# Valery Sablin

Captain 3rd Rank Valery Mikhailovich Sablin (Russian: Вале́рий Миха́йлович Са́блин) (1 January 1939 – 3 August 1976) was a Soviet Navy officer and a member of the Communist Party. In November 1975, in response to what he claimed was rampant corruption and stagnation in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, he led a mutiny on the Soviet anti-submarine frigate Storozhevoy (Russian: Сторожевой, tr. Storoževoj, meaning "Sentry") in an attempt to start a Leninist political revolution. His mutiny failed and he was executed for treason nine months later.
The Storozhevoy mutiny inspired the Tom Clancy novel The Hunt for Red October, which was adapted into a 1990 film of the same name.

## Early life

Valery Mikhailovich Sablin was born on 1 January 1939 in Leningrad as the son of Mikhail Petrovich Sablin, who was also a Naval officer. Sablin studied in Frunze Naval Institute in 1956 and was graduated on 1960. Sablin also joined the CPSU in 1959. Having received the specialty of a naval artilleryman, in December 1960, Sablin began serving in the Northern Fleet as an assistant to the commander of the 130-mm gun battery of the Skory-class destroyer Ozhestochenny. On November 2nd of 1961, Sablin was transferred to a new duty station as the commander of the artillery fire control group on the newest Kotlin-class destroyer Svedushchiy.
He was never afraid to openly express his opinions. In 1962, when he was 23, he wrote a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, outlining his thoughts on the purity of the party ranks and requesting him to "rid the Communist Party of sycophants and corrupt elements." Sablin was lucky to avoid serious discipline, instead being reprimanded and having his first promotion delayed for almost a year. Sablin continued to serve in the Northern Fleet in as an assistant commander until 1969, where he entered the Lenin Military-Political Academy and studied there. He then graduated with honors in 1973 with his name engraved on a marble plaque among the names of other top graduates of the academy. Captain Nikolay Cherkashin, one of Sablin's colleagues, recalled:
   He had always thought globally… He tried to deeply understand social phenomena. He was a natural politician.

## Naval career

After graduating from the academy on 29 June 1973, Captain 3rd Rank Sablin then was appointed as a political officer on the Destroyer Bditelny of the 128th Brigade of the 12th Division of missile ships of the Baltic Fleet. However, while Sablin was on post-academic leave, the political officer Captain-Lieutenant Podraikin from an Burevestnik-class missile frigate Storozhevoy (which was part of the 128th Brigade) was dismissed from the ship for drunkenness. Thus, upon arrival in Baltiysk on 13 August, Sablin was appointed to Storozhevoy to replace him.
The Storozhevoy was still a new ship, its crew was just being formed. The officers had a lot of work, and Sablin did not yet have the opportunity to implement his plan to use the warship as a "tribune" from which a signal could be given by radio to begin changes in the country.
In October 1974, the Storozhevoy went to Rostock to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic. After returning from Rostock, the crew of Storozhevoy was supplemented with personnel, and on 1 January 1975, as part of a detachment of ships of the Baltic Fleet, the Storozhevoy went on combat duty in the Mediterranean Sea with a subsequent call to Cuba. During the combat duty, Sablin studied the crew and gradually acquainted some of its members with his views and ideas, finding like-minded people among them. On May 1st of 1975, the ship returned to Baltiysk. Following the combat duty, Anatoly Potulny (the captain of the Storozhevoy), and Sablin were awarded the Order for Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR, 3rd Class.

## Mutiny on the Storozhevoy

Sablin's opportunity to act came in the autumn of 1975, when the Storozhevoy was sent to Liepāja for scheduled repairs, but before that it received orders to take part in a naval parade in Riga dedicated to the 58th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
On 6 November, the Storozhevoy arrived at the Riga roadstead and moored at the designated mooring buoy. Where it was ordered to remain until the morning of November 9th, after which it would proceed to Liepāja for repairs. On 8 November, at about 11 P.M, Sablin told his captain Potulny that there were some sailors that needed to be disciplined for being drunk on duty in the lower deck. But when they arrived at the lower deck to investigate, Sablin led the captain into entering an unused cargo hold and locked him inside. Thus, Sablin effectively took control of the ship. After that, he gathered 15 senior officers in the midshipman's wardroom. There, a vote was held among the 15 officers present. Having previously armed himself with a loaded pistol, he explained his views and plans. In particular, he announced that the leadership of the USSR had abandoned the Leninist principles and explains about the social inequalities between the lives of party officials, who lives in lavish lifestyles by using their power for personal gains while the majority of regular Soviet citizens and workers were still far lagged behind. Eight officers voted in favor of the mutiny. The remaining seven officers who voted against the mutiny were detained.
Then Sablin gathered the ship's crew and announced that most of the officers were on his side. He also encouraged the rest of the crew to support him. Sablin's plans were disrupted by the ship's electrical engineer, Senior Lieutenant Firsov, who managed to leave the ship unnoticed at 2:55 A.M. Firsov, who voted in favor of the mutiny, only used the vote to slip away and alert the port garrison about the situation on the ship, thereby depriving Sablin of the time advantage. After all, everyone knew that the ship had to go for repairs, and the ship's departure from the port should have aroused any suspicions. After Firsov's escape, Sablin began to act quick. Sablin immediately led the ship out of the port and directed it toward the exit from the Gulf of Riga under the cover of the darkness.
Sablin's plan was to take the ship from the Gulf of Riga north into the Gulf of Finland and to Leningrad, through the Neva River, mooring by the decommissioned cruiser Aurora (the symbol of the Russian Revolution), where he would protest by radio and television to the public against the rampant corruption of the Brezhnev era. He planned to say what he thought many were saying privately: that the revolution and motherland were in danger; that the ruling authorities were up to their necks in corruption, demagoguery, graft, and lies, leading the country into an abyss; that the ideals of Communism had been discarded; and that there was a pressing need to revive Leninist principles of justice. Sablin was a strong believer in Leninist values and considered the Soviet system to have essentially "sold out".
When the Storozhevoy cleared the mouth of the Gulf of Riga, ten bombers and reconnaissance airplanes, accompanied with thirteen warships were in pursuit. Several attempts to force the ship to surrender by the pursuing vessels were made, but Sablin reluctantly refused their orders. So the pursuers fired a number of warning shots across her bows. Several bombs were dropped in front of and behind the ship. Then a bomb impacted the Storozhevoy's stern and the steering was damaged and she eventually came to a stop. As pressure from the bombardment and the imminent failure of the mutiny intensified, the sailors freed Potulny and the rest of the captive officers. They went up to the bridge, shot Sablin in the leg and then shouted orders to the pursuing vessels through the radio: "Cease firing! We have regained control of the ship!". The injured Sablin and his supporters were detained. Not long after, the pursuing vessels finally closed in and the Storozhevoy was boarded by Soviet marine commandos without any serious resistance from the mutineers. Leningrad was still 400 miles away.
Upon return to port, Sablin was brutally beaten, and imprisoned by the KGB. While in custody he was starved, tortured, interrogated and provided only minimal medical attention. He was subsequently charged with treason, court-martialled in June 1976 and found guilty, being sentenced to death by firing squad. His second-in-command during the mutiny, Alexander Shein, received an eight-year prison sentence. All of the senior officers (even the ones who voted against the mutiny) were demoted and dishonorably discharged. The rest of the mutineers were freed.

## Death and legacy

Sablin was allowed to meet his wife and son for the last time on 18 July 1976, and his father two days later on 20 July. They received no subsequent news on him, leading his father to write a letter to KGB chief Yuri Andropov on 7 January 1977. Sablin's father died a few weeks later, never finding out the fate of his son. It is unknown if the letter ever reached Andropov, but the KGB subsequently sent death certificates of Sablin to his younger brother and wife between February and March 1977. The document left out the cause and place of death, but stated that Sablin had died on 3 August 1976. In the intervening seven months, his personal effects were reportedly destroyed and KGB representatives claimed they were under no obligation to inform his relations of his death until they received the letter of inquiry from his father. He was presumably executed in Lefortovo Prison, but his remains were never returned to his family and his final resting place remains unknown.
In 1994, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation reviewed the sentences with a possibility of posthumous rehabilitation. The court partially rehabilitated Sablin rather than fully exonerating him and Shein (who had by that time served his sentence). Sablin was cleared of the charge of treason, but was instead found guilty of charges related to insubordination and actions exceeding his authority.

## Reports of the mutiny in America

The Kremlin did not want news of the uprising to spread and was therefore willing, perhaps even prepared, to present it to world public opinion as an attempted defection to Sweden – contrary to Sablin's intentions. The Gulf of Riga can be left northward only through a narrow passage between the Estonian islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa and the mainland. A ship making for Leningrad from Riga that wishes to avoid such confined conditions must initially head west toward the Swedish island of Gotland. Sablin steered this course, which could give the mistaken impression that the Storozhevoy was heading to Sweden or even NATO-member Denmark instead of Leningrad. Until the end of the Cold War, American intelligence believed that the crew had planned to defect.
Gregory D. Young was the first American to investigate the mutiny as part of his 1982 Masters thesis Mutiny on Storozhevoy: A Case Study of Dissent in the Soviet Navy, and later in the book The Last Sentry by Young and Nate Braden. The thesis was placed in the United States Naval Academy archives where it was read by Tom Clancy, then an insurance salesman, who used it as inspiration to write The Hunt for Red October.

## Quotes

   Trust the fact that history will judge events honestly and you will never have to be embarrassed for what your father did. On no account ever be one of those people who criticise but do not follow through their actions. Such people are hypocrites—weak, worthless people who do not have the power to reconcile their beliefs with their actions. I wish you courage, my dear. Be strong in the belief that life is wonderful. Be positive and believe that the Revolution will always win.
   I am convinced that a revolutionary consciousness will catch fire among our people.