People of the Revolution and the USSR

Revolutionary socialism 1879–1907 ✕ Executed by hanging

The torpedo quartermaster who headed the Potemkin mutiny, then was hanged in Sevastopol in 1907

In his 1907 memoir Rakovsky recalled boarding the Potemkin at Constanța in 1905 and being greeted by Matushenko with the words: "We are 300 social democrats ready to die." That is Rakovsky's recollection, not verified verbatim speech.

Born on 2 May 1879 into a poor peasant family in Derhachi, Kharkov province. After the 1891 famine he left school, working as a railway oilman in Kharkov, a port labourer in Odessa, a stoker on a Vladivostok steamer and a docker in Rostov-on-Don, where he joined a Marxist study circle. Conscripted into the Black Sea Fleet in November 1900, he passed the Kronstadt torpedo-machinery school, served on the training ship Berezan and was assigned to the building battleship Potemkin in March 1902. In November 1904 he was among the leaders of the Lazarev barracks mutiny in Sevastopol, was amnestied, and then helped the Social Democrats while joining no party. On 14 June 1905 (O.S.; 27 June N.S.) he headed the mutiny as chairman of the ship's committee, then went through exile in Romania, Switzerland, the USA and France. He returned to Russia in 1907, was arrested, and was hanged in Sevastopol.