The Mutiny on the Battleship Potemkin

On June 27, 1905, Russian sailors mutiny aboard battleship "Potemkin" and sail for Odessa. From the article:
The mutiny was scheduled to begin in early August aboard the fleet flagship, but events conspired to see that Potemkin took the starring role. The trouble began on June 27, a few days after the ship set sail from Sevastopol to conduct practice maneuvers. That morning, a group of conscripted crewmen discovered that the beef intended for their lunchtime borscht was crawling with maggots. The sailors complained to their officers, but after an inspection by the ship’s doctor, the meat was deemed suitable for consumption. The Potemkin’s 763-man crew was left seething with rage. Led by Matyushenko and Vakulenchuk, they resolved to protest by refusing to eat the tainted food.

The Potemkin mutineers—Afanasy Matyushenko is in the center left in the white shirt.
The Potemkin mutineers—Afanasy Matyushenko is in the center left in the white shirt.
When lunch came and Potemkin’s crew ignored the vats of borscht, Captain Yvgeny Golikov had them line up on the main deck. He and his short-tempered first officer Ippolit Gilyarovsky both suspected the protest was tied to revolutionary factions lurking in the bowels of the ship, and they were determined to single out the ringleaders for punishment. After threatening the men with death, Golikov gave a simple order: “Whoever wants to eat the borscht, step forward.” Many sailors lost their nerve and complied, but the hard-liners stubbornly held their ground. When Golikov called out the ship’s marine guards—a sign that he was prepared to resort to a firing squad—a few of the conspirators broke rank and took cover at a nearby gun turret. “Enough of Golikov drinking our blood!” Matyushenko bellowed to his fellow sailors. “Grab rifles and ammunition…Take over the ship!”

Before the officers could react, Matyushenko, Vakulenchuk and a few others ran to the weapons room and armed themselves. A vicious firefight broke out when they tried to force their way back onto the deck. First Officer Gilyarovsky succeeded in mortally wounding Vakulenchuk, but he and several other loyalists were promptly gunned down and pitched overboard. As the battle raged, Potemkin’s stunned officers found that very few of the ship’s marines and conscripted sailors were willing to come to their aid. Matyushenko and his revolutionaries took advantage of the chaos and fanned out across the ship. After 30 frantic minutes, they had commandeered both Potemkin and the Ismail, a small torpedo boat that served as its escort ship. The surviving officers were rounded up and placed under guard. Captain Golikov was shot dead after he was found hiding in a stateroom.