In the first year of World War I, "Andrei Pervozvanny" and "Imperator Pavel I" comprised the battle core of the Baltic Fleet. For most of the war they remained moored in the safety of Sveaborg and Helsingfors. Idle, demoralized enlisted men subscribed to Bolshevik ideology and on took control of the ships in a violent mutiny. The battleships survived the Ice Cruise of 1918, and "Andrei Pervozvanny" later ruthlessly gunned down the Krasnaya Gorka fort mutiny of 1919. After the Kronstadt rebellion the Bolshevik government lost interest in maintaining the battleships, and they were laid up in November–December 1923.