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sailors were arrested for their disobedience, the incident showed the strength of feeling among the crews. Soon after, Tsentralka called its members together.
    From the beginning, the meeting on the hillside was combative. Usually at these gatherings, the sailors sang revolutionary songs, decided organizational tactics, talked politics with workers and local leaders from various revolutionary parties, and vented their frustrations with their officers. On occasion, they would draft resolutions demanding an end to the war and stating their goals. In March, they had proclaimed these goals in detail in a document called "The Resolution of the Black Sea Sailors," revealing their hopes for the "abolition of the autocratic regime and the creation of a democratic republic." This republic was to be led by a constituent assembly, with representatives elected by the direct, equal, secret, and universal vote of the people.
    These were noble ambitions—and treasonous in substance—but writing resolutions was only the first step toward realizing such goals. Today, however, the meeting participants were to decide, after months of debate, whether to take action and launch a fleetwide mutiny to begin the revolution.
    Everyone wanted to be heard; few wished to move toward consensus. Some revolutionary leaders talked only of theory—how "the revolution can't be made.... It must happen on its own." Others spoke of boldness and armed uprisings as if no lives would be put at risk by choosing this path. Matyushenko despised this back-and-forth general talk, but he was quiet. A radical from Sevastopol named Pyotr argued that a fleetwide uprising was premature. With Chukhnin purging the ranks of revolutionaries even as their group met, Pyotrurged delaying their plans until their numbers were strengthened. His words were met with shouts of protest from all quarters, each voice trying to drown out the others.
    Then Aleksandr Petrov, a machinist recently expelled from the
Ekaterina II
after its crew disobeyed the order to fire on the fortress, stood to speak. Tall, with a broad, square face, Petrov held his chin high as if he had been born an aristocrat. From a family of clerks in Kazan, the twenty-three-year-old machinist had benefited from a proper education and from older siblings who had versed him in revolutionary politics and songs from a young age. Once conscripted into the navy, he set about agitating sailors, and his battleship was widely known as the "Red Kate" because of his success.
    "We see how difficult it is to create a general uprising. After starting in one place, it risks losing momentum by dying down in another," Petrov began, the words coming easily; they had been waiting for years. "The army will only go over to the people's side when they have confidence in the general uprising. For this it's necessary that the uprising engulf a vast region. And don't we have this vast region? The Black Sea?! Who, if not we, the sailors, after launching a revolution in Sevastopol, might carry it over into the Caucasus and from there to Odessa to Nikolayev? Who, if not we, will be able to immediately draw in the army to take part in the revolution?"
    Many others echoed his words. Next to Matyushenko, his friend and fellow
Potemkin
sailor Grigory Vakulenchuk called out: "To delay means to fail the revolution. At this very moment, everywhere, workers and peasants are striking out. We must join the common fight."
    The debate swayed in their favor, and the sailors swiftly shifted the discussion to tactics. Many agreed that the mutiny should occur right after the fleet came together for maneuvers off Tendra Island later that month. Matyushenko wanted to move sooner. "Why wait for the journey out to sea?" he asked the gathering. "The mutiny must be started immediately. Tomorrow itself!" But he was shouted down for his usual impetuosity. When the discussion turned to the ship that should signal the start of the uprising, Matyushenko pitched