Michael Fredholm von Essen, The Hunt for the Storozhevoy: The 1975 Soviet Navy Mutiny in the Baltic by Jan Drent

A sclerotic Soviet regime was in its sixth decade in power when a committed Communist attempted to launch internal reform in November 1975.He was naval officer Valery Sablin whose improbable scheme was to seize control of his powerful ship, the destroyer Storozhevoy ("Sentry" or "Picket," a traditional Russian navy destroyer name first used in the Tsarist fleet) and take it 300 nautical miles to Leningrad.There he would call on national television for an uprising to cleanse the regime.Valery Sablin had control of Storozhevoy for only thirteen hours before it was surrounded by pursuing ships and aircraft and crew members not loyal to his cause wounded and captured him.Storozhevoy returned to Riga from where it had sailed, the crew was interrogated and dispersed to other ships, and the ship joined the Pacific Fleet with a new crew.This dramatic story did not receive public notice in Russia until 1990.Once media restrictions were loosened, there was a torrent of Russian-language articles, videos, and books.Each significant five-year anniversary since has triggered articles and opinion pieces in Russia about the incident.Most see Sablin as a misguided idealist, whose aim was political reform, but some portray him as a traitor, a term which triggers stronger reaction in Russia than in the West.The Hunt for the Storozhevoy is the first extensive English-language account since The Last Sentry by Young and Braden (2005).The author is Michael Fredholm von Essen, a Swedish academic, historian, and geopolitical analyst who has published several books about Sweden when it was a leading European power.His output has included articles about contemporary Swedish intelligence.This nicely produced, slim volume is one of new series of similar shortish "Europe at War" booklets about Cold War topics being published in the UK by Helion & Company.Von Essen's account is straightforward and thorough.He begins by setting Storozhevoy, commissioned only two years before the incident, into the context of Soviet defence doctrine.This section includes a succinct summary of the evolution of Soviet defence concepts and of warship types.He very carefully describes the various types of warships and aircraft that pursued Storozhevoy, the combat organizations to which they belonged, and where they were based.These descriptions are accompanied by useful data tables and well-chosen photographs.The narrative traces basic details of how Valery Sablin, the specialist officer responsible for political education on board took control of

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