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minutes, following a narrow path that was nearly lost in the underbrush, Matyushenko heard voices and smelled the drift of cigarette smoke through the trees. Finally, he came to a clearing by one of the graveyards on the hill. Over one hundred sailors in white-and-blue-striped jerseys and a handful of men and women in street clothes stood in the clearing, speaking among themselves. This was a secret meeting of Tsentralka, the revolutionary sailor organization. Scattered about the surrounding area, sailors were on the lookout for the police or naval patrols, who were desperately trying to capture any Tsentralka members.
    Vice Admiral Grigory Chukhnin, the Black Sea Fleet commander, had made it clear in speeches aboard each ship that he considered any revolutionaries among his sailors to be a disease like leprosy: they
needed to be cut out before their ideas spread. He ordered frequent, surprise searches of crew quarters, looking for sailors with seditious literature. His officers kept constant watch for secret meetings. Spies and informants were everywhere. Even a ship's priest was discovered trying to flush out those sympathetic to revolution, asking sailors during confession, "And now, my child, who do you feel malice toward ... maybe your officers insult you?" Sailors suspected of revolutionary activities were transferred off battleships to auxiliary ships such as transport or training vessels. Those caught with literature or conducting propaganda campaigns were imprisoned and often sent to hard labor camps.
    For Matyushenko, looking down on Sevastopol from the clearing, this was a risk he accepted in order to fight against the tsar and the type of life forced on him in the navy. The base of the Black Sea Fleet stood in the heavily fortified northern section of the city. While many of the captains lived in private houses, Matyushenko and the others were packed like cattle into poorly ventilated barracks, suffering nightly swarms of bedbugs and rats. The windows were barred and their beds were little better than planks of wood. Latrine pipes leaked filth between the walls, and the brackish river water they showered in left its own stench and a dirty film on their skin. Although the "august city," as Sevastopol was nicknamed, was primarily a military town, evidenced by the seven battleships and host of destroyers, torpedo boats, and auxiliary vessels anchored in the harbor, a sign on the city's main boulevard read: NO ENTRY TO DOGS. LOWER RANKS PROHIBITED.
    These oppressions aside, the obliteration of Rozhestvensky's fleet forcefully reminded Matyushenko and his fellow revolutionaries that they were struggling for the right cause. Some had friends who had died in the battle, and the sailors understood better than anyone the incompetent and reckless leadership that had sent so many to their graves. It was also clear to them that they might be next. "If we must sacrifice our lives against the Japanese," one Black Sea Fleet sailor noted after learning of Tsushima, "we might as well sacrifice ourselves for the liberation of Russia." Matyushenko, one of the fleet's early revolutionaries, spread this sentiment among the sailors.
    Three days before the meeting on Malakhov Hill, an incident in Sevastopol proved to Matyushenko that sailors throughout the fleet
were prepared to revolt: When some garrisoned soldiers in the Sevastopol fortress struck out against their officers, Vice Admiral Chukhnin ordered his ships in the harbor to prepare to shell the fortress. Crews aboard two of the battleships refused the command. On the
Holy Trinity,
a sailor informed his watch officer, "Enough blood, we won't fire at those who protest. We ask you, Your Excellency, to inform the commander that we won't fire. Are the soldiers not our brothers?" On thé
Ekaterina II,
the crew threatened the officers that they would scuttle the ship before firing on the fortress. Although the garrison commander managed to quell the unrest on his own and seventeen