Soviet frigate Storozhevoy
Encyclopedia
Storozhevoy was a Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
1135 Burevestnik-class anti-submarine
Anti-submarine warfare
Anti-submarine warfare is a branch of naval warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, or other submarines to find, track and deter, damage or destroy enemy submarines....
frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
(NATO reporting name
NATO reporting name
NATO reporting names are classified code names for military equipment of the Eastern Bloc...
Krivak
Krivak class frigate
The Project 1135 Burevestnik class were a series of frigates built for the Soviet Navy. These ship are commonly known by their NATO reporting name of Krivak and are divided into Krivak-I, Krivak-II, and Krivak-III classes.These ships were designed as a successor to the Riga class...
). The ship was attached to the Soviet Baltic Fleet
Baltic Fleet
The Twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet - is the Russian Navy's presence in the Baltic Sea. In previous historical periods, it has been part of the navy of Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. The Fleet gained the 'Twice Red Banner' appellation during the Soviet period, indicating two awards of...
and based in Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
. It was involved in a mutiny
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...
in November 1975.
Mutiny
The mutiny was led by the ship's political commissarPolitical commissar
The political commissar is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education and organisation, and loyalty to the government of the military...
, Captain of the Third Rank Valery Sablin
Valery Sablin
Captain 3rd Rank Valery Mikhailovich Sablin was a Soviet Navy officer and a member of the Communist Party. In November 1975, he led a mutiny on the Soviet warship the Storozhevoy in the hope of starting a Leninist political revolution in the Soviet Union...
, who wished to protest against the rampant corruption of the Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
era. His aim was to seize the ship and steer it out of the Bay of Riga, to Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
through the Neva River
Neva River
The Neva is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length , it is the third largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge .The Neva is the only river flowing from Lake...
, moor by the decommissioned cruiser Aurora, a symbol of the Russian revolution, and broadcast a nationwide address to the people from there. In that address, he was going to say publicly what many were saying privately: the revolution and motherland were in danger; the ruling authorities were up to their necks in corruption, demagoguery, graft, and lies, leading the country into an abyss; the lofty ideals of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
had been discarded, and there was a pressing need to revive the Leninist principles of justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
.
On the evening of , Sablin locked the captain in the forward sonar compartment and seized control of the ship. All of the ship's crew who did not wish to go along with the plan were locked in a compartment below the main deck.
When Soviet authorities learned of the mutiny, upon direct instructions from the Kremlin it was ordered that control must be regained. Thirteen gunboats were sent in pursuit and were later joined by three fighters. After firing warning shots and shell fire, the vessel's steering was damaged and she stopped and was boarded by Soviet marine commando
Commando
In English, the term commando means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means elite light infantry and/or special operations forces units, specializing in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and...
s. All the crew were arrested and interrogated, but only Sablin and his second-in-command, Alexander Shein, a 26-year-old seaman, were tried and convicted. At his trial in July 1976, Sablin was convicted of high treason and shot on , while Shein was sentenced to prison and was released after serving 8 years. The rest of the mutineers were set free but dishonorably discharged from the Soviet Navy.
Fictional references with factual information
The mutiny was one of two incidents which inspired Tom ClancyTom Clancy
Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...
to write The Hunt for Red October
The Hunt for Red October
The Hunt for Red October is a 1984 novel by Tom Clancy. The story follows the intertwined adventures of Soviet submarine captain Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius and CIA analyst Jack Ryan.The novel was originally published by the U.S...
, set aboard the Typhoon-class submarine
Typhoon class submarine
The Project 941 or Akula, Russian "Акула" class submarine is a type of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine deployed by the Soviet Navy in the 1980s...
Red October
Soviet submarine Red October
Red October is a fictitious modified Typhoon class submarine in the Tom Clancy novel The Hunt for Red October and the film which followed. She was built with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system called a "caterpillar drive", which is described as a hydrojet system in the book...
. The other incident was a 1961 defection
Defection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...
, in which a Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
submarine tender
Submarine tender
A submarine tender is a type of ship that supplies and supports submarines.Submarines are small compared to most oceangoing vessels, and generally do not have the ability to carry large amounts of food, fuel, torpedoes, and other supplies, nor to carry a full array of maintenance equipment and...
captain, Jonas Pleškys
Jonas Pleškys
Jonas Plaskus or Jonas Pleškys was a Soviet Navy submarine tender captain born in Lithuania. He died in California, United States....
, a Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n by birth, sailed his vessel from Klaipėda
Klaipeda
Klaipėda is a city in Lithuania situated at the mouth of the Nemunas River where it flows into the Baltic Sea. It is the third largest city in Lithuania and the capital of Klaipėda County....
to Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, not the planned destination of Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...
.
Aftermath
Storozhevoy continued in service until the late 1990s. The crew was changed completely and the ship made extensive visits to foreign ports. She was transferred to the Russian Pacific Fleet and was sold to IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
for scrap.
External links
- http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2002-45-10 (archived version)
- A Leninist Hero of our Times - In Memory of Valery Sablin: The true story of Red October. Alan Woods, London, 12 September 2000.
- http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2004-08-20/6_bunt.html Russian detailed description of mutiny and Yak-28 attacks.