6/25/2023 0 Comments Mutiny marine“Enough of Golikov drinking our blood!” Matyushenko bellowed to his fellow sailors. When Golikov called out the ship’s marine guards-a sign that he was prepared to resort to a firing squad-a few of the conspirators broke rank and took cover at a nearby gun turret. After threatening the men with death, Golikov gave a simple order: “Whoever wants to eat the borscht, step forward.” Many sailors lost their nerve and complied, but the hard-liners stubbornly held their ground. He and his short-tempered first officer Ippolit Gilyarovsky both suspected the protest was tied to revolutionary factions lurking in the bowels of the ship, and they were determined to single out the ringleaders for punishment. When lunch came and Potemkin’s crew ignored the vats of borscht, Captain Yvgeny Golikov had them line up on the main deck. The Potemkin mutineers-Afanasy Matyushenko is in the center-left in the white shirt. Led by Matyushenko and Vakulenchuk, they resolved to protest by refusing to eat the tainted food. The Potemkin’s 763-man crew was left seething with rage. The sailors complained to their officers, but after an inspection by the ship’s doctor, the meat was deemed suitable for consumption. That morning, a group of conscripted crewmen discovered that the beef intended for their lunchtime borscht was crawling with maggots. The trouble began on June 27, a few days after the ship set sail from Sevastopol to conduct practice maneuvers. The mutiny was scheduled to begin in early August aboard the fleet flagship, but events conspired to see that Potemkin took the starring role. After commandeering all the navy ships in the Black Sea, the conspirators would enlist the peasant class in a revolt that would sweep Czar Nicholas II from the Russian throne. Their audacious plan called for the rank and file to rise up and strike a concerted blow against the officers. In early June 1905, he and Potemkin crewman Grigory Vakulenchuk joined with other disgruntled sailors in plotting a fleet-wide mutiny. ![]() One of the Potemkin’s lead radicals was Afanasy Matyushenko, a fiery quartermaster known for railing against the brutal discipline of navy life. ![]() Many navy ships were teeming with revolutionary sentiment and animosity toward the aristocratic officer class. Morale in Russia’s Black Sea fleet had long been at rock-bottom lows, spurred on by defeats in the Russo-Japanese War and widespread civil unrest on the homefront. ![]() The Potemkin uprising was sparked by a disagreement over food, but it was anything but accidental.
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