THE MUTINIES

1905–07

On the fourteenth of June 1905 the crew of a brand-new Russian battleship that was engaged in a live fire exercise off the Black Sea island of Tendra murdered the captain and most of the officers and took over the ship. This was at a time in Tsarist Russia in which the people were in open rebellion against their government. Fighting was going on in all the major cities in the east. And in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Odessa workers were on strike.

The ship had taken on a load of rotten meat, crawling with maggots, and the men refused to eat it even after the doctor said it was okay. The captain ordered the crew mustered on deck, where he picked out several of the men to use as examples. He was going to have them shot to death for betraying a direct order.

The first mate ordered the guard to open fire, but he refused and the bloody mutiny began.