Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin

by Neal Bascomb, John McDonough (Narrated by)

A pulse-quickening story that alternates between the opulent court of Nicholas II and the razor's-edge tension aboard the Russian Navy ship Potemkin, Red Mutiny is a tale threaded with terrific adventure, epic naval battles, bloodlust, and a rallying cry to freedom that would steer the course of the 20th century. Unabridged. 11 CDs.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Military Fiction, Russian History, Military History, Politics

13 pages, Audio CD

First published April 12, 2007

About the author

Neal Bascomb is a national award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of a number of books, all non-fiction narratives, all focused on inspiring stories of adventure or achievement. His work has been translated into over 18 languages, featured in several documentaries, and optioned for major film and television projects.

Born in Colorado and raised in St. Louis, he is the product of public school and lots of time playing hockey. He earned a double degree in Economics and English Literature at Miami University (Ohio), lived in Europe for several years as a journalist (London, Dublin, and Paris), and worked as an editor at St. Martin’s Press (New York). In 2000, he started writing books full time.

His first book HIGHER was selected for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writer award and was featured in a History Channel documentary. His second THE PERFECT MILE was a New York Times bestseller and frequently ranks as one of the top books on running. His third RED MUTINY won the United States Maritime Literature Award and critical acclaim around the world. His fourth HUNTING EICHMANN was an international bestseller and led to a young adult edition called NAZI HUNTERS that was the 2014 winner of the YALSA Award, Sydney Taylor Book Award (Gold Medal), among numerous others. His fifth book THE NEW COOL was optioned by major producer Scott Rudin for film. His sixth ONE MORE STEP, focused on the first man with cerebral palsy to climb Kilimanjaro and finish the Kona Ironman, was a New York Times bestseller as well.

An avid hiker, skier, and coffee drinker, he is happily settled in Seattle, Washington with his family.

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only Potemkin text an Eisenstein fan will ever need: one to devour.

Footnotes are sacrificed in favour of a mesmerizing "you are there" story which switches from the battleship, to the infuriated Navy Command, back to Constanza, for the Romanian port was just as important as Odessa to the events.
The premeditated nature of the uprising & the timed hunt of the Black Sea Fleet for the ship that outgunned them all stand out as "didn't make it into the movie" elements.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfectly good account of the Potemkin mutiny, probably the book available in English (of recent vintage) on the incident. I must admit that I always have reservations about authors without Russian, or other languages, who also seem to be unaware of the vast literature in the scholarly journals, who write history. The secondary literature the author uses is limited and newspaper archives are not proper original sources for facts.

Neal Bascomb has written a readable but I think superficial account, but it isn't wrong, just limited. When I read it I was not completely taken with its style or superficialities. It left me wanting to know more, whether I ever will is doubtful.

[Ina Cawl · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was the first battle in which non westerns has beaten western country
this was the battle in which the Indian Author Pankaj Mishra has started his book The ruins of empire for the mesmerizing effect it had on non western people psyche
i wish all readers to read this book and further read how non westerns has seen this battle
especially how Asians masses and the future Nationalist Leaders and Revolutionaries has welcomed the outcome of this battle
this was the also the battle which started the beginning of the end for the Tsar Nicholas II Reign to Russia
also the outcome of this battle was the first sign that Japan has come to the first world
and ushered the its imperial horrors which it unleashed on other Asian nations
am really sorry for not talking about the book but i hope my fellow readers to read after this book what Asian thinkers has said about this battle

[Scottnshana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did a study-abroad program in Saint Petersburg when I was in college and, much later in life, I flew repeatedly over the Black Sea in an old Soviet UN helicopter; so I understand not only the Russian Navy's place in history, but the beauty of this particular setting. I think Neal Bascomb has been able to convey both these phenomena in "Red Mutiny", bringing an objective perspective (he's a journalist from Saint Louis) and plenty of historical context to the narrative. He tees up the Potemkin story well, describing in his first chapter an increasingly feeble and out-of-touch Tsar standing on the frozen Neva deep in thought and the humiliating defeat the Japanese delivered the Russian navy at Tsushima (although, a map depicting this watershed sea battle would have been most welcome). Russia, says Bascomb, was "an autocratic state coming apart at the seams," and he begins to list all the calamities that faced it in 1905. He does this, though, having teed up a good description of Nicholas' decisions; this is, after all, a tragedy initiated by a ruler's unpreparedness to take the scepter and it's hard to argue that its end occurred when the Black Sea Fleet reacquired its battleship at the end of this drama. The Tsar's inability to delegate, the nepotism, the ministries' lack of unity, and his "Jesus Take the Wheel" attitude toward governing the world's largest empire all set the stage for popular rebellion when the crops failed, the border provinces got ornery (i.e., Poland and the Baltics), and the Japanese began to humiliate his forces in battle along the Pacific coast. The author takes us to Odessa, where the cops and cossacks are brought in to seal off the burning and looting in the harbor--and the rebellious ideas that caused it--from the rest of the Empire. The effects of the mutiny on the Potemkin not only inspired unrest in Russia, though; the book points out that the governments in Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Britain--obviously, the Japanese Emperor was also interested--were paying close attention to every development and detail. As Robert K. Massey explained in his excellent "Dreadnought", battleships were the most potent weapons in war at the turn of the Twentieth Century, and a group of disgruntled professional sailors menacing ports along the Black Sea Coast with one comprised a potent threat indeed. It is this narrative, though, and what Bascomb has learned occurred inside the mutinous crew, that makes the book so interesting. The ship was reduced to a floating city without allegiance to any nation when the revolution these angry sailors had hoped to inspire along the Black Sea coast fizzled. Like any floating city, though, it was necessary to replenish the fuel, food, and water stocks, and those same Black Sea ports were turning the Potemkin away. When the crew finally hands the ship off to Romania at Costanza, a boatswain says, "This is where we end up, comrades. We're no longer sailors, but free men deprived of their homeland," and this speaks to the fact that each of them had set out on a one-way voyage that could only lead in exile, prison, or death. The rub, though, may actually occur on page 261, when Lenin puts down a copy of Le Matin that he's reading in Geneva and says "One cannot overstate the lack of organization of the revolution. The revolution gains possession of a battleship, an event unique in history, but it does not know what to do with it." Bascomb proves here that he has not only done the research, but that he can do the intellectual heavy lifting by providing some sound observations in his conclusion on why the mutiny failed; its occurrence at the same time that the Russo-Japanese war was tearing the guts out of the Russian military and that Nicholas was considering reforms, he implies, steered Russia toward the 1917 Revolution. At the end of the day, this book is also about Ukraine, and that's pertinent. We all know how Nicholas II's story ended in the cellar at Ekaterinburg, and how Lenin's people attempted to make the Potemkin story their own in the attempt to shore up support for their regime. But this story is also about Crimean naval bases, the Black Sea Fleet, and revolutionaries whose names ended in "-enko". To sum it up, I think this book is well worth the read--the story is not well-known in the West but I can just about guarantee Vladimir Putin and his buds know it; you can bet the folks trying to hold things together in Kyiv do, too.

[David R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing treatment of the 1905 Mutiny. Problems abound but the greatest weakness is the uncritical acceptance of material from the revolutionaries' point of view (as was also the case in the seminal Eisenstein film of 1925.) It is extremely difficult to separate fact from speculation. Not recommended.

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Runaway battleship!

If the story wasn’t real, it would sound terribly far-fetched.

Russian sailors, antagonized by poor treatment, seize control of their country’s most powerful battleship – the Potemkin -- murdering many of ship’s officers and sparking widespread revolt in Russia’s principle seaport of Odessa. That a navy could lose control of its most powerful warship seems inconceivable – almost as inconceivable as the fact that before this book, I had never even heard of the Potemkin mutiny. Thankfully, Neal Bascomb’s Red Mutiny offers a definitive account of the uprising that is not only wonderful world history, rich with detail and nuance, but a tautly written tale with all the tension and twists of a high-action, military-grade thriller.

For historians, Bascomb offers a compelling account of the ills that provoked the mutiny, the burgeoning socialist movement that helped serve as catalyst for the event, and the consequences of the incident which reverberated across the Russian Empire and presaged the coming Russian Revolution. And while Bascomb never loses sight of the overall historical import of this event, he is hardly a stodgy armchair scholar. The sailors’ takeover of the battleship is pulse-pounding and the Potemkin’s subsequent engagements in Odessa, against the Russian Black Sea fleet, and in Theodosia are just as riveting. And this is one of those rare cases where the less you know about the real-life incident, the better; there are plenty of historical twists and turns – from lurking spies to high seas betrayal – that make for some pretty high, historical drama.

I love books about ships at sea, storms and naval engagements. Red Mutiny is one of the best of these tales … a larger-than-life real story … a page-turner from start to finish … delivered by an author who can expertly mix equal parts history with drama to craft a first-rate book. Highly recommended!

[Earl Grey Tea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a high level comprehension of the Russian Revolution before reading Red Mutiny. I had heard whispers of the Battleship Potemkin in the different books and documentaries, but didn't really know much beyond there was a mutiny.

This book presents the events around the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin in a manner that is easy to follow and understand for an average reader. I appreciated the author setting up what was happening in Russia and its navy at this time (see the Battle of Tshushima) that led to this situation. However, the writing style in this book started to blur the lines between a popular history book and a novel.

Historians will never truly know what was said in a conversation unless it is recorded or transcribed. Interviews after an event can provide insights into what was said, but the human memory is fallible. Dialogue in this book is folded perfectly into the narrative, which is good for the reader. However, this makes it seems that the conversation presented on the page was fact, not a summary. While this style does bring the story to life and make it memorable for a general reader, it degrades the book's authenticity in my eyes.

A few people in the comment section of the book point out that this is from the Revolutionary's perspective with themes of good guys versus bad guys. For me, a popular history book should provide an overview of a situation from different perspectives while a novel tends to focus on one person's experience. I am not against learning about one side's perspective in a historical event. However, because of literary choices made by the author, I find this book to be informative and taken lightly, versus an authoritative work.

If someone is unfamiliar with the Russian Revolution and wants to learn more, I would suggest this book. However, if someone is just looking for another popular history book to read, this wouldn't be on my list to recommend.

[Lulu Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wholeheartedly enjoyed reading this, having no prior background of Russian life at the end of the 1800s/start of the 1900. Neal Bascomb describes the background of peasantry life so clearly which helps you genuinely empathise with the sailors (eg Matyushenko and his family sleeping on the kitchen stove in a tiny space with all of their animals).

From swapping narratives from peasant life to the Tsar’s privileged existence from chapter to chapter really highlights the unfairness of how they lived. Initially you see Tsar Nicholas as a bit of a hapless and silly person who can’t help it as that’s just him, but you then compare this floundering to his commanding the fleet dead at all costs, even considering ending the feud with Japan.

You can’t help but resonating with the sailors when hearing the horrors of their day-to-day life, but reading this book knowing that the Russian Revolution is not for about another decade (?) away. As much as you will everyone to survive there is a somber feeling when reading as you know likely anyone you build a connection with will sadly pass away. Although as it was literally in 1905 they would literally all be dead now, you still strive for their survival as though they are people you know of.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm usually quite apprehensive about non-fiction history books because they're usually brimming with technical vocabulary that you have to Google every 10 mins, to get the gist of the plot, which interrupts the flow of reading.

But this recommendation came from my history teacher, who's opinion I highly trust, and it did not disappoint. It exceeded all expectations as it read like fictional thriller. It is slickly and inticingly written whilst still mainting historical accuracy (as far as I'm aware from my knowledge). At times I had to remind myself that what I was reading was NOT fiction and the events really did take place.

The cast of this book is very broad so I'm very glad there was a Dramatis Persone list at the back of the book. (that I didn't find until a good quarter of the way through, but that's my bad for not reading the contents page, oops)

I also loved the tsars perspective showing how he lived blissful ignorance. It was also interesting learning about the details and the inner working of a battleship, I had no idea how vast and complicated it was- it's basically a mini city.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neal Bascomb is my favorite writer of narrative nonfiction and he did not disappoint in this book that had me cheering for the mutineers.

It's a hard task to start a revolution and you see in this account that the hardest thing is keeping people motivated especially in the face of difficulties. I found myself comparing Matyushenko to Moses, whose followers were always yearning to return to Egypt and sometimes ready to kill him and choose another leader to lead them back home. The obstacle to revolution wasn't so much the tsar and the government as it was the very people Matyushenko wanted so badly to help.

Matyushenko comes off very noble in this account and I hope it is a reputation he deserves. If it is, though, it makes it all the sadder that Lenin was able to capture this momentum and use it to usher in a government as repressive as the one Matyushenko gave everything he had to topple.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book described a real event in 1905 where sailors aboard a Russian battleship in the Black Sea mutinied. They hoped to spark mutinies on other ships in the Black Sea and then eventually spread this revolutionary message onto land - and topple Czar Nicholas. Despite the odds against success, the mutineers managed to hold off the entire Russian navy in the Black Sea for 11 days. They finally surrendered to Romania, where they were offered political asylum, after no port in either Russia or Romania would re-supply them with coal, food, and water to continue their struggle. 12 years later, under Vladimir Lenin, the revolution did happen again the Czar was removed and executed, and included mutinies by Russian sailors.

[Kristjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a difficulty in writing about events that happened so long ago, but at the same time there aren't going to be eyewitnesses to contest the account. This is a well-written account that holds the interest throughout. My problem was that I wanted to "root for" the poorly-treated mutineers, but at the same time I felt their cause was somewhat morally ambiguous, especially considering the oppression that followed the Russian Revolution of 1917. The author deals with that at the end, stating that some of the mutineers "died in a revolutionary struggle that resulted in a Russia they would have despised as much as the one they fought against."

[Kevin Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real good look at a very interesting time in World History. Why they took the ship and what became of the Sailors is an interesting side note that you do not hear about to often. I was very surprised to learn about what else was going on in Russia at the time. How all this is tied into rotten meat and a mutiny is just amazing. Men can only be pushed so far before they respond. I had a small difficult time of keeping the names of the major players straight at times. Other than that this was an outstanding book on a major event at the turn of the last century.

[Arthur Salyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read. Talks to the period of time right before the Russian revolution. A group of sailors on the newest most powerful ship in the Czar's navy got fed up with the horrible conditions in the military and in the country in general....took things into their own hands for 11 days. Brave men standing up to bad government. If you like Russian history and unusual events this is for you. At times challenging for me to follow all the characters...although the author has a list that you can refer to.

[Scott Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read several Neal Bascomb books and have always enjoyed his work. This one was interesting and full of really interesting Russian revolution history. He traces some events as the country heads to a revolution. The life of a Russian peasant and soldier was extremely rough. It is understandable how life like it could lead to a revolution.
It is an excellent book if you like this time period. There are times that I thought he was adding facts that did not need to be added but overall an interesting book. But again, only if you are into this time period and this geography.

[Zbyszek Sokolowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neal Bascomb jak zwykle zaskakuje swoją przenikliwością znajomością tematu i sposobem odmalowania tamtych dni.

Rewolucja na Potiomkinie i nie tylko zachwiała caratem. Marynarze sprzeciwiali się upodleniu i wyzyskowi ich i ich rodzin. Najtragiczniejsze w dziejach narodu Rosyjskiego jest to że spod jarzma i terroru, biedy dostali się pod jeszcze gorsze bolszewickie. Czyli dokładnie takie przeciw jakiemu zbuntowani marynarze walczyli a część oddała swoje życie.

[Agatha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Red Mutiny is an account of the mutiny of the battleship Potemkin. The book offers a point of view through the mutineers and their plight for the people. At the same time, Bascomb also gives us a glimpse of the Tsar Nicholas's point of view. I also liked how the author briefly details how the Americans and the rest of the world reported the mutiny in their eyes. Overall, this book was a great read and informs us of the plight of the people to regain a brighter future.

[Mom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know little of Russian history so I have nothing to compare to this look at a mutiny in the early part of the 20th century. Some of the horrid treatment of commoners/peasants/military men illustrates what happens where despots control government. The bravery of the mutineers is amazing even though they have nothing to lose.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first part of the book. It really gave a good understanding of the beginnings of the Russian Revolution. We are often romanced with the Romanoff family, but not how they treated the common people. After awhile I did lose interest.

How did this book find me? I was interested in the subject matter.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit I struggled through this despite enjoying it, it wasn't that it was too dry etc but I just felt momentum dipped in the midst of the book much of which was due to the mutiny kind of starting to run out of steam.
This was a decent book though well presented and explains the events as a precursor to the last days of the Tsars.

[George Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this account of the courageous sailors who seized the battleship Potemkin in protest at the treatment of the Russian civilian population by the Tsar Nicholas II. Ominous forerunner of the Revolution 12 years later.

[Ethan Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reasonably good history, but the descriptions of inner thoughts and emotions of participants can sometimes wax rather melodramatic, and it sometimes feels like that's more of the author coming through than the source material. Still, a good history nonetheless.

[Susan Krich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book to make history come alive.
You feel as if you are seeing it right before your eyes.

[Bryon Agoston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the historical aspects of the story. The story of some of the action wasn’t overly compelling. Overall the book was good and worth the read.

[Roberta Zald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting look into Russian history.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Straightforward narrative of an important event. Nothing on par with Eisenstein.

[Regina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good history of the unrest leading to the Russian revolution as told from the perspective of the mutineers on the battleship potemkin. Poignant often and well written.

[Bill Yancey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subject matter is a lot more daunting than in “The Perfect Mile” but Neal Bascomb makes a good story out of it and clears up my misconceptions about a very historical event.

[David Ahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was too detailed at parts, the author used too many pages to describe insignificant parts.

[Linda Covey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting incident at the beginning of the Russian revolution. Lots of background on what was happening in Russia at the time. Quick read