Mutiny of the ship's commander
40 years ago, 8 November 1975, Captain Valery Sablin raised an uprising on the Watchdog ship. On that day, Sablin addressed the crew with the words: “The current state apparatus must be thoroughly cleaned and partially dumped stories. Action plan - we go to Kronstadt, and then to Leningrad - the city of three revolutions. ” He isolated the captain of the ship, voluntarily removed the ship from the raid in Riga and took him to Leningrad. The uprising suppressed immediately.
Valery Mikhailovich Sablin was born on January 1, 1939 in Leningrad in the family of the hereditary sailor Mikhail Sablin. In 1960 he graduated from the Leningrad Higher Naval School named after Frunze. He received the specialty of a ship gunner and began his service in the North navy as an assistant commander of a battery of 130-mm guns of a destroyer. Until 1969 he served in combat posts and from the post of assistant commander of a patrol ship of the Northern Fleet entered the Lenin Military-Political Academy. He graduated from the Academy in 1973 with honors: his name was embossed on a marble board among the names of other best graduates of the Academy (in November 1975, he was hastily cut down with a chisel). After graduating from the academy, Captain III rank Sablin was appointed political officer on the large anti-submarine ship Watchdog.
Sablin has developed a detailed program for the reorganization of society. Sablin was distinguished by high political activity and already wrote to Khrushchev, expressing his thoughts about the purity of the party ranks. He advocated a multi-party system, freedom of speech and discussion, changing the order of elections in the party and the country. He announced his program, pointing out serious mistakes and disintegration of the Soviet leadership, the officer decided from the “tribune” of the BOD Watchdog.
However, Sablin could not immediately realize his plan. The ship was new, the crew was just being formed. The officers were loaded with work. In the course of combat service, the commander-in-chief studied the crew and gradually acquainted some of its members with his views and plans, and found like-minded people among them. Sablin had an opportunity to speak in the fall of 1975, when the ship was sent for scheduled repairs in Liepaja, but before that he received an order to take part in a naval parade in Riga, dedicated to the 58 anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Some officers of the ship went on vacation, their absence was in the hands of Sablin.
November 6 The Watchdog 1975 arrived at the Riga raid. November 8 1975 about 19 hours Sablin cunning lured and locked the ship commander Anatoly Potulny on the lower deck. After that, he gathered 13 officers and 13 midshipmen in the midshipman mess-room, where he outlined his views and suggestions. In particular, he said that the leadership of the USSR had departed from Leninist principles. Sablin proposed to make the unauthorized transfer of the ship to Kronstadt, to declare it an independent territory, on behalf of the crew to request the leadership of the party and the country to give him the opportunity to speak on Central Television outlining their views. According to another version, Sablin planned to lead the ship to Leningrad, stand on the raid near Aurora and from there daily go on air, calling on citizens of the USSR for the communist revolution, to change the Brezhnev party-state apparatus and establish social justice.
Sablin offered to vote for his proposals. Part of the officers supported him, and 10 opposing were isolated. In fact, officers and warrant officers (even those who did not agree with Sablin in everything to the end) allowed Sablin to seize the ship. Allowed by their non-resistance, their withdrawal from the course of events, their consent to the arrest. Then Sablin assembled the crew of the ship and spoke before the sailors and foremen. He announced that most of the officers were on his side, and suggested that the crew also support him. Disoriented crew did not resist. In fact, one resolute and active person subjugated the entire crew to his will. He could have been prevented by the captain, but Sablin skillfully isolated him from the crew.
The lieutenant’s plans were violated by the commander of the electrical group of the ship, Senior Lieutenant Firsov, who managed to quietly leave the Watchtower and report on the emergency. As a result, Sablin lost the element of surprise. He took the ship out of the port and sent it to the exit from the Gulf of Riga.
Vice-Admiral Kosov ordered the ships stationed on the Riga roads to catch up with the rebel. Reports of emergency on the "Watchdog" immediately were sent to the Ministry of Defense and the Kremlin. An alarm bell found the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov in the country; on the way to Moscow, he got in touch with his country's minister of defense, Marshal Grechko, from his car. The order of the Minister was brief: "Catch up and destroy!"
On alert, border guard ships and the Baltic Fleet, as well as the 668th bomber, were raised aviation regiment. Then, by order of Marshal Grechko, a regiment of strategic aviation took off - long-range missile carriers Tu-16. The border guards asked for permission to demolish the wheelhouse along with Sablin from machine guns, but Kosov did not allow it. The Watchtower was warned: at the intersection of the 20th meridian, a missile strike would be launched on destruction.
On November 9, on the morning of 10, Admiral Gorshkov radioed an order to the Watchtower: “Stop the course!” Captain Sablin refused. Marshal Grechko repeated the order on his behalf. Instead of answering, Sablin broadcast the appeal: “Everybody! Everybody Everyone! .. "Ship radio operator at the end of the text added from himself:" Goodbye, little brothers! "
The Watchdog was stopped in the Irbensky Strait by Soviet Su-24 bomber, which damaged the ship. After that, the sailors freed the captain. He climbed to the bridge, shot Sabin’s leg and restored command of the ship. Then a boarding group was landed on the deck, arresting the wounded instigator of the uprising. Sablin and his supporters were arrested. All the blame for what happened Sablin immediately took over, without naming anyone as accomplices.
The Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court accused Sablina of treason against her motherland and sentenced her to death. The investigation announced that this entire political program was developed only to deceive future comrades-in-arms: in fact, Sablin did not intend to lead the ship to Leningrad, but to the Swedish island of Gotland, where the naval commander intended to ask for political asylum in the United States. Accusations of treason and an attempt to hijack a warship abroad, Sablin categorically rejected. Captain 3 rank Valery Sablin and several others involved in the rebellion, were deprived of titles and awards. Sablin was shot 3 August 1976 year in Moscow.
In 1994, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation revised the case of Sablin "taking into account the new circumstances" and re-qualified it from "treason to the motherland" to articles on military crimes (excess of power, disobedience and resistance to the authorities), which together changed the sentence to 10 years imprisonment . He was refused posthumous rehabilitation.
Sablina’s virtually individual rebellion was a kind of “bell” that warned the leadership and society and eventually predicted the death of Soviet civilization. An honest and determined man challenged the system, trying to show its flaws leading to collapse. Indeed, after Stalin, the USSR irreversibly led to death. During the reign of Khrushchev, the Stalinist project of creating a society of creation and service was hacked to death, Trotskyism prevailed without mass repressions and voluntarism, the surrender of positions to the West began. Under Brezhnev, political stagnation, an attempt to preserve something from Stalin’s legacy, while preserving underground Trotskyism. A general decomposition began, although economics, science, and military science were gaining momentum by inertia.
The rotting of the USSR began, the corruption of souls, which during the "perestroika" will be sold for jeans and a pack of gum. The fleet is a subtle and complex structure on which any unhealthy social organism immediately responds. The ship is a model of the state in miniature. Fever country - shakes and fleet. Suffice it to recall the uprisings in the fleet since the end of the Romanov empire. It is not surprising that at the time the fleet was at the peak of an accident. The ships were burning, colliding and sinking. In 1974, the year caught fire, exploded and sank the large anti-submarine ship "Brave". A year later, the flames on the huge “Moscow” helicopter carrier began to cloud, submarines were killed. Basically, everything was written off as “negligence of officials”. But this “negligence” had long and dangerous roots that went into an “ideological deficit”. People at the subconscious level felt that the USSR had deprived the ideological rod. Political window dressing, apathy, indifference and indiscriminate drunkenness engulfed society and the fleet itself.
Captain 3-rank Sablin dared to challenge the general degradation. He could not enter by legal means. Therefore, made from the bridge of the ship. “I was a liberal for a long time,” Sablin wrote in his farewell letter to his wife, “confident that something needs to be slightly corrected in our society, that one or two accusatory articles must be written, something needs to be changed ... It was about 1971 of the year. Studying at the academy finally convinced me that the steel state party machine is so steel that any blows in the forehead will turn into empty sounds ... We must break this machine from the inside using its own armor. From 1972, I began to dream of a free propaganda territory of the ship. Unfortunately, the situation was such that only in November of 75 did a real opportunity arise to perform ... What pushed me to that? Love of life. And I do not mean the life of a well-fed tradesman, but a bright, honest life, which causes sincere joy to all honest people. I am convinced that in our people, like 58 years ago, revolutionary consciousness will break out and he will achieve communist relations in our country. And now our society is mired in a political swamp, more and more economic difficulties and social upheavals will be felt. Honest people see it, but do not see a way out of the situation ... ".
Application. Source: N. Cherkashin. Emergencies in the Soviet Navy. M., 2007.
From Sablin's Appeal to the Soviet People, recorded on magnetic tape (decoding of the investigation bodies of the KGB):
“Comrades! Listen to the text of the speech, with which we strive to speak on radio and television.
First of all, thank you very much for your support, otherwise I would not talk with you today. Our speech is not a betrayal of the Motherland, but a purely political, progressive speech, and those who are trying to hinder us will be traitors to the Motherland. My comrades asked me to convey that in the event of military action against our country, we will adequately protect it. And now our goal is different: to raise the voice of truth.
We are firmly convinced that many honest people in the Soviet Union have a purely critical plan regarding the policies of the CPSU Central Committee and the Soviet Government.
[...] Lenin dreamed of a state of justice and freedom, and not of a state of strict submission and political powerlessness. [...] I think it makes no sense to prove that at the present time the servants of society have already turned into masters over society. On this point, everyone has more than one example from life. We are witnessing a game of formal parliamentarism in the elections to the Soviet bodies and in the performance of their duties by the Soviets. Practically, the fate of the entire people is in the hands of a select elite in the person of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. Comprehensive concentration of power, political, state, has become a stable and universally recognized fact. Especially the fateful role in the development of the revolutionary process in our country was played by the destruction of dissidents during the personality cult of Stalin and Khrushchev. And now, note, also annually arrested before 75 people for political reasons. Lost faith in the existence of justice in our society. And this is the first symptom of a serious illness of society. [...] For some reason, it is believed that the people should be content with the facts and be a politically weak-willed mass. And people need political activity ... Tell me, where, in what newspaper or in radio and television programs is the criticism of the leaders allowed? It is excluded. And we must honestly admit that we do not have a political or public body that would allow the discussion on many controversial issues of the social, political, economic, and cultural development of our country to unfold, since everything is under pressure from party and state bodies. The most advanced social development system in a historically short period of time, 50 years, broke into a social system in which people found themselves in a stagnant atmosphere of unquestioning faith in instructions from above, in an atmosphere of political lawlessness and wordlessness, in which the fear of opposing the party and the other government agency, as this will affect personal destiny. Our people have already suffered and suffer greatly because of their political powerlessness. Only a narrow circle of specialists knows how much harm voluntaristic intervention of state and party organs has brought in the development of science and art, in the development of the armed forces and the economy, in solving national issues and educating young people.
Of course, we can laugh a million times over the satire of Raikin, the magazine Crocodile, the film magazine Wick, but tears must once appear through laughter over the present and the future of the Motherland. It is time not to laugh, but to attract someone to the national court and ask with all the severity for all this bitter laughter. Now in our country there is a difficult situation: on the one hand, with external, official, in our society, universal harmony and social consent, neither give nor take - nation-wide state, and on the other hand - universal individual dissatisfaction with the existing state of affairs. [...] Our performance is only a small impulse, which should serve as the beginning of a surge. [...] Will the communist revolution be in the nature of an acute class struggle in the form of armed struggle or limited to political struggle? It depends on a number of factors. First, whether the people immediately believe in the need for social change. And in that way to them only through the communist revolution. Or it will be a long process of growth of public understanding, political consciousness. Secondly, whether the organizing and inspiring force of the revolution will be created in the near future, that is, a new revolutionary party based on a new advanced theory. And, finally, how violently the tops will resist the revolution, drown it in people's blood, and this largely depends on which side the troops, police and other armed units take. We can only theoretically assume that the availability of modern media, communications and transport, as well as the high cultural level of the population, the great experience of social revolutions in the past, will allow our people to force the government to abandon violent counter-revolutionary measures and direct the revolution along a peaceful path of development. However, we must never forget that revolutionary vigilance is the basis of the success of the struggle in a revolutionary era, and therefore we must be prepared for various turns of history. Our main task at the moment, when there is no wide network of revolutionary circles all over the country, there are neither trade union, nor youth, nor public (and they will grow quickly like mushrooms after rain), the main task now is to instill in people unshakable faith in the vital necessity of the communist revolution, in that there is no other way, everything else will lead to internal, even greater complications and torment. And the doubts of one generation will still result in a resolution of the next generation, more painful and difficult. This belief in the need for revolution will be the rain that will give organizational shoots.
[...] The question immediately arises - who, what class will be the hegemon of the revolution? This will be the class of the laboring, workers 'and peasants' intelligentsia, to which we refer, on the one hand, highly skilled workers and peasants, and on the other hand, engineering and technical personnel in industry and agriculture. Behind this class is the future. This is a class that will gradually turn into a society without classes after the communist revolution. And who will stand up to this class? What is the social face of the opponent? Management class. He is not numerous, but he has a concentrated management of the economy, the media, finance. On the basis of it all state superstructure is built, and at the expense of it it keeps. The management class includes party and trade union liberated workers, heads of large and medium-sized production teams and shopping centers, who successfully use, without violating, of course, Soviet laws, the socialist economic system for personal enrichment, personal approval in society as a master, by obtaining through state network of additional material and moral benefits. This new system of exploitation through the circulation of capital through the state budget requires more detailed study to expose and destroy. [...]
And, finally, the core issue of any revolution is a question of power ... It is assumed ... that, firstly, the current state apparatus will be thoroughly cleaned, and on some sites it is broken and thrown into the dustbin of history, as it is deeply infected with nepotism, bribery, careerism, arrogant towards the people; secondly, the election system should be thrown at the dump, turning the people into a faceless mass. Thirdly, all conditions that give rise to the omnipotence and lack of control of state bodies on the part of the masses must be eliminated. Will these questions be solved through the dictatorship of the leading class? Sure to! Otherwise, the whole revolution will end with the seizure of power - and no more. Only through the greatest national vigilance is the path to a society of happiness. ” [...]
“Now listen to the radiogram that is supposed to be given to the address of the Fleet command about our performance.
Radiogram addressed to the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy. I ask you to urgently report to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Soviet government that the flag of the coming communist revolution has been raised at the military-industrial complex "Watchtower".
We demand: the first is to declare the territory of the Watchdog ship free and independent from state and party bodies during the year.
The second is to provide the opportunity for one per crew member, according to our decision, to speak on Central Radio and Television during 30 minutes from 21.30 to 22.00 Moscow time daily ...
The third is to provide the Watchdog ship with all kinds of food allowances according to the norms in any base.
Fourth - allow the “Watchdog” to anchor and mooring in any base and point of the territorial waters of the USSR. The fifth is to ensure the delivery and dispatch of the Watchdog mail. The sixth is to allow the radio broadcasts of the Watchdog radio station in the Mayak radio network in the evening.
From the tape transcript by the investigating authorities of the KGB:
“ALL! EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING!
Says a large anti-submarine ship "Watchdog". We are not traitors to the Motherland and not adventurers seeking fame by any means. There is an urgent need to openly raise a number of questions about the political, social and economic development of our country, about the future of our people, requiring collective, national, discussion without pressure from state and party bodies. We decided on this speech with a clear understanding of responsibility for the fate of the Motherland, with a sense of ardent desire to achieve communist relations in our society. But we are also aware of the danger of being physically or morally destroyed by the relevant state authorities or by hired employees. Therefore, we seek the support of all honest people in our country and abroad. And if at the time we specified, the day in 21.30 Moscow time, one of the representatives of our ship does not appear on your TV screens, please do not go to work the next day and continue this TV strike until the government refuses the rude violation of freedom of speech and until our meeting with you.
Support us, comrades! Goodbye",
The wireless telegraphist himself added: “Farewell, little brothers! ..”
Information