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The Last Sentry: The True Story That Inspired the Hunt for Red October
Providing inspiration for Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October , the 1975 mutiny aboard the Soviet destroyer Storozhevoy (translated Sentry) aimed at nothing less than the overthrow of Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet government. Valery Sablin, a brilliant young political officer, seized control of the ship by convincing half the officers and all of the sailors to sail to Leningrad, where they would launch a new Russian Revolution. Suppressed in the Soviet Union for fifteen years, Young (the first American to uncover the mutiny twenty years ago) and Braden finally tell the untold story relying on recently declassified KGB documents as well as the Sablin family's papers. It is a gripping account of a disillusioned idealist forced to make the agonizing choice between working within or destroying the system he is sworn to protect.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
284 pages, Hardcover
First published May 30, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 1, 2023
A small book on the mutiny of the Soviet destroyer Sentry run by its political officer Valery Sablin. As it says with huge font on the cover, this was the inspiration for Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October.
A good book, my only complaint is that the incident itself was so short that the first part of the book was actually Sablins biography, the second part the history and conditions of the Cold war Soviet military, the third part was the mutiny and the last part the cover up and aftermath. So only 1/4 of the very small book is on the mutiny itself.
Still worth a read for those interested in the Soviet military and by default it's Russian successor.
A good book, my only complaint is that the incident itself was so short that the first part of the book was actually Sablins biography, the second part the history and conditions of the Cold war Soviet military, the third part was the mutiny and the last part the cover up and aftermath. So only 1/4 of the very small book is on the mutiny itself.
Still worth a read for those interested in the Soviet military and by default it's Russian successor.
June 12, 2026
This book gives an interesting account of a little-known event: in 1975, Valery Sablin, a political officer instigated a mutiny aboard Storozhevoy, a Soviet navy ship in the Baltic! Not a defection to the USA, like in 'The Hunt for Red October', but an attempt at sparking revolution by a committed (if naïve) communist.
The main events are interesting, but can be well described in just a few short pages. All the context surround the events is perhaps most interesting, and most lacking in other books on the subject. Unfortunately, this account too is seriously flawed.
Within the first few pages we learn not to trust the political and historical analysis of the authors.
Latvia gains independence without any mention of the Bolshevik policy on self determination, Imperialist intervention in the civil war, and home-grown counter-revolution. The history of the Russian Navy is briefly traced through Peter the Great, Potemkin, and Kronstadt, as if these exist on a single straight line. The Cuban Missile crisis is all down to Kruschev, and nuclear non-proliferation to Nixon(!!). And the entire Russian Revolution is given passively, ‘the Tsar abdicated’ etc, without a single worker, soldier, sailor, or peasant in sight.
And, as is all too common, it is hinted that some mystical, eternal problem of the Russian soul, torn between Europe and Asia (or rather liberalism and despotism, but the author is too afraid to say this stupid, racist theory out loud), is at the root of all this trouble.
Not a good start.
To the author’s credit, at least initially, he seems to respect the earnest beliefs of Valery Sablin as a committed communist (which are utterly undeniable). And he does not stoop to the usual explaining-away of the sincere beliefs of soviet people as dogma, fear, acting, stupidity, or some other pseudo-psychological defect.
However, he does not fully understand and appreciate Sablin's beliefs either. He equates Sablin's yearning for communist reform with perestroika (which did nothing to reform away the bureaucracy, and everything to destroy what little of the historic gains of the revolution remained). And he has little sympathy; seeing in Sablin only a naïve or at least misguided idealism.
Later, the author does not hesitate to editorialise all over Sablin’s story, even almost putting ‘corrections' inside Sablin's mouth.
And there is more ‘history’, given as context for Sablin’s views, and yet in such a butchered form that Sablin would surely not recognise a single truthful event. Lenin single-handedly orchestrates a coup (forget millions engaged in two revolutions), the civil war sees Russians fighting ‘among themselves’ (forget 21 imperialist armies), the pesky reds toppled monarchies and instigate the IRA (forget the centuries of oppression which led to mass participation in these events), etc. etc.
If we are to understand the motives of a man, we must not only understand their world as we see it, but also as they saw it. The author does neither, but creates a fictional Sablin that fits their own ideas. They want to maintain Sablin as folk hero while also having a clear anti-communist agenda, and they tread this line very clumsily.
The author’s analysis of the Navy is somewhat better. They explain that in any good Navy (presumably using the US Navy as a benchmark), personnel will only rise to excellence once their basic needs (decent pay, housing, clothing, food) are met. And that mediocre sailors can become outstanding crew with correct leadership. Spoken like a true Leninist!
And the author’s (and contemporary KGB) conclusion, developed in the later chapters, that Sablin’s plan was naïve, is also correct but not in the way they think.
They see Sablin's idea of a renewed communist revolution as utopian. Really, it was only his lack of organisation and planning that stopped his plans from approaching reality.
In just 30 minutes, Sablin convinced 8 high ranking officers to risk their privileges and lives in mutiny. Pilots on pursuit refused to drop their payloads. The tops of the armed forces had long held secret concerns about enlistees having live ammunition. And the Politburo considered the risk of revolution spreading a very real one.
This all shows the fertile ground that existed within the soviet population. But, for all Sablin's studying, he forgets Marx’s important debates with the Blanquists, and Lenin's lessons of party building. One battleship does not make a revolution.
Later in the chapter Aftermath, in dwelling on the fates of the famous battleships Aurora (moored in Leningrad as a museum ship) and Storozhevoy (sold to India for scrap), the authors show they have no sense of proportion in history.
They show no understanding that two equal weights may at one time tip the scales and another time not, based on the fulcrum of historical conditions.
And they are blinded by the ‘Hunt for Red October’ narrative, and the yearning for a liberal anti-red Robin Hood mythology; an anti-communist folk hero Sablin.
Finally, the last chapter descends into the kind of conjecture, misdirection, and blatant lies that characterise the writing of all the less talented anti-communist ‘historians’.
The author now paints Sablin somewhere between Gorbachev and Thomas Jefferson(!) and in direct opposition to the Marx and Lenin that inspired the real Sablin. They even call him a counterrevolutionary!
But it’s perfectly clear in Sablin’s speech (which he planned to deliver to the public) that the aim of the mutiny was to reorient the Soviet Union back on the path of Marx, Lenin, and October; not liberal reform.
His quotes from Lenin and Engels in ‘State and Revolution’ are a clear signal to true Bolsheviks, though the significance should not go unnoticed by any intellectually honest person. Sablin was advocating a revolution against the Bureaucracy, which he calls a new ‘ruling class’, and a return to the dictatorship of the Proletariat.
That the authors don’t acknowledge this is not a mistake or stupidity, but dishonesty. And for the same reason, they burry the text deep in the appendices beneath dry technical details and lists of personnel.
In the same chapter, first-hand witnesses who had spent the last 20 years soberly regretting the futility of it all, are now starry-eyed dreamers who describe Sablin as a hero!
The authors don't even pause to consider the validity of these rose-tinted accounts. Far from it, 1991 gives them their own pair of pink specs that hides the unsightly soviet blotch on world history, and makes the liberal outlook make sense (in their minds at least) once again.
In a final insult to Sablin's memory, the author compares him to other non-political soviet defectors, including one careerist who sold out to the CIA. The details on defectors and mutinies is interesting, but their exact causes and significance varies. Yet the author is only interested in throwing as much material to support his argument, hoping that at least some of it might stick.
Reading the final pages, we see the author’s only interest now is to reframe this story from a post-1991 point of view. One in which the now long-dead Sablin, like a red party card bleached pink from an age in the sun, can be reinterpreted as a liberal, anti-communist folk hero.
The main events are interesting, but can be well described in just a few short pages. All the context surround the events is perhaps most interesting, and most lacking in other books on the subject. Unfortunately, this account too is seriously flawed.
Within the first few pages we learn not to trust the political and historical analysis of the authors.
Latvia gains independence without any mention of the Bolshevik policy on self determination, Imperialist intervention in the civil war, and home-grown counter-revolution. The history of the Russian Navy is briefly traced through Peter the Great, Potemkin, and Kronstadt, as if these exist on a single straight line. The Cuban Missile crisis is all down to Kruschev, and nuclear non-proliferation to Nixon(!!). And the entire Russian Revolution is given passively, ‘the Tsar abdicated’ etc, without a single worker, soldier, sailor, or peasant in sight.
And, as is all too common, it is hinted that some mystical, eternal problem of the Russian soul, torn between Europe and Asia (or rather liberalism and despotism, but the author is too afraid to say this stupid, racist theory out loud), is at the root of all this trouble.
Not a good start.
To the author’s credit, at least initially, he seems to respect the earnest beliefs of Valery Sablin as a committed communist (which are utterly undeniable). And he does not stoop to the usual explaining-away of the sincere beliefs of soviet people as dogma, fear, acting, stupidity, or some other pseudo-psychological defect.
However, he does not fully understand and appreciate Sablin's beliefs either. He equates Sablin's yearning for communist reform with perestroika (which did nothing to reform away the bureaucracy, and everything to destroy what little of the historic gains of the revolution remained). And he has little sympathy; seeing in Sablin only a naïve or at least misguided idealism.
Later, the author does not hesitate to editorialise all over Sablin’s story, even almost putting ‘corrections' inside Sablin's mouth.
And there is more ‘history’, given as context for Sablin’s views, and yet in such a butchered form that Sablin would surely not recognise a single truthful event. Lenin single-handedly orchestrates a coup (forget millions engaged in two revolutions), the civil war sees Russians fighting ‘among themselves’ (forget 21 imperialist armies), the pesky reds toppled monarchies and instigate the IRA (forget the centuries of oppression which led to mass participation in these events), etc. etc.
If we are to understand the motives of a man, we must not only understand their world as we see it, but also as they saw it. The author does neither, but creates a fictional Sablin that fits their own ideas. They want to maintain Sablin as folk hero while also having a clear anti-communist agenda, and they tread this line very clumsily.
The author’s analysis of the Navy is somewhat better. They explain that in any good Navy (presumably using the US Navy as a benchmark), personnel will only rise to excellence once their basic needs (decent pay, housing, clothing, food) are met. And that mediocre sailors can become outstanding crew with correct leadership. Spoken like a true Leninist!
And the author’s (and contemporary KGB) conclusion, developed in the later chapters, that Sablin’s plan was naïve, is also correct but not in the way they think.
They see Sablin's idea of a renewed communist revolution as utopian. Really, it was only his lack of organisation and planning that stopped his plans from approaching reality.
In just 30 minutes, Sablin convinced 8 high ranking officers to risk their privileges and lives in mutiny. Pilots on pursuit refused to drop their payloads. The tops of the armed forces had long held secret concerns about enlistees having live ammunition. And the Politburo considered the risk of revolution spreading a very real one.
This all shows the fertile ground that existed within the soviet population. But, for all Sablin's studying, he forgets Marx’s important debates with the Blanquists, and Lenin's lessons of party building. One battleship does not make a revolution.
Later in the chapter Aftermath, in dwelling on the fates of the famous battleships Aurora (moored in Leningrad as a museum ship) and Storozhevoy (sold to India for scrap), the authors show they have no sense of proportion in history.
They show no understanding that two equal weights may at one time tip the scales and another time not, based on the fulcrum of historical conditions.
And they are blinded by the ‘Hunt for Red October’ narrative, and the yearning for a liberal anti-red Robin Hood mythology; an anti-communist folk hero Sablin.
Finally, the last chapter descends into the kind of conjecture, misdirection, and blatant lies that characterise the writing of all the less talented anti-communist ‘historians’.
The author now paints Sablin somewhere between Gorbachev and Thomas Jefferson(!) and in direct opposition to the Marx and Lenin that inspired the real Sablin. They even call him a counterrevolutionary!
But it’s perfectly clear in Sablin’s speech (which he planned to deliver to the public) that the aim of the mutiny was to reorient the Soviet Union back on the path of Marx, Lenin, and October; not liberal reform.
His quotes from Lenin and Engels in ‘State and Revolution’ are a clear signal to true Bolsheviks, though the significance should not go unnoticed by any intellectually honest person. Sablin was advocating a revolution against the Bureaucracy, which he calls a new ‘ruling class’, and a return to the dictatorship of the Proletariat.
That the authors don’t acknowledge this is not a mistake or stupidity, but dishonesty. And for the same reason, they burry the text deep in the appendices beneath dry technical details and lists of personnel.
In the same chapter, first-hand witnesses who had spent the last 20 years soberly regretting the futility of it all, are now starry-eyed dreamers who describe Sablin as a hero!
The authors don't even pause to consider the validity of these rose-tinted accounts. Far from it, 1991 gives them their own pair of pink specs that hides the unsightly soviet blotch on world history, and makes the liberal outlook make sense (in their minds at least) once again.
In a final insult to Sablin's memory, the author compares him to other non-political soviet defectors, including one careerist who sold out to the CIA. The details on defectors and mutinies is interesting, but their exact causes and significance varies. Yet the author is only interested in throwing as much material to support his argument, hoping that at least some of it might stick.
Reading the final pages, we see the author’s only interest now is to reframe this story from a post-1991 point of view. One in which the now long-dead Sablin, like a red party card bleached pink from an age in the sun, can be reinterpreted as a liberal, anti-communist folk hero.
March 27, 2019
The true story of The Hunt for Red October.Makes me appreciate not being born in a communist country
December 19, 2018
I enjoyed it. While it's about the life of Valery Sablin, it covers much more than just that. The book discusses civilian and military living conditions in the USSR. I delves deep into what life was like for Sablin and the motivators behind his actions and the legacy he left.
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June 27, 2024
September 29, 2025
Was an interesting read. A lot of info leading up to and afterwards of the mutiny. More of a biography of the mutiny leader Sablin.
September 20, 2015
More a biography of Valery Sablin than a narrative of the mutiny (although it does have that, too). The compelling and sad story of an idealist who stood up and fought for what he thought was right. The book is an easy, short read, with plenty of background material so it should be accessible to general readers as well as military history buffs.
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April 18, 2012Nice to know where the story came from.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews