Neal Bascomb - Red Mutiny: Freedom, Revolution, and Revenge on the Battleship Potemkin

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR RED MUTINY

[An] elegiac and emotionally involving storybeautifully researched[A] high-seas drama as gripping as a novel by C.S. Forester or Patrick OBrian.Bascomb has written a remarkable book about an episode that, once historians get it right, will rank next to Spartacus uprising against Rome and Washington rallying his troops at Valley Forge.

Los Angeles Times

I can pay this superb book no greater compliment than to admit that, despite knowing the outcome, I was genuinely gripped as the dramatic events unfolded. With this brilliant reassessment, Bascomb has restored the extraordinary story of the Potemkin to its rightful place in Russias history.

Sunday Telegraph Book Review

Bascomb has a knack for writing interesting books about events youre not sure youre all that interested in. Now he turns to the mutiny aboard the battleship PotemkinHis book all but throbs with Russia: vodka, fiery rhetoric, aristocratic snobbiness, peasant resignation, Russian glory, Russian shame and all the rest of the stuff that made Dr. Zhivago such a good movie.

St. Louis Post Dispatch

Bascomb presents the gripping events of June 1905 with sharply focused immediacy and a flair for high drama In his capable hands, this powerful morality play vividly reminds us never to underestimate a handful of people willing to die for an idea Bascomb recounts the unfolding events in a believable and authoritative voice History at its best: readable, dramatic, and propelled by unforgettable principals.

Kirkus, starred review

You might at any moment be carried off to warfare So said a revolutionary seeking recruits to a mutineers cause in June 1905. Inhaling RED MUTINY, I was indeed carried off to war at every moment. Neal Bascomb has reached back through 100 years of fog and propaganda to find truth, history and an old-fashioned great read.

Sherry Sontag, Blind Mans Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage

Neal Bascombs Red Munity is a riveting, impeccably researched and completely riveting account of the first act of the first Russian Revolution of 1905 a cliff-hanging tale of rebellion and dissent that became symbolic and emblematic of the events that ultimately led to the overthrow of the Russian monarchy in 1917. Dramatically and vividly told, it is must reading for anyone interested not only in Russian history, but in all the momentous upheavals of the 20th century.

Peter Kurth, Anastasia and Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra

As gripping as a good novel. This is an outstandingly good book.

Times of London (paperback review)

In his fascinating new book, Bascomb sweeps away the simplistic, sanitized myths surrounding the mutiny to reveal all the complexity, excitement and significance of those 11 fateful days. Bascomb tells the story of the mutiny with a masterful touch and perfect pacing.

Seattle Times

After a tautly vivid rendering of the mutiny, Bascomb writes of the 11 days that follow. [His] account is both thrilling and judicious. With a wealth of detail, he tells of the Potemkin anchoring in Odessa, its guns threatening the authorities who were struggling to put down riots and demonstrations. The military commander set a cordon around the port; fires broke out, and when the crowds sought to flee they were massacred on the high steps leading into townThe high point in a book of many excellences.

Boston Globe

Novelistically omniscient and vivid, featuring a busy chorus of disaffected sailors, tyrannical officers, idealistic revolutionaries, and reactionary Romanovs: a grand narrative in search of a modern Eisenstein.

Times of London (hardcover review)

A rollicking good yarn, an energetic, colorful account of 11 days that shook the world.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph

Bascomb has done naval history a great service by delving into hitherto unplumbed resourcesA real page-turnerThe author has woven a rich tapestry through the lives and actions of sailors pressed beyond the bounds of humanity.

Naval History (U.S. Naval Institute)

This is a rich, complex book in the tradition of the grand tale told as legend. Bascombs range is huge, his eye omnipotent, his research impeccable. Bascomb is able through the alchemy of his art to transform history into a living, breathing story. Red Mutiny reads as if these fantastic events were happening for the very first time, with each turn of the page.

Doug Stanton, In Harms Way

Red Mutiny is the compelling story of the arrival of people power on the world scene, an event that transformed the modern world. In Neal Bascombs fine telling, the drama is high, the stakes are higher, and the rewards to the reader are highest of all.

James Carroll, House of War

ALSO BY NEAL BASCOMB

Higher

The Perfect Mile

Hunting Eichmann

The New Cool

The Winter Fortress

The Escape Artists

Faster

Copyright 2007 by Neal Bascomb

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bascomb, Neal.

Red mutiny : Freedom, Revolution, and Revenge on the Battleship Potemkin/ Neal Bascomb.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Publisher: 11th Street Productions

ISBN: 978-1-7367486-1-9

1. Bronenosets Potemkin. 2. Russia History Revolution, 19051907. I. Title. II. Title: Eleven fateful days on the battleship Potemkin. III. Title: 11 fateful days on the battleship Potemkin.

DK264.B37 2007

947.08'3 dc22 2006030210

Book design by Melissa Lotfy

Map by Jacques Chazaud

Photographs courtesy of Central Naval Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Printed in the United States of America

MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.

For My Grandparents,

LESTER AND BETTY LINCK

SUMPTER AND HELEN BASCOMB

Contents