Red Mutiny (38 page)

After securing the cork stopper, he tossed the bottle overboard, watching it bob to the surface and then slip astern. Overhead, on the stern mast, fluttered the proof that, for Zubchenko, meant the revolutionary sailors were not planning to surrender in Constanza. They had raised a large red flag with the words
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
sewn onto one side and
LONG LIVE POPULAR RULE
! on the other. They had also returned the St. Andrew's flag to the foremast to reinforce that they were not lawless marauders.

In a stateroom, Kirill made the last revisions to one of two declarations that the sailor committee had mandated. Feldmann worked on the other. When finished, the two Odessans returned to the wardroom where the ship's leaders had spent the day. Kirill read his handwritten pages:

To the Whole Civilized World—Citizens of all lands and of all nationalities.

The grand spectacle of a great war for freedom is taking place before your eyes; the oppressed and enslaved Russian people have thrown off the yoke of despotic autocracy. The ruin, poverty, and anarchy, which the Government has brought long-suffering Russia, have exhausted the patience of the working people. In every town and hamlet, the fire of the people's fury and indignation has flamed up.

The mighty cry from millions of Russian breasts, "AWAY WITH THE SHACKLES OF DESPOTISM AND LONG LIVE LIBERTY!" rolls like thunder over the boundless plains of Russia. But the Tsar's Government has decreed it better to drown the country in the people's blood than to grant the people's freedom.

But the Government has forgotten one thing—that the Army—the powerful weapon the Tsar uses for his bloody designs—is made up of the same people, the sons of the very same workers, who have sworn to win their freedom.

Thus do we, the crew of the battleship
Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky,
resolutely and unanimously take this first great step. 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. We are not the butchers of our own people. 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 demand the immediate convocation of a constituent assembly through direct elections. For these demands we are all prepared to fight, and to perish with our ship, or to attain victory.

We are certain that honest citizens of all nations and countries will sympathize with our great struggle for freedom. Down with autocracy! Long live the constituent assembly.

The sailors applauded his words. As committee member Kulik said, the declaration showed that "We are not pirates." Feldmann then stood, delivering his address to "All European Monarchs," a short statement that guaranteed the security of foreign vessels on the Black Sea. The committee approved both declarations, and a sailor was sent to type a number of leaflets of each. Then, finally, the meeting broke up.

At 4
P.M.
, the
Potemkin
passed Serpent Island, twenty miles from the coast. The small, rocky island looked fit only for a graveyard. Soon after, the sailors saw Romanian shores. When they neared Constanza, Matyushenko and Kovalenko joined several others on the bridge. Constructed on a low promontory jutting a half-mile into the Black Sea, the city was Romania's main seaport. Named after his sister by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great in the fourth century, the town, originally called Tomi, was first founded, so legend had it, by King Aeetes of Colchis, as a burial place for his son Absyrtus. Aeetes' daughter Medea had hacked her young brother to death and scattered the pieces on the road, to slow the king in his pursuit of her, Jason, and the Golden Fleece. She had known that he would stop to gather up the pieces.

As the
Potemkin
came closer, the sailors spotted an old lighthouse on the cape, and then a cathedral tower farther inland. Constanza took shape when, seemingly from nowhere, a fog rolled across the sea, completely obscuring the city. "A bad sign," a sailor said, half joking, on the bridge. A few minutes later, the wind swept away the fog, and the city appeared again. Respecting international custom for arrivals to a foreign shore, Matyushenko ordered a twenty-one-gun salute. The guns boomed. When the echo faded away, the crew looked to starboard, waiting to see how they would be welcomed. Their mutiny's fate depended on it.

W
ITHIN MINUTES
of dropping anchor, the
Potemkin
attracted a throng of gawkers on Constanza's seafront. The presence of a colossal battleship on their waters was intriguing—"was it that mutinous Russian battleship?" While the city's residents wondered about this, a cutter flying the Romanian flag left the port. It headed straight toward the
Potemkin.

"Guard, attention!" Kovalenko yelled as the boat neared the battleship. On the quarterdeck, an honor guard of thirty sailors dressed in fresh uniforms formed two lines to welcome the Romanian officers. Aiming to earn their support and esteem, the crew planned on showing the Romanians every courtesy.

When Captain Nikolai Negru, Constanza's port commander, and a lieutenant from the Romanian cruiser
Elizaveta
ascended to the deck, the honor guard saluted. Negru returned the salute, and the rest of the sailors waved their caps in welcome. Kovalenko and Matyushenko then stepped forward to greet the officers.

"Where's your watch officer?" Negru asked stiffly, in French, observing that neither of the two men bore any indication of their rank.

"We have none," Kovalenko responded.

"Please take me to your commander then."

"We've no commander either."

"Why not?" Negru asked, with a look of surprise.

"Are you aware of the events in Odessa?" Kovalenko asked.

Negru shook his head, even though he knew about the mutiny from the Romanian newspapers and had been notified earlier that day by the Russian captain N. N. Banov, whose transport ship
Psezuape
was docked in the harbor, that the
Potemkin
had left Odessa. (The Russian ambassador in Bucharest had warned Banov that the
Potemkin
might sail for Romania.) Negru feigned ignorance to stall the
Potemkin
while he waited to hear from his superiors as to what he should do.

Kovalenko and Matyushenko led the captain and lieutenant into the admiral's stateroom, where ten other committee members had assembled, as well as a sailor who spoke Romanian. After briefly recounting their mutiny and their revolutionary ambitions, Matyushenko handed Negru a list of requisidons: four hundred tons of coal, two hundred kilograms of machine oil, two hundred liters of wine, a head of cattle, three days' supply of bread and fresh water for eight hundred men, forty kilograms of tobacco, and fifteen kilograms of cigarette rolling paper. "Most of all," he said, "the crew needs food and water."

"I have to ask Bucharest for permission," Negru said. "I can't allow it until I hear otherwise. Perhaps in a day I'll have your answer."

Another sailor asked the interpreter to tell Negru why they had come to Romania: "Yours is a liberal country that wouldn't let them starve if they observed international law and restricted using military force." A note of desperation colored his voice, a feeling shared by the others.

"What will you do if you're refused?" Negru then asked.

"We don't know what we'll do," Matyushenko said—honestly. "But no matter what, we'll return to Russia to launch the revolution. Other battleships will follow our example."

Negru looked at the sailors around him, impressed by their resolve, especially given their situation. The Russian government would not stop until they found the
Potemkin
and punished its sailors. Still, Negru's job was to make sure the battleship did not attack the port to get what it wanted, which he knew it could easily do. He had limited artillery on shore, and the
Elizaveta
was the only Romanian warship in the area. It could provide little resistance against a battleship like the
Potemkin.

The captain told Matyushenko he would forward their request. In the meantime, a small deputation could enter Constanza and order the provisions they needed in case his superiors allowed their delivery. "But," he said earnestly, "the best thing for you to do is to come ashore. Surrender the battleship. Then you'll be free and able to go where you wish."

The sailors dismissed this suggestion, and Negru left the battleship. As his cutter returned to the port, the
Potemkin
fired another salute from its guns.

The ship's leaders appreciated the respect that Negru had shown the sailors, and they conveyed this to the crew. But his refusal to allow them to purchase provisions without Bucharest's approval distressed the sailors. "They want to conspire with the tsar over telegraph," some warned. "They want to starve us to surrender," others predicted.

While a handful of sailors prepared to go ashore to meet with the city's merchants, a military sloop from the
Psezuape
approached the
Potemkin.
"Officer coming!" a lookout yelled. "A Russian officer's coming!"

"Don't make any noise, comrades," Matyushenko cautioned, knowing the transport ship was under Romanian protection while in their waters. "Let him come. We'll see if he's worthy."

"Put him under arrest!" a sailor recommended. "Pluck his epaulettes from his shoulders."

Minutes later, Captain Banov, a short, corpulent officer in full dress uniform, came aboard. He assumed that the mutinous battleship had come to surrender, since the St. Andrew's Cross flew from the foremast and the sailors had fired a salute on entering the port. Feldmann approached him, asking what he wanted.

"How dare you speak to me like that!" Banov hissed. "Where's your commander?"

"This is the ship of the people, not of the Russian government," Kovalenko interjected. "You may have heard about us from the Romanian papers."

"I can't read Romanian." Banov backed away, realizing the mutineers had not surrendered.

"Our commander is at the bottom of the sea," Matyushenko pointed out.

"So ... now...
brothers
" Banov stuttered, almost incapacitated with fear. "What are you going to do with me?"

"You can go," Kovalenko said. Banov hurried from the deck, wishing the sailors luck as they jeered at him.

After Banov skittered off the battleship, Matyushenko and several others took a launch to the port. Since Captain Negru had given them only an hour to arrange for provisions, they divided into several groups. While taking a horse-drawn carriage alone to one of the markets, Matyushenko suddenly found himself heading away from the city center. Suspecting an ambush like the one in Odessa, he told the driver to return to the port. When the driver refused, Matyushenko drew a revolver and threatened to shoot him. The cab stopped. Matyushenko stepped out, his revolver trained on the driver as he backed away. He then returned on foot toward the port, uncertain as to whether the driver had simply been confused or if he was part of a plot to capture him. Days of constant danger had put him on edge.

In the port, Matyushenko and the others waited a half-hour for Grigory Rakitin, one of the sailors in their group, to show up, but he never did. They suspected he had abandoned the
Potemkin.
Dusk had fallen over Constanza by the time they pushed away from the quay. The dark void to the east, on the Black Sea, threatened many dangers, including a rumor the sailors had heard in the city: a torpedo boat manned solely by officers, sent by Vice Admiral Chukhnin to sink the
Potemkin.

On their return to the battleship, Matyushenko had the launch stop alongside the Romanian cruiser to ask its captain's permission to use the battieship's searchlights during the night. The
Elizaveta's
officers invited Matyushenko to come aboard alone. The Romanians permitted the searchlights but then urged him to surrender the
Potemkin,
guaranteeing the crew's safety. Matyushenko declined. Then the captain made an unexpected offer to
buy
the battleship from the sailors. When the interpreter relayed his offer, Matyushenko drew back, insulted at the suggestion that he sell the people's battleship for a few rubles.

"We didn't come here to save our skins. They're worth only three kopecks at the bazaar," he answered, his tone laced with acid. "Before I sell you our ship, tell me, how much do you want for your
Elizaveta
?" This response ended the conversation, and Matyushenko left the cruiser.

On the
Potemkin
later that night, as the searchlights panned for torpedo boats, the gunners rested beside their weapons while most of the crew sought shelter below. An approaching storm sent gusts of wind across the decks, and the sea grew rougher by the hour. Kovalenko walked the rolling quarterdeck, looking at the silhouettes of Constanza's houses and churches. Faindy, he heard music playing. He imagined the local people under the twinkling lights of their terraces, talking about the
Potemkin.
He wondered what they really thought of the sailors who had come to their shore in the name of revolution.

Throughout the ship, crew members talked worriedly about whether or not the Romanians would provide supplies. For several days now, they had subsisted on soup made from cabbage and potatoes. The bread was almost gone too, and in a couple of days, only tea and sugar would be left. They were also desperate for more coal—always more coal. Before midnight, Matyushenko received a note from the port commander: he would have a response from Bucharest by
8 A.M.
the next day.

In Constanza, Captain Negru waited nervously for a telegraph from his foreign minister. The
Potemkin
sailor Rakitin, who had jumped ship, had reported to Negru that the crew was divided, and two to three hundred men were ready to abandon the battleship as soon as they had the chance. Despite this information, the captain had seen for himself the conviction of the mutiny's leaders and their hold over the sailors; he doubted they would abandon their cause. Therefore, he had to anticipate the worst for his already panicked city. Although he planned to tow the Russian
Psezuape
to a secluded section of the port, prepare the
Elizaveta
for attack, and conceal artillery units along the coastline, these efforts amounted to mere gestures if the
Potemkin
sailors chose to take the supplies they wanted by force—or punish Constanza for not providing them.