The Russian Navy had a special role in the story of the Soviet Revolution.

There was, of course, the mutiny on the Potemkin, made famous by Eisenstein.

Even more famous is the cruiser Aurora. A shot from one of her guns was the signal to storm the Winter Palace in Petrograd, the key event of the Bolshevik revolution. She is celebrated in art and music and kept afloat as a museum ship. ­

It is therefore fitting that it was a Soviet naval officer who tried to start a second Communist Revolution in 1975.

Valery Sablin’s plan was as simple as it was daring. He would convince his fellow seamen to mutiny and seize control of a ship. Then, they would sail into Leningrad harbour like a second Aurora. Instead of firing a shot however, Sablin would broadcast his carefully prepared speeches. These would inspire the people to rise up in an echo of 1917. The politburo would tumble and the Soviet Union would be set back on the path of true communism. It would be the dawn of a new era of justice and greatness.

Things didn’t play out exactly like that.

A True Communist

By all accounts Valery Sablin was a very serious and high minded young man. He had a clear sense of right and wrong and didn’t hesitate to speak out against people who failed to maintain standards, whatever their position. During his training as a naval officer, he became more and more convinced that he knew precisely what was wrong with the Soviet system, and that it was his duty to let those in power know.

As a junior officer, he had written directly to Admiral Grishanov, the head of the political directorate of the Navy, bypassing the chain of command. This was not terribly appreciated by the deeply bureaucratic Soviet Union. In 1963 he wrote a lengthy letter to Khrushchev himself, criticising current government policy and offering suggestions for improvement, saying the Communist Party “needed to rid itself of sycophants and corrupt officials on the take”. This led to an investigation by the KGB.

Apart from an official reprimand, neither episode would have serious consequences for Sablin. The fact remained that he was a diehard communist, and the Soviet authorities found it hard to find fault with that. According to his fellow cadets, he basically knew Das Kapital by heart. He was also an amateur artist and presented his wife for her 30th birthday with a hand drawn portrait of Karl and Jenny Marx. Who says romance was dead in the Soviet Union?

When Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev at the head of the state in 1964, the Soviet Union entered what would later be known as the Era of Stagnation. Soviet leadership relentlessly pursued military parity with the United States. This built up an impressive military establishment, but there was little attention for consumer goods or the well-being of the people. As a result, the gap between the standard of living in the Soviet bloc and the West grew steadily.

Likewise, the political focus on stability led to bureaucracy, conformism and immobilism. Power was held by a closed group of party officials, who were chosen not for their competence, but for their loyalty to the regime. These nomenklatura held on to power as long as possible, turning the Soviet Union into the gerontocracy of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

To an idealistic thinker like Sablin, it was clear that the Soviet Union had strayed far from its revolutionary ideal.

Sablin set out to study communist thought so he could put the country back on track. This led him to choose a career as a zampolit (political officer) in the navy. This was very much a sideways move. Political officers were handpicked men who were tasked to keep the flame of communist ideals burning and keep the conscripts in line ideologically. However, they were on a different career path from standard bridge officers. Choosing this path meant that Sablin effectively lost any chance of ever commanding a ship.

To become a zampolit, one had to be steeped in communist thought. Sablin enrolled in the Frunze academy, but as he finished course after course, his disillusionment grew. He had hoped that his training would enable him to cut through the state’s rhetoric and give him access to restricted information, including books critical of the Soviet Union. Yet what he encountered was only rote learning and formulaic thinking. It was propaganda all the way down.

It was clear that the Soviet geriatric leadership was only thinking of their own position and would never lead the country to true communism and prosperity. As Sablin saw it, Brezhnev and his cronies had stolen the Communist Revolution from the people. Something, or someone, needed to reboot the system. The people were desperate for change, and Sablin was convinced that he was the person to kickstart this second communist revolution. As he wrote to his wife Nina:

“I have not always been a revolutionary. For a long time I was a liberal, satisfied that just a little change here and there was all that was necessary to fix our system; satisfied that just one or two articles exposing its deficiencies needed to be written; satisfied that just one or two leaders needed to be replaced, and then justice and honesty would prevail in our society.

That was until 1971. My studies at the academy finally convinced me that the armour of the state and party machine is so thick that even direct hits on it won’t make a dent and are ultimately futile.

This machine needs to be broken from within, using its own armour against it.”

The plot

As his career progressed, Sablin finally found himself in a position where he could enact his plan.

By the spring of 1975 he had been appointed as the political officer of the Storozhevoy, second in command to the captain. The ship belonged to the latest class of large anti-submarine vessels that were entering service in the 1970s. The introduction of US nuclear submarines armed with Polaris missiles had created a pressing need for anti-submarine capability in the Soviet navy, and the Project 1135 Burevestnik class was part of the answer. NATO knew them as Krivak class guided missile destroyers.

The Storozhevoy was one of the more recent members of this class, having entered service in 1974 and represented the latest in Soviet anti-submarine capability. Its main task was to hunt down and destroy US nuclear subs. The main armament consisted of anti-submarine missiles, which could be equipped with either a conventional explosive charge or a 5 kiloton nuclear warhead. The Soviets weren’t messing about when it came to killing US subs. This was supplemented by conventional torpedo tubes and depth charge launchers. For self defence she had two twin launchers for anti-aircraft missiles (9M33 or, in NATO parlance SA-N-1) and two twin turrets with 76mm guns.

Timing was of the essence if Sablin’s plan was to succeed.

In the Soviet Navy, the bulk of the crew was made up by young conscripts. This meant Sablin had a limited number of months in which to establish a rapport with the crew and convince them of his views, before they would be replaced with a fresh contingent and he would have had to start all over again.

On board a Soviet ship, the zampolit was not only responsible for educating the conscripts in party ideology, but was also for maintaining morale. They ran the library, organised trips and arranged other activities. Sablin showed himself to be much more approachable than the ship’s captain Anatoly Potulny, whose aloof manner earned him the nickname of The Count (In the Soviet Union, when people started to give you titles of nobility, this was not a mark of appreciation). Where Potulny saw the crew as cogs in a machine, whose sole purpose was to follow orders, Sablin treated his fellow crewmen as human beings.

He had numerous opportunities to present his vision to the crew during the obligatory sessions of political education. During these sessions, the zampolit usually droned on while the crew tried to catch up on sleep. Sablin actually engaged in discussion with the conscripts and talked about the failings of the system and the need for drastic action to return to true communism. The conscripts were mostly fresh out of school, and had grown up in a system where the Party would tell you what to think. So, when a representative of that party told them it was time to get rid of the old fogeys who were blocking progress and drastic action was needed, they listened. Sablin also assured the crew that there were many in the Fleet who wanted change, and that a spark was needed to reignite the flame of revolution. The Storozhevoy would go down in history as a second cruiser Aurora.

All very heady stuff if you were an 18 year old who had just left home.

As Sablin’s standing among the crew grew, he became confident that he could pull his plan off. Sablin especially established a close connection with his assistant, a young conscript called Alexander Shein. Shein would be Sablin’s right hand man during the operation.

The date chosen was November 8th. This was symbolic: it was just after the anniversary of the October Revolution on November 7th, what better time to sail into Leningrad for the rebirth of the Soviet Union? It also meant that many military personnel would be on leave and/or nursing a hangover.

Besides, there were pressing practical reasons. The Storozhevoy would then be in Riga harbour in order take on a new crew. If Sablin wanted to act, this was his last chance.

For those wondering why the Soviets commemorated the October Revolution in November, that is because Imperial Russia never had much time for such newfangled Popish ideas like the Gregorian calendar. Faithful to the orthodox tradition, Russia stuck to the Julian calendar which by 1917, was 13 days behind the Gregorian reckoning. In early 1918, the new Soviet regime decided to synchronise with the rest of the world, so October 25th Old Style became November 7th New Style.

The mutiny

The plan was set in motion.

Early in the early evening of the November 8th, Sablin informed the captain that crewmen were boozing on the lower decks. Potulny, as befitted his reputation, immediately went to sort it out in person. As he descended to one of the sonar posts deep down in the bow, Sablin shut and locked the door behind him. Potulny found that phone in the compartment had been dismantled. There was also a letter to him from Sablin, explaining Sablin’s plans, and some books from the ship’s library.

Sablin assembled the crew to watch a film, fittingly Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. When he had them all in one place, Sablin announced that he had locked up the captain and was planning to sail to Leningrad to start a second Soviet revolution. Once in Leningrad harbour, they would broadcast a speech that would incite the people to topple the regime. He assured the crew that most of the Navy and the population of Leningrad was on their side.

Alexander Shein was behind him, ready to back him up if there was any trouble. Sablin had given him a pistol, with orders to draw it if things got ugly. The gun was unloaded, but the conspirators hoped that it would be enough to intimidate any opposition.

Reportedly, 8 of the 15 officers present and most of the crew agreed to carry out the plan. The dissidents were then locked up below decks.

The die was cast. The second Communist Revolution was on.

What happened next, is difficult to piece together.

For one thing, nobody at the time had a clear idea of what was going on. Secondly, afterwards the Soviet authorities forbade all mention of the incident. After the fall of the Soviet regime, a number of accounts and documents came to light, but by then memories had become garbled, records had been destroyed and parts of the tale had grown considerably in the telling. So we have a number of mostly contradictory accounts. The KGB did conduct a thorough investigation to construct a detailed timeline of events, but that report, assuming it still exists, remains secret. The best account comes from Swedish intelligence, which kept a close watch of Russian military activity in the Baltic, specifically monitoring radio transmissions. This gave them a grandstand view of the whole affair, whose significance only became clear afterwards. I have tried to piece together the story based on what I consider the best informed sources.

Things went off to a bad start. Second Lieutenant Vladimir Firsov had ostensibly supported the mutiny to avoid being locked up with the rest of the dissidents. He then literally jumped ship to warn the authorities, by climbing down the line to the buoy to which the Storozhevoy was moored. He then climbed up to the ship’s neighbour, the submarine S-263 that was moored to the same buoy. He knocked on the conning tower to alert the crew. The submarine captain reacted as could be expected, when faced with an excited sailor knocking on his hatch after a holiday: Firsov was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. In the captain’s defence, if a ship’s officer told you that their zampolit had gone rogue and was heading for Leningrad to start a new revolution, the first reaction would be likely ‘go home, you’re drunk’. Eventually a doctor was fetched who confirmed that Firsov was sober. The submarine captain then alerted his superior officer and the chief of base security.

As nobody could make any sense of the situation, and the Storozhevoy wasn’t responding to radio calls for clarification, the chief of base security took a command decision. He took three armed guards and went to have a look at the Storozhevoy himself and find out what the fuss was all about. By the time he arrived, it was too late: the ship had left her moorings.

After the escape of Firsov, the conspirators realised that the authorities could move any minute to block them. At 1:00 am, battle stations were sounded and the ship had left harbour.

Once it was established that the Storozhevoy had sailed without orders, the Soviet Navy sprang into action. The commanding officer of the Baltic Fleet was alerted, who immediately gave orders to launch a pursuit force. A small flotilla consisting of the older antisubmarine destroyer Komsolets Litvy and three small but fast antisubmarine corvettes set out to hunt for the Storozhevoy.

Meanwhile, the news of the mutiny continued moving up the chain of command, until it had reached Brezhnev, whose reaction was as brief as it was drastic: stop the ship or sink it.

Baltic high command continued to radio the Storozhevoy, to no avail. All they received was a list of demands from ‘the ship’s revolutionary committee’, whose only member really was Sablin, but you can’t have a proper communist revolution without a committee. In the early morning, Sablin followed this up by broadcasting one of his prerecorded speeches to explain his position to the Soviet people and incite them to revolt. However, the radio operator, either intentionally or out of habit, did not use an open channel. Instead he encrypted it and broadcast it on a Navy frequency. So only Naval personnel ever got to hear the call for revolution. Sablin’s speech ended with an appeal to the nation:

“We are neither traitors to the Motherland, nor adventurers seeking recognition for its own sake. An extreme but necessary opportunity has come for us to openly address a range of questions about the political, social and economic development of our country. The future of our people should be discussed by everyone without pressure from the state or Party. We decided to make this announcement with a clear understanding of the responsibility we have for the fate of the Motherland, and with a sincere desire to achieve genuine Communist relations in our society. But we also recognize the danger of physical and moral destruction at the hands of state institutions or hired guns… Therefore, we are turning for help to all honest people in our country and abroad. If at 2130 Moscow time tonight you don’t see a representative from our ship on your television screens, we ask you not to go to work tomorrow, and to continue this strike until the government ceases its harsh repression of free speech and you hear from us again.

Support us comrades! Goodbye.”

The reaction

Sailing from Riga to Leningrad wasn’t straightforward. The most direct route was more or less due North through the Moon Sound. That was difficult to navigate and required a pilot, which the Storozhevoy didn’t have. So Sablin opted to sail through the more open Irben Sound and then turn Northeast to eventually reach the Gulf of Finland. But the first part of the journey would also take the Storozhevoy on a course straight for Stockholm. So, naturally, despite all the protestations of revolutionary fervour from Sablin, Soviet leadership assumed that he was going to defect, and had merely broadcast the speech to cause confusion. Defection on its own would have been bad enough, but this would also deliver the latest Soviet model of antisubmarine ship into NATO hands. The Storozhevoy had to be stopped.

The first Soviet forces to intercept the ship were the patrol boats of the border guards. Under the Soviet system, the border guards formed an entirely separate branch of the military, ultimately reporting to the KGB high command. The standing orders of these units allowed them to open fire to stop defectors. The force intercepting the Storozhevoy consisted of Tarantul patrol boats. These could be armed with torpedoes but in border guard service, no torpedoes were carried, so the boats’ armament was limited to their 30mm autocannon. These were in no way sufficient to seriously damage the Storozhevoy, but they could be dangerous for crew in exposed positions, and would at any rate send the clear message that the Storozhevoy would have to fight for passage.

Of course, the two 76mm turrets of the Storozhevoy could make short work of the patrol boats, although this would take some clever maneuvering. These turrets were intended as a defensive armament and were mounted aft to repel attackers, so they couldn’t fire in the forward arc. The patrol boats approached the Storozhevoy closely, calling upon the crew to turn around by bullhorn, to no avail.

As the border guards were making ready to confront the Storozhevoy, they received an order to stand down, the Naval aviation would take over.

Aerial intervention

In accordance with Brezhnev’s order to stop the Storozhevoy by any means necessary, nine Tupolev Tu-16K medium bombers of the 240th Guard Bomber Regiment had taken to the air under the command of Colonel Savinkov.

The Tu-16 (NATO reporting name Badger) had originally been designed as a long range strategic bomber to deliver nuclear bombs. The Tu-16K was a modified version for the anti-shipping role. The main task of the 240th regiment was to attack US aircraft carriers far out at sea using K10S Luga nuclear missiles (NATO reporting name Kipper). As the K10S wasn’t the most reliable of weapons, attacks consisted typically of three aircraft each launching a missile at the same target.

The Baltic Navy now had enough firepower in the air to blow the Storozhevoy out of the water, yet the Soviet pilots were understandably reluctant to obliterate their comrades. Also, it wasn’t entirely clear where the Storozhevoy was heading. If the ship was aiming for Leningrad, as Sablin claimed, it should have been on a slightly more northerly course than it actually was. Instead its present course seemed to be heading for Sweden. Still, Savinkov was unwilling to attack unless it was beyond doubt that the ship was trying to defect.

The Tu-16K, however, was ill suited to deliver a shot across the bows. Its armament only consisted of the K10S missile and the defensive tailgunner. There were no forward firing cannons. So Savinkov decided to make low level passes over the ship, with the tailgunner firing warning bursts in the water, as the plane went overhead.

As a response, the Storozhevoy started to take wild evasive action to escape what they thought were strafing attacks. This in turn confused the Soviet commanders on the scene, as with the frequent course changes, they could no longer tell whether the ship was heading for Sweden, turning back towards Riga, or doing something else entirely.

Finally, with Soviet top brass yelling down the telephone to stop stalling and sink the ship already, Baltic command gave Savinkov a direct order to attack. The first three Tu-16K’s formed up to make an attack run. The shadowing patrol boats and the pursuit force coming up were warned to stay well clear of the Storozhevoy. As the engagement range of the K10S was about 100 km, they first had to put some distance between themselves and the target.

At that point the Frontal Aviation intervened.

The Frontalnaya Aviatsitya was the part of the Soviet Air Force that was tasked with supporting the ground troops. (Frontline Aviation would be a better translation, but Frontal Aviation is the standard term, so I’m sticking to that). In the flurry of activity following the mutiny, planes of the 668th Bomber regiment of the Frontal Aviation had also taken to the air. Why and how this unit came to be involved, has never been satisfactorily explained. Did the Politburo have doubts about the Navy’s willingness to shoot on their comrades (after all they must have known the scene in Battleship Potemkin where the troops refused to shoot on the mutineers and joined the revolution). Did the Frontal Aviation want to be the branch to announce the good news to Brezhnev that they had stopped the mutiny, and gain prestige over the Navy? Did somebody realise that the Tu-16s were overkill and lighter bombers were needed to stop the Storozhevoy, rather than blowing her to bits?

Whatever the reason, the 668th Bomber Regiment was not the best choice for the task.

The unit was equipped with Yakovlev Yak-28 supersonic light bombers (NATO reporting name Brewer) and was tasked to attack NATO airfields with – you’ve guessed it – nuclear bombs. Doctrine at the time really seems to have been ‘nuke’em till they glow’. As such they had no training in anti-shipping operations or even ship recognition.

Because misinformation was a way of life in the Soviet Union, the pilots were told that they were attacking a NATO warship that had entered Soviet waters. This makes me think that it was a clumsy attempt at a cover up. As the 668th regiment wouldn’t be familiar with Soviet warships and followed a separate chain of command from the Baltic Navy, they could be tricked into thinking that the Storozhevoy was in fact an intruder. They then would have no hesitation in pressing their attacks, the ship would be sunk and nobody would be the wiser.

Quite how this would work when the entire Baltic Fleet was already on alert, remains an open question. Then again, panic reigned and nobody was really thinking things through.

Because speed was essential, the planes took whatever bomb load happened to be available, which turned out to be 250kg fragmentation bombs. These were excellent against people and light structures, but against ships, heavier weapons would have been the better option.

While the Yak-28s were zooming about, looking for the NATO interloper, the Baltic Fleet had the situation well in hand: it had patrol boats and reconnaissance planes shadowing the Storozhevoy, a surface intercept force was coming up, and strike planes were getting in position to stop the ship from getting to Sweden. Even more planes were being alerted, and an additional surface force centering on a cruiser was steaming up from Kaliningrad.

Baltic Command had no idea that Air Force planes were in the air at all, much less that they were on their way to attack the Storozhevoy. The 668th Bomber regiment was equally completely unaware of all activity of the Baltic Fleet and had only vague information about the supposed NATO intruder. Accordingly, the unit sent out scout planes to find the ship, which would then call in strike planes. The unit had scrambled in considerable confusion, so there were various formations of Yak-28s in the air, looking for targets.

A scout plane from the 668th soon sighted a suspicious ship and called in a strike. The first bomb run was unsuccessful. This turned out to be fortunate, because the ship in question was in fact the Volgo-Balt 38, a Soviet cargo ship, which started to broadcast frantic distress signals saying it was being attacked by unknown aircraft. The follow up attacks were hastily called off. The Baltic Shipping company subsequently raised a fuss and had to be mollified with a couple of 20 liter jerrycans of pure alcohol, as a gift from the 668th regiment. (Alcohol was used extensively in Soviet military aviation, amongst other things for cooling and hydraulics. This meant that Air Force personnel had access to large quantities of high grade alcohol. In the Soviet Union, where vodka prices were kept very high to combat alcoholism, this proved useful.)

Chastened by this experience, when another scout plane spotted a suspicious ship, it took the precaution of checking the hull number. After positively identifying the Storozhevoy as the target they were after, a strike went in. This time the bombers were more accurate. However, luckily for everyone, the light bombs didn’t penetrate the hull and caused only superficial damage.

But that didn’t end the intervention of the Frontal Aviation. Yet another scout had spotted the pursuit force from Riga, centering on the Komsolets Litvy. As the pilots couldn’t tell the difference between a cargo ship and a warship, they certainly weren’t able to tell antisubmarine destroyers apart. Soon bombs started falling around the Komsolets Litvy. The ship took evasive action and fired off signal rockets, while the signal officer on the bridge desperately looked for the code book to radio the planes about their error. The rockets were mistaken as anti-aircraft missiles by the pilots, who reported to base that they were under fire by NATO forces. Meanwhile one or more of the Komsolets Litvy’s escorts, believing they were being attacked by NATO planes, opened up with anti-aircraft guns, adding to the confusion.

The troubles of the Komsolets Litvy weren’t over. In her attempt to catch up with the Storozhevoy, she had been straining her engines to the point that the stacks had to be hosed down to cool them. The sudden evasive maneuvers turned out to be the final straw, and a fire broke out in the engine room, crippling the ship. Eventually she limped back to Riga.

Saved by the bell

While the Frontal Aviation was causing havoc, the 240th Bomber Regiment was forming up to attack. Sergey Gulyayev, commander of the naval aviation of the Baltic Fleet, had decided to command the attack in person. A dedicated command and control aircraft was in the air, and it is likely that Gulyayev was on board. He certainly did personally instruct Savinkov to commence the attack and executed the special protocol for launching nuclear missiles.

As Savinkov was preparing to launch, Baltic high command suddenly received news that the Storozhevoy had surrendered. Urgent messages were sent all around to halt all attacks. Savinkov in the lead Tu-16K either didn’t receive or disregarded these messages and pressed on.

Fate intervened. In order to guide a K10S missile, the launch aircraft had to keep on illuminating the target with its radar to provide guidance. Just as Savinkov was about to pull the trigger, his radar failed and he had to abort without launching. He instructed his wingmen to make another pass, when he received unmistakeable orders to call everything off.

The Storozhevoy was safe.

The earlier bombing and strafings of the Yak-28s had seriously shaken the crew’s resolve. Sablin had assured them that the entire Baltic Fleet was behind his idea. The air attacks clearly proved otherwise, and several of the mutineers started to wonder whether Sablin, was in fact, delusional. Fearing the consequences of continuing the mutiny, they freed the captain, who armed himself with a pistol and made his way to the bridge. There, he promptly shot Sablin in the leg and radioed to HQ that he was in command again.

This no doubt saved the lives of the 200 men on board. Savinkov’s force was still in the air and planning to make a second attack. Moreover, yet another strike package was being assembled, this time consisting of supersonic Tu-22 bombers in the anti-shipping role.

Apocalypse postponed

In the run up to the attack of the Tu-16Ks, nuclear codes were mentioned. So, was the Baltic Fleet really planning to nuke the Storozhevoy? The only way to be certain about that would be to know the prepared weapon loadout for Savinkov’s Tu-16K, and that is now impossible. What we can be sure of, is that all actions of the 240th regiment were consistent with a nuclear strike. The pursuing ships, for instance, were warned to keep a distance of at least 10 km from the Storozhevoy. Savinkov’s force was tasked with responding to a surprise NATO attack, and as such had a mix of nuclear and conventional missiles ready. We know that the 668th regiment wasn’t allowed to change their prepared load, as speed was of the essence. So most likely, the Tu-16Ks of the 240th regiment also took off with whatever was prepared, and nuclear anti shipping missiles were one of the standard options.

This might also explain the highly convenient radar malfunction of Savinkov’s plane. This left him off the hook, so that a wingman with a conventional missile could take over in a second pass, while Savinkov himself could argue that he had followed orders to the last minute.

The main argument against the nuclear theory is, of course, that such an attack would have had immense consequences. It would have created a major international incident, that would have been impossible for the Soviet Union to cover up. Furthermore, it would have exposed a large number of inhabitants of the Baltic, many of whom were in the Soviet sphere of influence, to radioactive fallout. Was the Soviet leadership crazy enough to take such a spectacularly counterproductive action? Or did the Kremlin just blindly order a strike, without stopping to consider what Savinkov’s plane was armed with?

The fact remains that Savinkov at least went through the motions of a nuclear strike, until the sudden malfunction.

The timely intervention of the Yak-28s had prevented a tragedy. Therefore, some commentators have considered that this was part of a larger plan, and that the Soviet High Command had chosen a more appropriate response, rather than simply sinking the Storozhevoy. There are several arguments against this. For one, the Navy was never told to hold back. Savinkov’s attack simply proceeded as planned, and back up strikes were being prepared. For another, there is the complete lack of communication between the Frontal Aviation and the Navy. If the attack formed part of a larger plan, why wasn’t it integrated in the Navy deployment? Baltic Command knew exactly where the Storozhevoy was. Instead, the air force pilots had to look for themselves, and attacked ships right, left and center.

The aftermath

Back in Riga, the entire crew was arrested and thoroughly questioned by the KGB.

The authorities proved remarkably lenient, perhaps because they couldn’t find it in their hearts to condemn conscripts for following their political officer. Only Alexander Shein got a prison sentence of eight years. Criminal charges against all the other crewmembers were dropped, so they faced only disciplinary measures. Bad as that was, it was infinitely better than being spirited off to a KGB prison for sedition. For the professional sailors, the incident did mean the end of their career in the navy. Anatoly Potulny, for instance, never commanded a ship again, and spent the rest of his career as the manager of a warehouse.

Sablin himself was a different matter. The KGB established that he never planned to defect, and only intended to reform the Soviet Union. This only made the whole affair even more embarrassing. The authorities didn’t want word to get out that a political officer had rebelled out of Marxist idealism. So the official story was that Sablin had tried to defect. He was condemned to the firing squad, reportedly by a direct order of Brezhnev.

Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the affair, is its influence on Western pop culture. At the time Western intelligence, in the first place the Swedes, were closely monitoring Soviet naval activity. They were aware of the various movements of ships and planes, but were initially completely in the dark about their significance. When a large part of the Baltic Fleet sprang into action for no obvious reason, this worried the Swedes. It was the height of the Cold War, and they feared this might be some surprise operation, or the prelude to something worse.

Once it became clear that it wasn’t the start of WW III, it looked like a naval exercise, but unannounced and far more chaotic than usual. When the analysis of the radio traffic and data from other sources of intelligence came in, the incident was interpreted as an attempt of an advanced Soviet warship to defect to the West. This hypothesis was strengthened when, about ten months later, Viktor Belenko did fly his highly secret MiG-25 fighter to Japan, proving that Soviet officers could and would defect with the latest military hardware as a present for the West. The Swedish navy subsequently worked out protocols for the case when a Soviet ship with a skeleton crew would be seeking refuge in Swedish waters.

The mutiny formed the subject of a Master’s Thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School by USN Lieutenant Gregory D Young in 1982, as a case study of dissent in the Soviet Navy. When researching a new naval thriller, Tom Clancy came across this study, and used the information in his novel The Hunt for Red October. As with everything concerning the Storozhevoy, accounts vary. Some say it gave him the idea for the novel. Another version is that he was considering the plot of a nuclear submarine defecting, and that the case of the Storozhevoy showed how such a scenario could be made plausible.

And so the actions of an idealistic Marxist eventually led to Sean Connery standing on the bridge of Red October.