AT 8 A.M., Matyushenko took a launch across the unusually calm harbor waters and struck out alone across the barren port. He had one thousand rubles stashed in his pocket—charity for Gilyarovsky's wife and a ploy to survey the city for the attack. Other sailors could have gone, but Matyushenko rarely delegated dangerous assignments, and he wanted to see the positions of the troops himself. It was June 18, the mutiny's fifth day, and the Potemkin now had allies to help force General Kakhanov into submission and carry the revolution to land.
Confidently, he ascended the Richelieu Steps. Bloodstains were still clear on the cobblestones from the slaughter two nights before. A company of soldiers stationed at the top of the steps watched with curiosity as this lone unarmed sailor headed toward them as if he ruled the city. Their officers made the first move, stepping forward to see who he was and why he had come. Matyushenko explained he wanted permission to send some money to his former commander's family as a gesture of goodwill.
Uncertain if this was possible, they sent a soldier to ask General Kakhanov. Taking a seat against the Richelieu statue to await an answer, Matyushenko brusquely asked for a light of his cigarette from the regiment's colonel, a request whose impudence he knew would have normally landed him in jail. Instead, the colonel obliged him. While he waited, Matyushenko observed Primorsky Boulevard and the adjacent streets, noting troop positions and the location of the commander's palace. He also managed to speak to a few soldiers, discreetly inquiring whether they were behind the sailors. The soldiers told him that their regiment and several others would come to their side once the bombardment began.
Several minutes later, a staff general approached and agreed to deliver the money. He looked none too pleased to be speaking to, let alone taking requests from, this ordinary sailor.
"May I have a receipt?" Matyushenko asked. The insult was obvious.
The general bristled at the suggestion that he might take the money himself, but then dashed off a note that he had accepted the rubles and would send them according to the sailor's request. Matyushenko suspected that the two battleships standing in the harbor were enough of a reason for the general to swallow his pride. Then Matyushenko returned to the port and stepped aboard the launch that was waiting for him. On his way to the Potemkin, he carefully sketched out what he had seen on Primorsky Boulevard. The sailors would need to know troop positions for the attack on Odessa that night.
By 10 A.M., the sun disappeared behind the slate-gray clouds of an approaching storm. In his cabin, Lieutenant Kovalenko was jotting down in a diary the events of the past few days when Dymchenko entered, with a worried look on his face.
"What's happened?" Kovalenko asked.
"Several people just came from the St. George," Dymchenko said, perched on the sofa's edge. "The crew's divided. Some insist on sailing to Sevastopol to start talks with Chukhnin. They say the Potemkin can do as it pleases."
"This is the work of the petty officers," Kovalenko said.
"Without a doubt."
"We have to go there straight away."
They left Kovalenko's cabin to discover that Matyushenko and Kirill had already prepared a launch to go to the St. George. Matyushenko, who chastised himself for not dealing with this problem earlier, wanted the petty officers arrested, but Koshuba believed that if they tried this now, the battleship would surely erupt into further division. Instead, he wanted speakers from the Potemkin to convince the crew to stay the course in Odessa. Skeptical, Matyushenko agreed to this line of action.
Along with several sailors, Kirill and Kovalenko volunteered to go. As the launch was prepared to cast off, Dr. Golenko rushed to Matyushenko, who now planned to stay on the Potemkin, asking what was happening. Before Matyushenko finished explaining the unrest on the St. George, Golenko asked to go to that ship as well, saying he could attend to any sick sailors on the battleship since their doctor had gone ashore. Although Golenko had not previously involved himself much in political actions, he had proved helpful to the mutineers as a doctor, and this kind of gesture would further the solidarity between the two battleships. Matyushenko waved him aboard.
When the launch arrived, boatswain Kuzmenko blocked their path to the St. George's quarterdeck, to keep them from further influencing the crew. "Our crew no longer wishes to remain with the Potemkin" he said. "They want to leave for Sevastopol."
"Allow us to speak to the crew," Kovalenko said, forcing him aside.
On the quarterdeck, he found the situation much more perilous than he had suspected. The crew argued among one another as to what they should do; some nearly came to blows. Kirill jumped onto a pile of lumber, an impromptu podium from which to address the sailors. His voice, weakened as it was, was easily drowned by shouts of "No more words from the Potemkin!" and "We won't listen. Enough. We're going to Sevastopol."
"We'll stay with the Potemkin Koshuba yelled, trying to rally the sailors. "We won't leave them alone. Any cowards who want to go to Sevastopol can step ashore and walk."
A cacophony of voices erupted on the quarterdeck. No particular side sounded as if it was winning, and the sailors looked for someone to lead them. They noticed Kovalenko and Golenko. Soon the uproar shifted to a call for the officers to speak.
"Comrades ... comrades ... comrades," Kovalenko yelled, replacing Kirill on the lumber pile and motioning with his hands for the crew to settle down. They calmed down as he spoke. "Yesterday was the most remarkable day since the beginning of the Potemkin uprising. Yesterday we gained a powerful ally in the St. George. We welcomed your decision to join us, hand in hand, to fight the tsar.... But now, barely a night has passed, and you're wavering. Some among you want to go to Sevastopol, but aside from your surrender, what outcome do you expect from Chukhnin? Did you voluntarily join us yesterday only to betray us the next day? What kind of evil spirit has spread the seeds of doubt in your soul? What confuses you? Is our fight not righteous?"
The crew remained silent as Kovalenko embraced the words of revolution in a way he had never done before. "Comrades, our cause is righteous because we fight against a government that started a pointless, destructive, and shameful war for its own pleasure. We fight a government that answered the humble requests of the St. Petersburg workers with a shower of bullets and a government that leads to the gallows the defenders of the people's rights. So, comrades, power and truth are on our side. Let us be strong, and with our battleships, rush to the help of the people. Long live the rule of the people! Long live freedom and justice!"
For a few moments, the crew was unanimous, calling out, "We won't go to Sevastopol. We won't leave the Potemkin? Kovalenko stepped down, eyeing Kuzmenko, who was obviously shocked by hearing these words come from an officer.
Then a St. George sailor stood forward, breaking the temporary spell cast by Kovalenko. "If the Potemkin doesn't want to join us, we can find our own way to Sevastopol. If they want, they can follow."
Kirill shouted, "Why go to Sevastopol?"
"We'll anchor out at sea and start negotiations with Chukhnin!"
"Are you going to negotiate how to bring Golikov and Gilyarovsky back from the sea?" a Potemkin sailor retorted.
"No," Kirill answered for them. "They're going to ask forgiveness and crawl before Chukhnin in surrender."
The St. George sailor retreated into the clusters of men. Still there was no consensus. Surprisingly, Golenko then clambered onto the pile of lumber. Kovalenko urged the doctor to come down, fearful of what he would say.
"I'm the son of a peasant," Golenko began, undeterred by Kovalenko. "I care about what happens to every one of you. But if you go to Sevastopol, what will you demand? That the borscht be cooked better or that you be allowed ashore more often?"
The crew had no response.
"Comrades, there's too much injustice in Russia. I joined you to demand that everyone be equal. You can see for yourselves the kind of injustice that exists. We must eradicate it."
The doctor's short but pointed speech brought numerous nods of agreement from the crew. After he stepped down, a petty officer renewed the call to surrender the battleship, but the enthusiasm for this course of action had waned, now that the crew questioned what was to be gained by pleading with Vice Admiral Chukhnin. Koshuba then promised the sailors they would take no further action until they convened again with the Potemkin. This placated them further.
Golenko slipped off to speak with boatswain Kuzmenko and several petty officers. "I can't stay on the Potemkin anymore," he told Kuzmenko. "They'll shoot me, one way or another." Knowing that Ensign Alekseyev's passive resistance had proved useless and that the Potemkin would soon shell Odessa, Golenko had resolved to launch a counter-mutiny. His speech to the crew had won their trust, which he would need later, in order to act against them. Kuzmenko and the petty officers accepted the doctor's offer of help, and they plotted how to take back the battleship.
With the dissent on the St. George settled, at least temporarily, all those from the Potemkin returned to the launch. Nobody had noticed Golenko's brief absence. As they climbed down the ladder into the boat, Kuzmenko leaned over the railing and said, "Our committee shouldn't go to the Potemkin again. There's nothing for them to do there. By noon, we will weigh anchor."
"Watch yourself," Kirill said, pointing to the anchor chain, "or you'll find yourself at the bottom of the sea along with that anchor."
The launch cast off. Koshuba and several other St. George leaders followed in another boat to the Potemkin, to report on the heightened dissent among the crew. Matyushenko listened impatiently. They had come too far to be delayed by a few petty officers on the St. George who were more loyal to the tsar than to the ranks of sailors from which they themselves had risen. The joint committee agreed to send another group to the battleship, this time with an armed guard. They would arrest the traitors and bring them to the Potemkin. No more half measures.
It was clear that the St. George's crew also needed some inspiration, but the problem was whom to send. Days of speaking on behalf of the revolution, often over the clamor of engines or in smoke-filled rooms, had ravaged Matyushenko's voice. Kirill and Feldmann, both compelling speakers, were hoarse as well, incapable of shouting down a boisterous crew. Furthermore, several other good agitators had gone to meet with Kakhanov and obtain provisions and coal. This left Koshuba and his fellow St. George revolutionaries to rally their own crew.
Then, for the second time that day, Dr. Golenko volunteered, this time to lead the armed guard and speak to the sailors again. The committee hastily deliberated. Those favoring him, the majority, said the doctor had chosen to stay aboard when he could have left with the other officers; he had presented himself well earlier on the St. George; and the sailors would respect his authority as an officer. Only Kovalenko, who could not go again because he needed to prepare the battieship for the potential bombardment of the city, voiced serious concerns. He argued that the doctor was the one who had first approved the rotten meat bought in Odessa and that he had abandoned the Potemkin for the Vekha during their first confrontation with the squadron. Could he be trusted now? But Kovalenko's concerns did not sway the ship's leaders. They had little choice but to send Golenko now; he would be accompanied by two Potemkin committee members who would guarantee that he would do as told. The doctor would go, it was decided.
After they left, the delegation that brought the ultimatum to Kakhanov returned to the Potemkin. General Kakhanov had refused them. Despite the threat of two battleships in the harbor, he agreed to send only a package of medical supplies. With Cossacks patrolling the shorelines, preventing any further deliveries to the Potemkin, Kakhanov was obviously spoiling for a fight. The sailors agreed to give him exactly that if he failed to change his mind by evening. They would no longer wait twenty-four hours.
A crew led by Kirill commandeered a coal barge in the port, and the Ismail towed it alongside the battleship. After two sojourns out to sea during the confrontation with the squadron, they needed to replenish their supplies. Unaware of the strife on the St. George, most of the Potemkin crew cheerfully loaded the coal into the hold, the sailors' white jerseys turning black from the dust. They appeared united as never before. The sight heartened Matyushenko and his fellow leaders. Once they were finished and the armed party had been sent to the St. George rid their sister battleship of its petty officers, the combined might of the two battleships could be turned on Odessa to free the people. Lulled into overconfidence after success against the squadron, they were blind to how tenuous were the ties that bound their revolutionary squadron.
In the late afternoon, a light rain began to fall when port official Romanenko, "a red-nosed man with the typical Bourbon profile," as Feldmann described him, pulled alongside the Potemkin in a cutter flying a white flag. Romanenko came aboard to inform the sailors that he had brought some provisions. He also offered to facilitate negotiations between the sailors and General Kakhanov. Something about his manner and convoluted descriptions of the state of the city gave the sailors the impression that he was stalling for time, but they neglected to confront him on it.
By 4 P.M., with Romanenko still on board and an hour after the armed guard had left with Golenko, Matyushenko began to get nervous about the St. George. The Potemkin delegation had yet to signal once with an update. Nonetheless, when the St. George's decks cleared, he and everybody else thought it was because of the worsening downpour. At first.
When Dr. Golenko revisited the St. George, he called the crew together on the quarterdeck to inform them of the Potemkin's decisions: first, every petty officer on the St. George was to be arrested; second, the two battleships would shell Odessa into oblivion that evening. Golenko offered no explanations, as if the decisions had come as fiat from the Potemkin superiors. As he suspected, the sailors reacted angrily to his remarks. Some insisted they would not shell the city nor turn over any of their crew because the Potemkin had so ordered it. Boatswain Kuzmenko and his co-conspirators had obviously succeeded in stirring up resentment against the Potemkin on the St. George.
Then Golenko made his move. "Most of the Potemkin crew wants to end the mutiny.... But they're afraid of the revolutionaries. The St. George must serve as an example, weighing anchor and sailing to Sevastopol."
Koshuba and the armed guard could barely believe the doctor's words. For a few seconds, they were too dumbstruck to stop him.
"I'll personally defend, before the Black Sea Fleet command, anyone who helps end this mutiny," the doctor promised.
Finally, Koshuba and the two Potemkin committee members tried to grab Golenko, but he escaped into the crowd of sailors. Confusion reigned on the quarterdeck; nobody was quite sure what was the truth or whom to follow, exactly as Kuzmenko had planned. While Golenko spoke, a petty officer raised the anchor until it was only several feet below the water, still hidden from the Potemkin's sight. Several others took command of the engine room and disabled the rifles in the armory. Kuzmenko headed to the bridge, where he ordered a battle alert. The decks cleared.
Koshuba screamed, "Kill the traitors!" He and other revolutionary sailors moved to stop the counter-mutiny, threatening to throw overboard anyone who helped the petty officers. The sailors ignored their threats, and the revolutionaries found that the weapons in the armory had been rendered useless. Their hold over the crew had always been tenuous at best, and the sudden confusion caused by Golenko and the organized resistance of the petty officers gave the counter-mutiny the upper hand. A pair of Potemkin sailors tried to escape to get help, but they were arrested and thrown into a cabin.
Kuzmenko received a message that the anchor was raised. He gave his orders to the engine room: full speed ahead.
A sailor ran into the Potemkin's wardroom, nearly knocking Matyushenko over in his rush to report that the St. George had weighed anchor. Romanenko explained that the battleship was probably taking up the slack on its anchor chain. Matyushenko pushed him away from the door, and the rest of the committee followed him onto the deck to find the St. George steaming past the Potemkin's starboard side, out to sea. Then they received a signal from the escaping battleship: "Going to Sevastopol. We invite the crew of the Potemkin to follow."
Matyushenko could not believe what he was seeing; he was at a loss for what to do. By his side, Nikishkin yelled, "Action stations! To the guns, comrades!"
Hundreds of sailors ran to their positions. "Hurry up! Raise the anchor!" some cried out. Others yelled, "There's no time. Stay the anchor and fire! We'll teach these cursed cowards!" Gathering his senses, Matyushenko sprinted to the bridge and, to buy some time while they cast off the coal barge, signaled the St. George: "I see you clearly. Wait fifteen minutes. We will go to Sevastopol together." Meanwhile, Romanenko, who had been sent by Kuzmenko to distract the Potemkin's crew, slipped off the battleship. He had more yet to do.
Kuzmenko ignored the Potemkin's message, leading the battleship out of the harbor. Koshuba and his comrades tried again to gain access to the engine room and bridge, but they were pushed back with rifles, hopelessly outnumbered.
"Heave to and anchor at the same location," Matyushenko then signaled. Still the St. George drove forward, faster with each minute. An alarm rang throughout the Potemkin. The sailors cleared the decks, finally untied the coal barge, and raised the battle flag over the bridge. Their twelve-inch guns turned slowly on their mounts. A sailor by Matyushenko urged, "We can't let them give up the ship like this. We've got to teach the cowards a lesson." His words were superfluous: Matyushenko intended to destroy the ship if it did not stop. He signaled again. "I shall fire." Several seconds passed. The gun crews held their breath, waiting for the order.
On the St. George, the sailors spotted the battle flag and balked at the sight of the gun turrets aimed at them. They demanded Kuzmenko turn around the battleship before they were sunk. Knowing they could not escape to Sevastopol without a fight, the boatswain gave the order to slow the battleship. Then he sent a message to the Potemkin: "I am going back to place." Dr. Golenko, terrified that Kuzmenko was about to return to the Potemkin's side, rushed the bridge himself, shrieking, "Brothers! This is treason. Push that boatswain overboard." But the terrified petty officers refused to listen.
As the St. George swung back into the harbor, the Potemkin's crew yelled at their gunners, "Don't shoot, comrades. It's coming back. It turned back." The crew left their positions, crowding the quarterdeck and shaking their fists at their fellow sailors their betrayal.
Then the St. George veered directly toward the Potemkin. On its decks, sailors scrambled back and forth, confused about what was happening. Suddenly Kuzmenko shifted course again, heading now toward the port. He followed the small cutter that Romanenko commanded. The St. George moved at full steam once again.
"Look, they're turning toward the port," sailors hollered on the Potemkin. The had no idea what the St. George had planned next. "Order them to stop! Order them to stop!"
Havoc overcame the Potemkin; sailors were crying for action but were unsure what to do. The St. George maintained its course straight into Odessa's port; its enormous screws were churning the ever-shallower water. Some on the Potemkin thought the battleship was out of control, but Kuzmenko knew exactly what he was doing. Romanenko was guiding him. A minute later, the St. George shuddered. Sailors were thrown from their feet as the battleship's bow ran aground on the shoals near Platonovsky Wharf. It turned almost ninety degrees to port before stopping.
On the Potemkin's bridge, total chaos reigned. Matyushenko ordered the signalman to send a message to the St. George to heave to or they would fire. Hearing these instructions, Ensign Alekseyev fell to his knees, hysterically muttering, "More blood. I can't take it anymore. Free us, dear God, to the shore." The signalman informed the bridge that the St. George was permanently beached on the shoals.
While the Potemkin leaders wavered as to whether they would destroy the battleship, Dr. Golenko and the counter-mutineers escaped onto Romanenko's cutter. Afraid that the Odessan military would soon converge on the St. George, Koshuba and his revolutionary comrades released an oar boat into the water and jumped aboard. The armed guard from the Potemkin followed on another boat.
The Ismail was sent to meet the launches halfway back to the Potemkin. "The doctor's a traitor," Koshuba yelled as the Ismail neared. "He betrayed the St. George'."
News of this treason devastated the Potemkin's, crew and fueled even more panic. Their mightiest ally against the tsar had abandoned them. "What do we do now?" yelled one sailor. "Sink the St. George! Send them a package of bombs," some furiously demanded. "We should go to sea," said others. "To Sevastopol to surrender," a petty officer suggested. But drowning out the many divergent cries came the shout, "To Romania! To Romania!"
Standing on the bridge, Matyushenko cursed the St. George. At the moment the crew of the Potemkin should have been planning the assault on the city, they had been betrayed. Their days of waiting for the squadron, their triumph in winning another battleship to their side—all were for nothing now. Several boats carrying soldiers were already cutting toward the St. George, whose guns could now be turned to defend Odessa against the Potemkin. As Matyushenko considered their next move, he heard increasingly loud and impassioned demands to head for Romania, an idea that he knew had been spread by those opposed to the mutiny. The hope of the squadron coming to their side, then the alliance with the St. George, had decreased the attractiveness of that option. But now, with their spirits crushed, the sailors were easily swept away by the desire for an easy surrender rather than a continuing fight.
The crew began to chant, "Romania! Romania!"
Kirill and Feldmann attempted to silence them. "Brothers, comrades," they pleaded, "what are you on about? You're turning against the cause—"
"What are you leading us into?" A sailor interrupted them. "Do you want to see us drowned like sheep?"
Although fear gripped the crew, Matyushenko refused to listen to any call for surrender. Even so, chances of success in Odessa were limited. The sailors could attack the St. George with their guns. They could fire on Odessa again to try to force General Kakhanov to accept their demands. Either action meant that many, many would die. Moreover, given that the Potemkin now found itself without another battleship at its side, nor much of a connection with the city's revolutionaries, their actions might be for nothing.
Vakulenchuk had always cautioned Matyushenko not to be at the mercy of his tempestuous urge to strike out in hatred against the tsar. He must think first. "Don't throw it away," his friend had said, in his final words to Matyushenko. He had always pushed him to do whatever was necessary to realize his revolutionary ambitions. But the cost of using the full force of the Potemkin's guns was too great, Matyushenko reasoned, for a revolution that was supposed to be in the name of the people. He could not lead the sailors to commit this kind of bloodshed.
Although he hated retreating to Romania, Matyushenko agreed to head to its port city, Constanza. There they could obtain more provisions and fuel and then focus on a new plan to serve their cause. Once the crew settled down, he and his fellow revolutionaries could convince them that capitulation was the wrong path. But for now they needed to follow the call to leave Odessa. The committee agreed, and Murzak gave the order to prepare the battleship to leave. The Potemkin signaled the Vekha to take on as much coal as possible from the barge and then follow.
As the battleship cleared the harbor, with the Ismail by its side, Kirill and Feldmann pulled Matyushenko aside. "How come you want to go to Romania?" Kirill shouted. "Don't you see the shame of it?"
Burdened with a decision he never wanted to make, Matyushenko spat out, "If you're frightened for your own skin, I can send you ashore." Then he walked away.
The shores of Odessa soon disappeared. Night fell a few hours later, and the sailors were alone again on the Black Sea. The stars overhead and the pale moonlight cast across the water were the only signs that they had not abandoned the harbor for some black oblivion. While heading southwest toward Constanza, steaming slowly to conserve coal, each crew member contemplated the events of the past few days and the grim future.
In the wardroom, Koshuba made a frantic appeal to change direction toward Sevastopol. "This is what we'll do, brothers. We'll get close to Sevastopol and land one hundred determined fellows. We'll stuff their shirts full of cartridges, and by night they will fall upon the sentry and enter the town. Then we can make our way into the fortress, disguised as government troops. There, we'll arrest the officers and proclaim an insurrection." The foolhardy, though bold plan was dismissed. The crew was set on Constanza.
The Vekha struck a further blow to their morale when it ignored the Potemkin's repeated wireless telegraph messages. After a few hours, it became clear that its crew had betrayed the battleship as well. The dramatic turn of events within the past twenty-four hours left the sailors exhausted and dispirited, particularly in contrast to their frame of mind the night before, when they had returned to Odessa, painting in their minds beautiful pictures of the revolutionary squadron bringing the tsar's regime to its knees.
Looking out into the emptiness of the sea, Kirill and Feldmann despaired together. "It appears that we're lost," Feldmann sighed.
"There's nothing else for us," Kirill agreed. "But until we see that all is utterly lost, we must fight on. And it's not clear yet that all is lost."
With nothing left to say, they each thought about the fact that they might never see their hometown of Odessa again. It was likely they would die in the coming days.
Kovalenko could barely stand the terrible flight from Odessa, either. The crew's hopes had been upended so swiftly, and he was also worried about the men's low morale, fearing that the "dark forces" that had taken over the St. George might also find similar success on the Potemkin. Bearing the weight of the revolution without another battleship at their side might prove too great a responsibility for the crew.
A disheartened silence fell across the battleship. Some sailors thought they had fled Odessa like cowards. Others believed they had been helpless to do anything else, but now that they were alone, they were more helpless still. "What now?" was the question on everyone's mind. The journey to Romania, one sailor felt, reminded him of a dying man barely hanging on to life.
The only voice heard on the Potemkin that rang hopeful, strained though it was by overuse, came from Matyushenko. He walked about the battleship, reassuring the crew that there was no reason to be discouraged. Late that night, he entered the wardroom, where some of the committee members had assembled to avoid being alone. With a bold mien, Matyushenko told his comrades, "All was not lost, even now." He promised they would revive the crew's spirit and that their journey to Romania was merely a way station in their struggle for freedom.
Heartened by his conviction, the ship's leaders left for the open air of the spar deck. They looked out to the sea, almost as if in the darkness they might see a vision of the future confirming what Matyushenko had said.
In Odessa that evening, Kakhanov negotiated the St. George's surrender. The nightmare that had begun with the Potemkin's arrival four days before was almost over, and he felt triumphant in his saving of the city.
At first, he had thought the St. George's mad dash into the harbor signaled the beginning of the bombardment. While bracing his troops for the attack, he learned that the battleship had run ashore, aided by the courageous effort of the port official Romanenko. Soon after, the counter-mutiny's leaders delivered the St George's flag to Kakhanov. However, the battleship's complete surrender was stalled by the crew's demand for an official pardon before they disembarked. Kakhanov sent General Karangozov to the battleship and was awaiting his response. In case the sailors refused to leave peacefully, Kakhanov repositioned his artillery batteries for a clear shot at the battleship.
The citizens of Odessa waited impatiently as well. The past twenty-four hours had been a tumultuous experience. The night before, Kakhanov had announced that the squadron had defeated the Potemkin and won its submission. But then Krieger's battleships disappeared from the horizon and the Potemkin returned to the harbor with the St. George at its side. Troops still occupied the streets, and the city was shut down for yet another day. The foreign consuls, expecting the worst, instructed their expatriate citizens to leave the city by any means possible. Now the Potemkin had left without firing a shot. In a letter to St. Petersburg, the American consul praised the Potemkin sailors for their restraint in not bombarding Odessa in retribution before leaving. But with the St. George still under its crew's control, the city faced the possibility of a devastating assault.
At 11 P.M., General Karangozov returned to the military headquarters with three sailors from the battleship who wanted to express their regret and plead for Nicholas II's mercy. The St. George crew finally allowed Kakhanov's troops to take over the battleship. The boarding soldiers arrested those suspected of participating in the mutiny. Everyone was led to shore peacefully, except for machinist quartermaster Pavel Gulyayev, one of the mutiny's leaders. While being transferred by ferry, he jumped into the harbor and drowned. Three hours later, General Kakhanov telegrammed Nicholas II, detailing how successful he had been in ending the St. George mutiny. He also told him that the Potemkin was likely on its way to Sevastopol.
That same night, Lenin's representative, Mikhail Vasilyev-Yuzhin, arrived by train at Odessa. He had traveled from Vienna with a fake passport and residence permit (using the name of a famous general's son), passing through border patrols, once even receiving a salute from the guards. He was excited to return to Russia, although his chances of getting on board the Potemkin were limited. All hope was lost when he looked out at the harbor and realized that the battleship was no longer there. He contacted the Odessa Bolsheviks to find out what had occurred and where the Potemkin was heading. They could only guess at its destination. Distraught that he had come too late, Vasilyev-Yuzhin made preparations to take a steamer to the Caucasus port city of Batumi. Given the inroads made by the Social Democrats among its people, it was the obvious base for the sailors. This decision guaranteed that he would never meet up with the Potemkin. The battleship's crew was alone, without help from its fellow Black Sea sailors or any revolutionary political leadership on land.