Pavel Dybenko and the Sailors Quest during Revolutionary Russia Chapter Two-Emboldened

 

In search of a cooperative commonwealth!

The Rise and Fall of the Russian Revolutionary Sailors
and Their Leader...Pavel Efimovich Dybenko.
The story of Pavel Dybenko and the Sailors Quest during Revolutionary Russia

Chapter Two-Emboldened

Vladivostok. November 1907

Russian class of torpedo destroyers

Vladivostok is under fire!
It is reported that three crews, now mutinous sailors, captured three destroyers and shelled the city. A fierce battle ensued, with five boats and shore batteries firing on the crews of the ships "Skoroy," "Serdity," and "Trevozhny," resulting in the "Skoroy" being smashed to pieces!


Saint Petersburg 1908

Lieutenant Colonel Roustam-Beck

Boris Leonidivich Tageyev pseudonym (Lieutenant Colonel Beck) predicted the coming social changes and the impending revolution when he wrote and witnessed that "looking at the lives of Russian sailors, I definitely assert that these sailors will play the most important role in the coming struggle for freedom and that they will be uncompromising revolutionaries, because they have endured real slavery and knew better than anyone else in Russia what the rule of the bourgeois class means"!


Pavel Dybenko also wrote on the Russian sailor's experience.

Pavel Dybenko

"The life of a sailor was that of a lowly, powerless creature, whose duty it was to obey all orders without question. Sailors always remained "gray cattle" without any rights, both on land and on board ship. It would be insulting to describe how officers rushed sailors to line up when meeting an officer ashore. Often, shouts, humiliations, and disparaging expressions were directed at the sailors. As expected, the officer would exaggerate the problem for the most minor indiscretion, and then unceremoniously throw the sailor into the doghouse or "lock him up."

"Not a single sailor who served under the Tsar could forget the eternally dark island of Kotlin and its master, Admiral Viren.
Who could forget his service on the former battleship "Emperor Paul I," often referred a prison"?

Admiral Virenn

During the time of the Tsars, service in the navy was tantamount to exile, banishment, and humiliation. At the entrance to the city park in Kronstadt, a sign read: "No dogs, soldiers, or sailors allowed."

Admiral Nepenin

Graduation-February 1912
Admiral Ponomarev began his practice of the anticipated meeting with the Tsar on Cathedral Square. When the moment arrived for the sailors to shout "Long live..." and so on, the first squadron of the first company remained silent. For a moment, Admiral Ponomarev was taken aback, but then he became completely enraged and, his eyes bloodshot, leaped toward sailor Alexander Gorbunov.
Ponomarev's screech echoed, sounding worse than any animal's: "Bastard! Scoundrel! Rogue! Execute him!" Gorbunov's massive figure leaned forward, clutching his rifle tightly, as if about to use it against the admiral. The admiral grabbed the rifle's bayonet with one hand and punched the sailor in the teeth with the other. A few minutes later, the bleeding Gorbunov was led away to the transit prison.

Admiral Ponomarev

In the fall of 1912, Pavel Dybenko received an assignment and orders to report to the battleship "Emperor Pavel I" as a ship's electrician. The ship was based in Helsinki.

Emperor Pavel I

The crews of the battleship "Emperor Pavel I" actively participated in riots and mutinies; a very powerful anti-tsarist organization operated on the ship.
From 1912 onward, all mutinies in the navy were partially directed from this ship. With such activism, the officers approved the most brutal reprisals against the crew of the "Emperor Pavel I".

Dybenko recalled; "Schools for training new specialists (electricians, radio operators, etc.) were meant to become schools of revolution. New recruits not only become familiar with new technology but also learn about the sailors' great efforts and their revolutionary history. It is the veteran sailors who share the navy's history and its relentless struggle against the Tsar and his officers. Many sailors developed dual sets of values: their traditional peasant worldview and the theoretical ideas brought to them by the knowledge and experience of veteran sailors."

PE Dybenko

The Forgotten Uprising

St. Petersburg. August 1912.

A most daring plot against the imperial court ever attempted has been revealed. The plan to kidnap the Tsar and his family has been uncovered.

As far as is known, the plot included not only plans to seize Tsar Nicholas, the Tsarina, and the royal family, but also to reorganize the government into a constitutional monarchy. Seventeen suspects were detained and would eventually be executed. The rebels' plans included seizing gunboats, shelling important towers, and being the armed fist to force the Tsar into establishing a constitutional monarchy.

On board the Russian battleship "Ioann Zlatoust" in the Black Sea... officers and sailors had finalized the plans to initiate their role in the naval mutiny.

"Ioann Zlatoust"

The men on board plot to seize the Tsar's family aboard the Standart enroute from Yalta to Sevastopol... to force the Tsar to abdicate, which would lead to an establishment of a constitutional monarchy... igniting the signal to crews of the Black Sea and Baltic fleets to imprison their officers and to storm all naval outposts, including Kronstadt and St. Petersburg.

Standard

The 1912 uprising, found all fortresses and garrisons were involved in this putsch, determined to impose a constitutional monarchy on Nicholas II.... Admiral Chagin, head of Tsar Nicholas II's guard aboard the Standart, would pay a heavy price for his inability to prevent the revolutionaries from boarding.

Admiral Chagin

The Royal Family on board the Standard

Revolutionary sailors boarded the Shtandart.

Driven by the task to capture the royal family...chaos ensued, the Tsarevich fled and was shot...one sailor was captured and killed on the spot, and another escaped during the riots.

Sailors aboard Standart 

The Tsar orders all information about the Tsarevich's injuries be suppressed... The first reports in the press said that he had been shot... Other rumors circulated that he had been injured by falling from a pony, by falling in a small boat, by falling while climbing the rigging of the Standard, and finally, the official report relayed the story that the Tsarevich had fallen in the bathroom and injured his groin on a faucet...

Empress Alexandra and her son, the Tsarevich

Empress Alexandra was so overcome with grief that she tried to throw herself out of a second floor window!

The Tsar orders an immediate investigation! Tsar Nicholas II appoints Minister of Justice Chichegovtov and Preimier Kokosov to lead the inquiry. Hundreds of secret police officers were given the mandate to investigate the scale of the rebellion.

Okhrana (Secret Police) Investigation Committee

Investigations lead to arrests in St. Petersburg, Yalta, and Sevastopol providing insight into its widespread implications and scope of the uprising. The arrests included naval officers. Police aboard the Russian battleship "Ioann Zlatoust" in Odessa provided the public with the first information about the conspiracy.

Authorities declare Kronstadt to be placed under siege. Kronstadt is Russia's main fortress and military port located twenty miles west of the Russian capital. Harsh measures have reportedly been taken against the Great Fortress. Fears of unrest aboard naval warships coincide with the specter of the plot to seize the Tsar in the Black Sea.

Investigation revealed the plan included the participation of the Baltic Fleet... the sailors were to mutiny and simultaneously attack Kronstadt and St. Petersburg. Justice Minister M. Chichegovtov and Prime Minister Kokosov were informed the commanders of nearly all the empire's important garrisons had been questioned.

Following an investigation into unrest among sailors in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, three hundred sailors have been sent ashore to face court martial, The Times correspondent in St. Petersburg reports. While there is no reason to doubt the loyalty of the vast majority of the crews, evidence of revolutionary propaganda has been discovered.

Authorities also declare a state of siege for Sevastopol.
The Russian government's actions officially confirm the stories of mutiny. Even a judge-advocate was arrested.
The following statement from the Minister of the Navy expressed the Tsar's sorrow over the disloyalty of his subjects.

Russian Minister of the Navy Ivan Grigorovich

"The Russian fleet is experiencing a historic period. The will of the Emperor has called it to a new life, and the people's representatives have given it their trust and abundant resources. The will of the Emperor now calls him to those who have been disloyal. No forgiveness is possible. The Emperor was saddened to learn that the seed of disorder has sprouted in the fleet so dear to him, but so far the infection has spread to only a few ships. I am happy to express imperial gratitude to those crews who conscientiously fulfilled their duty."

September 1912.
The revolt of 1912 will remain outside of the public consciousness. Romanov's attempting to maintain a crumbling regime.
The reach and coordination of the revolt displayed the capabilities of the sailors.

Ordered Censorship:
Tsar Nicholas II issues a special order to officers of all ranks of both the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets... Forbidding them, under penalty of demotion and dismissal, from discussing political unrest among themselves, with civilians, or even with their own wives. All officers were required to sign a corresponding pledge.

St. Petersburg. November 1912.
Russian mutineers have been executed. Strikes have broken out across the country in protest of the executions. Eleven members of the Black Sea Fleet, recently sentenced to death for inciting mutiny, were executed today in Sevastopol by firing squads from warships. Four hundred naval sailors are being transferred to Reval and Vladivostok. Strikes have been called across the country in protest of the government's actions.

The revolt of 1912 will remain outside of the public consciousness. Romanov's attempting to maintain a crumbling regime.
The reach and coordination of the revolt displayed the capabilities of the sailors. Shaking Tsarism to its foundations.

The end for a brave Admiral

Admiral Chagin

Admiral Chagin... a cunning old veteran of the Russian Navy. Commander Chagin managed to steer the Russian ship "Almaz" to the safe harbor of Vladivostok during the disastrous Battle of Tsushima... Chagin was also among the leaders of the Russian naval forces during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Rewarded with the command of the royal family's yacht "Standart," he received a comfortable commission.

Newspapers shared that the Admiral committed suicide because of a love affair and that the Tsarevich's injuries were accidental and had nothing to do with the Admiral's fateful choice.

And then there was reality... Knowing full well that he would lose his commission... He sat in his chair and reflected on his existence... he remembered his pledge to the Tsar and Tsarina in 1907, when the "Polar Star" ran aground. Tsar Nicholas II asked Chagin if revolutionaries had caused the mishap whereupon the Admiral responded by declaring if ever a revolutionary boarded the ship he would blow his brains out.

Chagin knew that it was through his hand that the revolutionaries had secured enlistment into the ship's crew, albeit by forging documents...
There was no doubt who was responsible for the breach.

Then the admiral filled the barrel of his revolver with water and put the barrel in his mouth...He pulled the trigger, blowing his brains out, as he promised.
A tragic ending for Admiral Chagin...


In the year 1905 the Tsarist regime deemed maltreatment and poor rations to have motivated the sailors to rebel. Tsar Nicholas II refused to believe the sailors were disloyal. In a short twelve years the waves that tore at the Romanov foundation had finally triumphed.

The idea held within the Sailors Revolutionary Manifesto calling for a Cooperative Commonwealth was headed to fruition.
The sailors would ensure social change through its strength and were ready to work with and believe in the enlightened minorities. Unfortunately the enlightened minorities would fail to rise to the historical moment.

All that and more will be explained in;
Chapter 4 -1917 Freedom and Dignity

The next chapter, Chapter 3, the author takes an aside and introduces the reader to Pavel Dybenko, where he is from, who he was and how his path took him to becoming the leader of the sailor's movement for freedom and dignity.

Pavel Dybenko and the Sailors Quest during Revolutionary Russia Chapter One -Gestation

    In search of a cooperative commonwealth!

The Rise and Fall of the Russian Revolutionary Sailors 

and Their Leader...
Pavel Efimovich Dybenko.

For all our loved ones whom we miss.

The following attempts to ensure historical justice for Pavel Dybenko, the sailors, and the Russian people, who considered the Great October Revolution truly the "dawn of a new era." 

Distancing themselves from the notion that by supporting the Great October Revolution, one supported Lenin.

Chapter One: Gestation

A time of troubles and upheavals

Russians in the grip of the Romanov dynasty

In 1905–1907, a wave of mutinies rocked naval bases in the Baltic, Black Sea, and Far East, involving the crews of 22 ships and more than 20,000 sailors.

From 1906 to 1915,
5,757 sailors were convicted of plotting mutinies.
Among them:
169 were executed by hanging,
1,032 were exiled to hard labor,
1,744 were imprisoned in various correctional facilities for varying terms,
20 were locked up in fortresses,
876 were imprisoned in a naval prison, and others were exiled and sent to civilian prisons with various types of punishment.

One life, one kopeck.

In the first months of 1905... Uprisings in the Baltics, Baku, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other regions shook the Tsarist regime to its foundations. Even some of the Tsar's most trusted officials breathlessly admit that the Tsar has lost his way. Dissent is not limited to workers, peasants, and others... but also to the Tsar's most loyal subjects... the highest officials in his government.

January 22, 1905

Tsar Nicholas II's uncle, Grand Duke Vladimir, holds the post of military commandant in the St. Petersburg district.

Russian Grand Duke Vladimir

It was he who commanded the troops on the day that later became infamous as "Red Sunday"...
Thousands of unarmed Russian citizens: men, women, children... led by Father Gapon, marched to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the Tsar... all of them were like-minded in the glorious and fiery phrase:
"Russia must and will be free."

The restless Tsar Nicholas II

May 1905

An article appeared in the Quarterly Review, and then another in National Review, titled simply "The Tsar"...
Parts of both articles quote the testimony of someone who knew the Tsar closely, presenting the views of his close associate, who reveals what many Russians already knew:
"the sun of Romanov rule was beginning to set."

July 1905

The rebels tell the story of the uprising on the Black Sea, the uprising took place on the battleship Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky, the leader of the uprising was Matyushenko, according to the Parisian magazine Le Journal.

Conversation with Matyushenko

"You mad creature," Pogovnets interrupted him, "you've forgotten that on July 5th, the entire fleet's crews were supposed to mutiny. The order hadn't been given to everyone yet. You started too early. They won't support us."

In 1905...sailors of the Tsarist fleet issued a statement;

"Revolutionary Manifesto"

"Comrades, do not lose heart! Not all is lost. The rotten tsarist government has not crushed everything in our fleet.
There are still people who honorably bear the glorious banner of social justice.
Do not lose heart, comrade sailors!
Do not lose courage, be bold. Do not lose courage and with all the strength and might of which you are capable, continue your great struggle for our noble cause - the liberation of the people from the yoke of tsarism! Let us be like tempered steel... Let our hearts feel neither mercy nor pity for our worst enemies in this struggle... A knee on the chest and a hand on the throat - let this be our motto!

Friends sailors, this time we were unable to prevent the Russian government from arresting our comrades, but we must avenge them. The Russian tsar will again be washed in the blood of the people, but the cause of freedom will not die.
No! Life itself is on our side. It pushes us to fight against autocracy.

No tsar can contain or control the raging ocean of popular anger. The time is not far off when, in a liberated Russia...free from tsarism...the sailors will engage in their final battle...a battle against the tsarist social order and move toward a healthy cooperative commonwealth.

July 1905.

Professor Reisner of the University of Berlin, a native of Russia, asserts that the naval mutinies were caused not by poor food, but by the revolutionary agitation that had been going on in the navy for years. According to the professor, the sailors cannot be classified as mutineers and murderers, but rather as heroes willing to sacrifice their lives for their country.
Professor Reisner added:
"The greatest mistake of the Russian government was that it turned the army into a political party supporting absolutism against the will of the people."

St. Petersburg July 1905

The Rotten System in the Navy. "Fear," says the Captain, "is the only basis for discipline in the army and navy, and it will prove as poor a tool for maintaining the loyalty of rank-and-file soldiers to the throne as it is for suppressing discontent among the people. The government must learn the lesson that the soldiers and sailors are beginning to awaken, just as the people have awakened.  

Revel July 1905. 

Fearing a new rebellion, the authorities of Revel ordered the confiscation of weapons of the sailors on the cruisers Minin and Kremlin.

cruisers "Minin"

cruisers "Kremlin"

The official version cites serious discontent among some warship crews over the quality of food supplies.
The officer responsible for this situation was arrested.

August 1905.

The sailors of Kronstadt revolt!
At night, residents of St. Petersburg could see a bright light emanating from Kotlin Island.
"The skies reflected the glow of smoldering fires."

September 1905.

The sailors were punished...sent to the Far East.
A thousand sailors who participated in the uprisings in Libau and the Black Sea were transferred to the occupation army in the Far East.

October 1905.

Another senseless act of cruelty occurred.
A march of many Russian citizens—workers, students, women, and children—was demonstrating in memory of January 22, or Bloody Sunday.

Without warning, Colonel Min brutally and mercilessly shot the demonstrators and threatened to burn down the Technological University with the students inside.

November 1905.

The sailors of Sevastopol have rebelled!

The latest reports from Sevastopol indicate that the mutineers forced the officers and crew of the cruiser Ochakov to abandon ship. The crews of the battleships Rostislav and Tris in Sulataly are known not to have mutinied. However, one reserve battalion joined the mutineers. Several companies of the Vlinsky Regiment arrived in Sevastopol from Feodosia.

The Sevastopol Uprising (November 1905), led by Lieutenant Schmidt, was an armed rebellion of Black Sea Fleet sailors and soldiers of the Sevastopol garrison, dock workers, and the Marine Plant.
The uprising was suppressed, and for his role in the putsch, Lieutenant Schmidt was executed on March 6, 1906, on Berezan Island.

Lieutenant Schmidt Petr Petrovich

Vladivostok. November 1905.

A tragic incident occurred at the camp on Cape Churkin, where an officer who struck a sailor with a sabre because the latter did not salute him... was pursued by his fellow sailors to the officers' club... Hand-to-hand combat ensued, resulting in the death of four officers...


December 1905/January 1906.

Barricades on Presnya, 1905. Black-and-white photograph of a painting [preliminary sketch?] by Ivan Vladimirov (ru: Vladimirov Ivan Alekseevich, 1870–1947), depicting the December 1905 uprising in the Presnensky district of Moscow. Collection of the Moscow Museum of Contemporary History (former Museum of the Revolution).

Odessa. April 1906.

Death to Lieutenant Schmidt and the rebel allies

Memorial service for Lieutenant Schmidt and his comrades

In memory of Lieutenant Schmidt.

Lieutenant Schmidt led the largest and most organized uprising to date.
Although this uprising was suppressed that same November, it demonstrated to the tsar and his naval leadership that they faced a very serious task. Following the uprising, 1,611 sailors were arrested, 11 were executed, including Lieutenant Schmidt, 107 were exiled to hard labor, and 226 were placed in various correctional facilities for varying terms. Of these, 18 were sent to a disciplinary battalion, and 25 were imprisoned.

Sevastopol. July 1906.

Admiral Skrydlov

Admiral Skrydlov shares the fleet is threatening more rebellion.

It is expected today, 2,500 sailors from all the warships will present a draft addressing certain economic demands. 

Moscow January/August 1906

Former Colonel, now General Min... several months earlier, ordered the merciless murder of many residents of St. Petersburg who had participated in an honorary procession in honor of those who had called upon the Tsar for a better Russia. General Min would now deal with the so-called freedom fighters in Moscow. Having agreed to pardon... General Min would mercifully hang thousands of surrendered rebels at the entrances to Moscow... he did just that... so that everyone could see the wisdom of what happens when someone raises a fist against the Tsar!

General Min

St. Petersburg. August 1906. Arrests are on the rise. Repression in Russia is becoming increasingly brutal. Key members of all trade unions are in custody.Leading members of all trade unions worked among the Kronstadt sailors. Female university students were among those detained during the mutiny.

Zinaida Konoplyannikova

On August 26, 1906... she was brought to trial for the murder of General Min, the leader of punitive actions and atrocities committed against rebellious Russian citizens during and after the Moscow uprising of 1905-6.

Zinaida Vasilievna argued in front of her judges that in order to challenge the power of the Romanov rule and destroy the existing social structure and its dominant absolutism, an armed force would be required. 

"I see clearly that the autocratic and bureaucratic superstructure rests on the armed force of the government and is able to maintain itself only through the constant practice of bloody terror on the part of those who steer our ship of state. And life itself has taught me this: you cannot create anything new without first destroying the old; if you cannot pierce an idea with a bayonet, you cannot resist the force of the bayonet by relying only on an idea."

The hope of Russia was placed within the will of the sailors.

Even President Wilson acknowledged:

Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States

“Revolutions do not happen overnight; 

revolutions accumulate over centuries; 

revolutions happen because of the long suppression of the human spirit; 

revolutions happen because people know they have rights 

and that they have been cast aside.”

Revel. August 1906. 

The sailors of the "Memory of Azov" revolt!

Revel. August 1906. 

The execution of seventeen sailors who participated in the uprising on the steamship "Memory of Azov" and their final refuge in the waters of the Baltic Sea.

The sailors write a plea,

WHERE ARE YOU, TSAR?

Corpses wander in the depths of the sea.

The splashing green waves carry them, their hands clasped tightly behind their backs.

Their faces are covered in salty, tarry sackcloth. Their

uniforms are stained with black blood.

These are the sailors of Kronstadt.

Their hearts are pierced by soldiers' bullets, and the commander ordered them thrown into the water.

In the gray fog, the shoreline is visible, its outlines painted against the dark sky, and there, above the water, rests the beautiful royal palace of Peterhof.

Where are you, Tsar?

Come out to us from behind your stern guards, see these bloody wounds that have appeared on our chests!

Cease your fear, you are our "father," and we are "your faithful children..."

We asked you for bread, and you gave us lead; parental affection was a whip for us.

October 1906

The Russian elite seek changes in governance.
Count Witte authors 

"The October Tsarist Manifesto of the Tsar"

Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte

Grand Duke Nicholas was quoted as saying, "that he would present the document to the Tsar, if the Tsar refused to sign, the Grand Duke would shoot himself in the presence of the Tsar".

Grand Duke Nikolay Nicholivitch

Odessa. August 1907.

Tsar Nicholas II is furious! He fears a new rebellion! An urgent inspection of the entire Russian fleet and fortresses has been ordered!

Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov II

Saint Petersburg, 1907

The authorities began to perceive the navy as a kind of powder keg under the very foundations of Russian statehood.
Defense Minister Roediger remarked: "Currently, the navy is not an element of strength, but rather a threat to the state. National security requires its elimination…"

Russian Defense Minister Alexander Roediger

We leave the story here, noting in the second chapter the sailor's of the Tsar's fleet embolden themselves and begin the decade long struggle toward 1917.