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87-680: Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов , IPA: [vɐˈsʲilʲɪj ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ arˈxʲipəf] , 30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a senior Soviet Naval officer who prevented a Russian submarine from launching a nuclear torpedo against ships of the United States Navy at a crucial moment in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. The course of events that would have followed such an action cannot be known, but speculations have been advanced, up to and including global thermonuclear war . Off

174-621: A Soviet fleet was a national priority, but many senior officers were killed in the Great Purge in the late 1930s. The naval share of the national armaments budget fell from 11.5% in 1941 to 6.6% in 1944. When the Soviet Union entered the Second World War, during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, initially millions of soldiers were captured, many sailors and naval guns were detached to reinforce

261-620: A composition called " Arkhipov Calm " to Arkhipov in 2017. Denzel Washington 's character in Crimson Tide (1995) is an officer who refused to affirm the launch orders of a submarine captain. In recognition of his actions onboard B-59, Arkhipov received the first "Future of Life Award", which was presented posthumously to his family in 2017. Offered by the Future of Life Institute , this award recognizes exceptional measures, often performed despite personal risk and without obvious reward, to safeguard

348-497: A failure of the cooling system. Radio communications were also affected, and the crew was unable to make contact with Moscow. With no backup systems, Captain Nikolai Zateyev ordered the seven members of the engineer crew to come up with a solution to avoid nuclear meltdown . This required the men to work in high radiation levels for extended periods. They eventually came up with a secondary coolant system and were able to prevent

435-689: A few units. At the end of the civil war, Wrangel's fleet , a White flotilla, moved south through the Black Sea, Dardanelles straits and the Aegean Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to Bizerta in French Tunisia on the North Africa coast, where it was interned. The first ship of the revolutionary navy could be considered the rebellious Imperial Russian cruiser Aurora , built 1900, whose crew joined

522-505: A fleet-defense operational concept, in distinction to the Western emphasis on shore-strike missions from distant deployment. A second carrier (pre-commissioning name Varyag ) was under construction when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. Construction stopped and the ship was sold later, incomplete, to the People's Republic of China by Ukraine , which inherited part of the old Soviet fleet after

609-521: A group of 11 United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS  Randolph located the diesel-powered, nuclear-armed Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 near Cuba . (The B-59 was one of four Foxtrot submarines sent by the USSR to the area around Cuba.) Despite being in international waters , the United States Navy started dropping signaling depth charges , which were intended to force

696-543: A naval strategy designed to disrupt sea lines of communication . Nonetheless, the Soviet navy pursued an aircraft carrier program as a way of matching stoking competition with the U.S. Navy . The Soviet Navy still had the mission of confronting Western submarines, creating a need for large surface vessels to carry anti-submarine helicopters. During 1968 and 1969 the Moskva -class helicopter carriers were first deployed, succeeded by

783-480: A reactor meltdown. Although they were able to save themselves from a nuclear meltdown, the entire crew, including Arkhipov, were irradiated. All members of the engineer crew and their divisional officer died within a month of the incident from acute radiation syndrome . Over the course of two years, 15 more sailors on the crew died from the after-effects. On 27 October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis,

870-595: Is always a uniformed military officer with both tactical and political training and Chinese Communist Party cadre . In the past, this position has been used to give civilian party officials some experience with the military. Usually, the operational command organ has the military commander as the highest decision maker, while the political commissar serves as the second-in-command. As the deputy, political commissar are largely responsible for administrative tasks such as public relations, unit welfare, mental health, morale, and political education. The party organs are chaired by

957-467: The B-59 , he was also the chief of staff of the flotilla. According to author Edward Wilson , the reputation Arkhipov had gained from his courageous conduct in the previous year's K-19 incident played a large role in the debate to launch the torpedo. Arkhipov eventually persuaded Savitsky to surface and await orders from Moscow. His persuasion effectively averted a nuclear war that would probably have ensued if

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1044-811: The Battle of the Kerch Peninsula , one during the Caucasus Campaign and one as part of the Landing at Moonsund , in the Baltic . During the war, five brigades and two battalions of naval infantry were awarded Guards status. Nine brigades and six battalions were awarded decorations, and many were given honorary titles. The title Hero of the Soviet Union was bestowed on 122 members of naval infantry units. The Soviet experience in amphibious warfare in World War II contributed to

1131-679: The Black Sea coast and entered Crimea and started to advance towards the Sevastopol naval base. The more effective ships were moved from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk where, after an ultimatum from Germany, they were scuttled by Vladimir Lenin 's order. The ships remaining in Sevastopol were captured by the Germans and then, after the later Armistice of 11 November 1918 on the Western Front which ended

1218-801: The Chinese Red Army since the Sanwan Reorganization of 1927 ( Chinese : 三湾改编 ), which established military organizations at various levels with Chinese Communist Party committees. The practice was formalized with the principle of the " Party commands the gun " ( Chinese : 党指挥枪 ) and the Gutian Conference of 1929 . Red Army was part of the Communist revolution forces; thus Mao Zedong had constantly emphasized its role in both combat and political missions. The political commissioners were tasked to teach communist ideologies to internal members of

1305-826: The French Revolution (1789–1799). Political commissars were heavily used within the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). They also existed, with interruptions, in the Soviet Red Army from 1918 to 1991, as well as in the armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1943 to 1945 as Nationalsozialistische Führungsoffiziere (national socialist leadership officers). The function remains in use in China's People's Liberation Army . The position of political commissar ( Chinese : 政治委员 ) existed in

1392-610: The John F. Kennedy administration and a historian, continued this thought by stating "This was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War . It was the most dangerous moment in human history." Arkhipov continued in Soviet Navy service, commanding submarines and later submarine squadrons. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1975, and became head of the Kirov Naval Academy . Arkhipov

1479-702: The Leningrad Naval Base , which was commanded separately. It also had a smaller force, the Caspian Flotilla , which operated in the Caspian Sea and was followed by a larger fleet, the 5th Squadron , in the Mediterranean Sea . The Soviet Navy included Naval Aviation , Naval Infantry , and the Coastal Artillery . The Soviet Navy was formed from the remnants of the Imperial Russian Navy during

1566-561: The Mediterranean Sea . The squadron's main function was to prevent largescale naval ingress into the Black Sea , which could bypass the need for any invasion to be over the Eurasian land mass. The flagship of the squadron was for a long period the Sverdlov -class cruiser Zhdanov . In the strategic planning laid by the Soviet strategists, the aircraft carriers were seen as relatively unimportant and received little attention, as Moscow focused on

1653-596: The Mike-class submarine Komsomolets , both lost to fire, and the far more menacing nuclear reactor leak on the Hotel-class submarine K-19 , narrowly averted by her captain . Inadequate nuclear safety , poor damage control, and quality-control issues during construction (particularly on the earlier submarines) were typical causes of accidents. On several occasions there were alleged collisions with American submarines. None of these, however, has been confirmed officially by

1740-515: The Red Army ; these reassigned naval forces had especially significant roles on land in the battles for Odessa , Sevastopol , Stalingrad , Novorossiysk , Tuapse , and Leningrad . The Baltic fleet was blockaded in Leningrad and Kronstadt by minefields, but the submarines escaped. The surface fleet fought with the anti-aircraft defence of the city and bombarded German positions. The composition of

1827-477: The Republic of China (Taiwan). Chiang Ching-kuo , appointed as Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) director of secret police in 1950, was educated in the Soviet Union, and initiated Soviet-style military organization in the Republic of China Armed Forces , reorganizing and Sovietizing the political officer corps, surveillance, and Kuomintang party activities were propagated throughout the military. Opposed to this

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1914-667: The Russian Civil War , cooperating with the ships and the army during the combats at Petrograd , on the Baltic Sea , the Black Sea , the Volga , the Kama River , Northern Dvina and on the Lake Onega . The newborn Soviet Naval Air Force consisted of only 76 obsolete hydroplanes. Scanty and technically imperfect, it was mostly used for resupplying the ships and the army. In the second half of

2001-558: The Russian Civil War . After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation inherited the largest part of the Soviet Navy and reformed it into the Russian Navy , with smaller parts becoming the basis for navies of the newly independent post-Soviet states . The Soviet Navy was based on a republican naval force formed from the remnants of the Imperial Russian Navy , which had been almost completely destroyed in

2088-487: The Washington Naval Treaty of 1921–1922, which limited the size and capabilities of the most powerful navies – British, American, Japanese, French, Italian. The greater part of the old fleet was sold by the Soviet government to post-war Germany for scrap. In the Baltic Sea there remained only three much-neglected battleships, two cruisers, some ten destroyers, and a few submarines. Despite this state of affairs,

2175-488: The edinonachalie (single-command) system was restored. In July 1941, consequent to the Red Army's defeats at the war's start, the position of political commissar reappeared. The commissars had an influential role as "second commanders" within the military units during this time. Their rank and insignia generally paralleled those of officers. Because this proved ineffective, General Ivan Konev asked Joseph Stalin to subordinate

2262-514: The sea lines of communication across the North Atlantic Ocean between Europe and North America, the primary role of these aircraft was to protect the Soviet mainland from attacks by U.S. carrier task forces. Due to the Soviet Union's geographic position, submarines were considered the capital ships of the Navy. Submarines could penetrate attempts at blockade, either in the constrained waters of

2349-501: The " Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet " by a 1918 decree of the new Council of People's Commissars , installed as a temporary Russian revolutionary government, was less than service-ready during the interwar years of 1918 to 1941. As the country's attentions were largely directed internally, the Navy did not have much funding or training. An indicator of its reputation was that the Soviets were not invited to participate in negotiations for

2436-432: The 1918–1924, 1937–1940, and 1941–1942 periods; not every Red Army political officer was a commissar. The political commissar held military rank equaling the unit commander to whom he was attached; moreover, the commissar also had the military authority to countermand the unit-commander's orders at any time. During the other periods of the Red Army's history political officers were militarily subordinate to unit commanders, and

2523-737: The 1920s, the Naval Aviation order of battle began to grow. It received new reconnaissance hydroplanes, bombers, and fighters. In the mid-1930s, the Soviets created the Naval Air Force in the Baltic Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet and the Soviet Pacific Fleet. The importance of naval aviation had grown significantly by 1938–1940, to become one of the main components of the Soviet Navy. By this time, the Soviets had created formations and units of

2610-653: The Arctic Ocean, Soviet Northern Fleet destroyers ( Novik class, Type 7, and Type 7U) and smaller craft participated with the anti-aircraft and anti-submarine defence of Allied convoys conducting Lend-Lease cargo shipping. In the Pacific Ocean, the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan before 1945, so some destroyers were transferred to the Northern Fleet. From the beginning of hostilities, Soviet Naval Aviation provided air support to naval and land operations involving

2697-506: The Baltic Fleet remained a significant naval formation, and the Black Sea Fleet also provided a basis for expansion. There also existed some thirty minor-waterways combat flotillas. During the 1930s, as the industrialization of the Soviet Union proceeded, plans were made to expand the Soviet Navy into one of the most powerful in the world. Approved by the Labour and Defence Council in 1926,

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2784-518: The Baltic and Black Seas or in the remote reaches of the USSR's western Arctic, while surface ships were clearly much easier to find and attack. The USSR had entered the Second World War with more submarines than Germany, but geography and the speed of the German attack precluded it from effectively using its more numerous fleet to its advantage. Because of its opinion that "quantity had a quality of its own" and at

2871-535: The Eurasian landmass, it did not need a navy to protect a large commercial fleet, as the western navies were configured to do. Later, countering seaborne nuclear delivery systems became another significant objective of the navy, and an impetus for expansion. The Soviet Navy was structured around submarines and small, maneuverable, tactical vessels. The Soviet shipbuilding program kept yards busy constructing submarines based upon World War II German Kriegsmarine designs , which were launched with great frequency during

2958-564: The Ispolkom issued the controversial Order no 1 . As the Bolsheviks came to power through the October Revolution of November 1917, and as the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922 began, Leon Trotsky gradually established the Red Army and set up the role of political officers. They were tasked with making sure that communist parties could count on the loyalty of armed forces. Although there

3045-651: The Military Council); they were abolished in 1934. On 10 May 1937, the role of political commissar was reinstated in the Red Army, and Military Councils were set up. These derived from the political purges in the Soviet armed forces. Again, in August 1940, the office of political commissars was abolished, yet the Military Councils continued throughout the German-Soviet War (1941–1945), and after. Below army level,

3132-731: The Naval Shipbuilding Program included plans to construct twelve submarines; the first six were to become known as the Dekabrist class . Beginning 4 November 1926, Technical Bureau Nº 4 (formerly the Submarine Department, and still secret), under the leadership of B.M. Malinin , managed the submarine construction works at the Baltic Shipyard . In subsequent years, 133 submarines were built to designs developed during Malinin's management. Additional developments included

3219-549: The Navy. Each Fleet was assigned a Marine unit of regiment (and later brigade) size. The Naval Infantry received amphibious versions of standard Armoured fighting vehicle , including tanks used by the Soviet Army . Political commissar The function first appeared as commissaire politique (political commissioner) or représentant en mission (representative on mission) in the French Revolutionary Army during

3306-513: The RVS", not "commissars", despite their position as official political commissars. In 1919, the title politruk ( Russian : политрук, from политический руководитель, political leader ) was assigned to political officers at company level. Despite their position as official political commissars, they were not addressed as "commissar". Beginning in 1925, the politico-military doctrinal course toward edinonachalie ( Russian : единоначалие , single command)

3393-442: The Red Army, as well as propaganda tasks targeting the enemy by showing the Red Army as a righteous force. In the People's Liberation Army (PLA), each level of the command has a dual-command structure, with a military organ and a Party organ. This collective leadership is held between the military commander ( Chinese : 军事主官 ) and political commander ( Chinese : 政治主官 , i.e. the political commissar). The political commissar

3480-404: The Soviet Navy ( Russian : Советский Военно-Морской Флот , romanized :  Sovyetsky Voyenno-Morskoy Flot , lit.   'Soviet Military Maritime Fleet'). After the war, the Soviets concluded that they needed a navy that could disrupt supply lines , and display a small naval presence to the developing world. As the natural resources the Soviet Union needed were available on

3567-479: The Soviet Navy. This service was responsible for the operation of shore-based floatplanes , long-range flying boats , catapult-launched and vessel-based planes, and land-based aircraft designated for naval use. As post-war spoils, the Soviets received several Italian and Japanese warships and much German naval engineering and architectural documentation. In February 1946, the Red Fleet was renamed and became known as

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3654-478: The Soviet fleets in 1941 included: In various stages of completion were another 219 vessels including 3 battleships, 2 heavy and 7 light cruisers, 45 destroyers, and 91 submarines. Included in the totals above are some pre-World War I ships ( Novik -class destroyers, some of the cruisers, and all the battleships), some modern ships built in the USSR and Europe (like the Italian-built destroyer Tashkent and

3741-555: The Soviet part of the captured Italian navy. In the Baltic Sea, after Tallinn 's capture, surface ships were blockaded in Leningrad and Kronstadt by minefields, where they participated with the anti-aircraft defence of the city and bombarded German positions. One example of Soviet resourcefulness was the battleship Marat , an ageing pre-World War I ship sunk at anchor in Kronstadt's harbour by German Junkers Ju 87 aircraft in 1941. For

3828-460: The U.S. National Security Archive , credited Arkhipov as "the man who saved the world". Arkhipov was born into a Russian peasant family in the town of Staraya Kupavna , near Moscow . He was educated in the Pacific Higher Naval School and participated in the Soviet–Japanese War in August 1945, serving aboard a minesweeper. He transferred to the Azerbaijan Higher Naval School and graduated in 1947. After graduation in 1947, Arkhipov served in

3915-503: The U.S. Navy. On 28 August 1976, K-22 ( Echo II) collided with frigate USS  Voge in the Mediterranean Sea. After the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Navy, like other branches of Armed Forces, eventually lost some of its units to former Soviet Republics, and was left without funding. Some ships were transferred to former Soviet states: In 1990, the Soviet Navy had: The regular Soviet naval aviation units were created in 1918. They participated in

4002-413: The War, additional Russian ships were confiscated by the British. On 1 April 1919, during the ensuing Russian Civil War when Red Army forces captured Crimea , the British Royal Navy squadron had to withdraw, but before leaving they damaged all the remaining battleships and sank thirteen new submarines. When the opposing Czarist White Army captured Crimea in 1919, it rescued and reconditioned

4089-504: The West such an approach would never have been considered tactically feasible. The Soviet Navy did also possess several very large and well-armed guided-missile cruisers , like those of the Kirov and Slava classes. By the 1970s, Soviet submarine technology was in some respects more advanced than in the West, and several of their submarine types were considered superior to their American rivals. The 5th Operational Squadron ( ru:5-я Средиземноморская эскадра кораблей ВМФ ) operated in

4176-444: The World". It was aired 23 October 2012 on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis . The 2021 novel Red Traitor by Owen Matthews includes Arkhipov as a major viewpoint character, and is dedicated to him. The character of Captain Mikhail Polenin, portrayed by Liam Neeson , in the 2002 film K-19: The Widowmaker was closely based on Arkhipov's tenure on Soviet submarine K-19 . The musical group Converge dedicated

4263-435: The break-up of the USSR. It was commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy in 2012 as the Liaoning . Soon after the launch of this second Kuznetsov -class ship, the Soviet Navy began the construction of an improved aircraft carrier design, Ulyanovsk , which was to have been slightly larger than the Kuznetsov class and nuclear-powered. The project was terminated, and what little structure had been initiated in

4350-470: The building ways was scrapped. In part to perform the functions usual to carrier-borne aircraft, the Soviet Navy deployed large numbers of strategic bombers in a maritime role, with the Aviatsiya Voenno-Morskogo Flota (AV-MF, or Naval Aviation service). Strategic bombers like the Tupolev Tu-16 'Badger' and Tu-22M 'Backfire' were deployed with high-speed anti-shipping missiles . Previously believed to be interceptors of NATO supply convoys traveling

4437-402: The chief of staff of the brigade (not the commander as is often incorrectly reported, who was in fact Captain First Rank Vasili Naumovich Agafonov). The three men were Captain Savitsky, Political Officer Ivan Semyonovich Maslennikov, and Executive Officer Arkhipov. An argument broke out among the three of them, with only Arkhipov against the launch. Although Arkhipov was only second-in-command of

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4524-465: The coast of Cuba, US ships had dropped depth charges. The captain of the diesel powered submarine B-59 and the political officer believed that war had started and that they were under attack. Arkhipov, as flotilla chief of staff and executive officer on board the submarine, refused to consent to the use of nuclear weapons in retaliation, a decision which would have required the agreement of all three officers. In 2002, Thomas S. Blanton, then director of

4611-403: The collective future of humanity. In 2002, Thomas S. Blanton, then director of the U.S. National Security Archive , said that Arkhipov "saved the world". Soviet Navy The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces . Often referred to as the Red Fleet , the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union 's strategic planning in

4698-526: The commander of the submarine K-19 at the time of its onboard nuclear accident, died on 28 August 1998. Both Arkhipov and Zateyev were 72 at the time of their deaths. Arkhipov was known to be a shy and humble man. In a 2012 PBS documentary entitled The Man Who Saved the World , his wife, Olga, described him as intelligent, polite, and very calm. Much of what is known about his personality comes from her. According to her, he enjoyed searching for newspapers during their vacations and tried to stay up-to-date with

4785-466: The communist Bolsheviks. Sailors of the Baltic fleet supplied the fighting force of the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky during the October Revolution of November 1917 against the democratic provisional government of Alexander Kerensky established after the earlier first revolution of February against the Czar . Some imperial vessels continued to serve after the revolution, albeit with different names. The Soviet Navy, established as

4872-414: The development of Soviet combined arms operations. Many members of the Naval Infantry were parachute trained, conducting more drops and successful parachute operations than the Soviet Airborne Troops (VDV) . The Naval Infantry was disbanded in 1947, with some units being transferred to the Coastal Defence Forces . In 1961, the Naval Infantry was re-formed and became one of the active combat services of

4959-461: The event of a conflict with the opposing superpower , the United States , during the Cold War (1945–1991). The Soviet Navy played a large role during the Cold War, either confronting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in western Europe or power projection to maintain its sphere of influence in eastern Europe . The Soviet Navy was divided into four major fleets: the Northern , Pacific , Black Sea , and Baltic Fleets, in addition to

5046-421: The first of four aircraft-carrying cruisers of the Kiev class , in 1973. Both types were capable of operating ASW helicopters, and the Kiev class also operated V/STOL aircraft ( e.g. , the Yak-38 'Forger' ); they were designed to operate for fleet defense, primarily within range of land-based Soviet Naval Aviation aircraft. During the 1970s the Soviets began Project 1153 Orel (Eagle), whose stated purpose

5133-722: The formation of the Pacific Fleet in 1932 and the Northern Fleet in 1933. The forces were to be built around a core of powerful Sovetsky Soyuz -class battleships . This building program was only in its initial stages by the time the German invasion forced its suspension in 1941. By the end of 1937, the biggest fleet was the Baltic Fleet based at Leningrad, with two battleships, one training cruiser, eight destroyers including one destroyer leader, five patrol ships, two minesweepers , and some more old minesweepers. The Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol included one battleship, three cruisers, one training cruiser, five destroyers, two patrol ships, and four minesweepers. The Northern Fleet operating from

5220-445: The immediate post-war years. Afterwards, through a combination of indigenous research and technology obtained through espionage from Nazi Germany and the Western nations, the Soviets gradually improved their submarine designs. The Soviets were quick to equip their surface fleet with missiles of various sorts. Indeed, it became a feature of Soviet design to place large missiles onto relatively small, but fast, missile boats , while in

5307-777: The insistence of Admiral of the Fleet Sergey Gorshkov , the Soviet Navy continued to operate many first-generation missile submarines, built in the early 1960s, until the end of the Cold War in 1991. In some respects, including speed and reactor technology, Soviet submarines achieved unique successes, but for most of the era lagged their Western counterparts in overall capability. In addition to their relatively high speeds and great operating depths they were difficult anti-submarine warfare (ASW) targets to destroy because of their multiple compartments, their large reserve buoyancy, and especially their double-hulled design. Their principal shortcomings were insufficient noise-damping (American boats were quieter) and primitive sonar technology. Acoustics

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5394-414: The military officer is responsible for the operation. Whereas in the Navy (PLAN), the political commissar and the Party committee are the supreme decision-makers, while military works are delegated to the operational commander as the second-in-command. The position of political commissar ( Chinese : 政戰官 , literal translation "political warfare officer") also existed in the Republic of China Army of

5481-404: The modern world as much as possible. In this same interview, Olga alluded to her husband's possible superstitious beliefs as well. She recalls walking in on Vasily burning a bundle of their love letters inside their house and that he claimed that keeping the letters would mean "bad luck". Leon Ockenden portrayed Arkhipov in Season 12 Episode 1 of Secrets of the Dead , entitled "The Man Who Saved

5568-429: The nuclear ones. Researcher Alexander Mozgovoi has written that when Grechko learned about this discrepancy, he "removed his glasses and hit them against the table in fury, breaking them into small pieces and abruptly leaving the room after that". In 2002, retired Commander Vadim Pavlovich Orlov, a participant in the events, held an interview revealing that the submarines were armed with nuclear torpedoes and that Arkhipov

5655-466: The nuclear weapon had been fired. The batteries of the B-59 ran very low and its air conditioning failed, which caused extreme heat and generated high levels of carbon dioxide inside the submarine. It surfaced amid the U.S. warships pursuing it and made contact with a U.S. destroyer . After discussions with the ship, B-59 was ordered by the Russian fleet to set course back to the Soviet Union . In 1997, Arkhipov wrote that after surfacing, his submarine

5742-475: The partially completed German cruiser Lützow ). During the war, many of the vessels on the slips in Leningrad and Nikolayev were destroyed (mainly by aircraft and mines ), but the Soviet Navy received captured Romanian destroyers and Lend-Lease small craft from the U.S., as well as the old Royal Navy battleship HMS  Royal Sovereign (renamed Arkhangelsk ) and the United States Navy cruiser USS  Milwaukee (renamed Murmansk ) in exchange for

5829-407: The political commissar, with the military commanders serving as the deputy secretaries. This framework ensures that both military and political officers can collectively design the goals and tasks of their respective units. The role of the political commissar is not universal across different branches of the PLA. In the Ground Force (PLAGF), the political commissar is often second-in-command, while

5916-494: The political officer to commanding officers: the commissars' work was re-focused to morale -related functions. The term "commissar" was abolished in August 1942, and at the company- and regiment-level, the pompolit officer was replaced with the zampolit (deputy for political matters). Although no longer known by the original "commissar" title, political officers were retained by all the Soviet Armed Forces , e.g., Army , Navy , Air Force , Strategic Missile Troops , et al, until

6003-505: The position of political commissar did not exist. The political supervision of the Russian military was effected by the political commissar, who was present in every unit and formation, from company - to division -level, including in the navy. Revolutionary Military Councils (or Revvoyensoviets, RVS) were established at army -, front -, fleet -, and flotilla -level, comprising at least three members—the commander and two political workers. The political workers were denominated "members of

6090-551: The rest of the war, the non-submerged part of the ship remained in use as a grounded battery. Submarines, although suffering great losses due to German and Finnish anti-submarine actions, had a major role in the war at sea by disrupting Axis navigation in the Baltic Sea. In the Black Sea, many ships were damaged by minefields and Axis aviation , but they helped defend naval bases and supply them while besieged, as well as later evacuating them. Heavy naval guns and sailors helped defend port cities during long sieges by Axis armies . In

6177-400: The sailors walked off and left their ships. Work stopped in the shipyards, where uncompleted ships deteriorated rapidly. The Black Sea Fleet fared no better than the Baltic . The Bolshevik (Communist) revolution entirely disrupted its personnel, with mass murders of officers; the ships were allowed to decay to unserviceability. At the end of April 1918, Imperial German troops moved along

6264-588: The shores of Kola Bay and Polyarny was made up of three destroyers and three patrol ships, while the Pacific Fleet had two destroyers, transferred east in 1936, and six patrol ships assembled in the Far East. The Soviet Navy had some minor action in the Winter War against Finland in 1939–1940, on the Baltic Sea. It was limited mainly to cruisers and battleships fighting artillery duels with Finnish forts. Building

6351-406: The submarine service aboard boats in the Black Sea , Northern, and Baltic Fleets. In July 1961, Arkhipov was appointed deputy commander and therefore executive officer of the new Hotel-class ballistic missile submarine K-19 . After a few days of conducting exercises off the south-east coast of Greenland, the submarine developed an extreme leak in its reactor coolant system. This leak led to

6438-421: The submarine to come to the surface for identification. By then, there had been no contact from Moscow for a number of days, and although the B-59 ' s crew had been picking up U.S. civilian radio broadcasts earlier on, the submarine was too deep to monitor any radio traffic, as it was busy trying to hide from its American pursuers. Those on board did not know whether war had broken out or not. The captain of

6525-463: The submarine, Valentin Grigoryevich Savitsky, decided that a war might already have started and wanted to launch a T-5 nuclear torpedo . Unlike other Soviet submarines armed with the "special weapon", where only the captain and the political officer were required to authorize a nuclear launch, three officers on board the B-59 were required to authorize the launch because Arkhipov was also

6612-807: The torpedo and bomb aviation. During World War II , about 350,000 Soviet sailors fought on land. At the beginning of the war, the navy had only one naval brigade in the Baltic fleet , but began forming and training other battalions. These eventually were: The military situation demanded the deployment of large numbers of marines on land fronts, so the Naval Infantry contributed to the defense of Moscow , Leningrad , Odessa , Sevastopol , Stalingrad , Novorossiysk , and Kerch . The Naval Infantry conducted over 114 landings, most of which were carried out by platoons and companies. In general, however, Naval Infantry served as regular infantry, without any amphibious training. They conducted four major operations: two during

6699-565: The two Revolutions of 1917 (February and October/November) during World War I (1914–1918), the following Russian Civil War (1917–1922), and the Kronstadt rebellion in 1921. During the revolutionary period, Russian sailors deserted their ships at will and generally neglected their duties. The officers were dispersed (some were killed by the Red Terror , some joined the " White " (anti-communist) opposing armies, and others simply resigned) and most of

6786-458: The world's largest submarines. While Western navies assumed that the Soviet attack submarine force was designed for interception of NATO convoys, the Soviet leadership never prepared their submarines for such a mission. Over the years Soviet submarines suffered a number of accidents, most notably on several nuclear boats. The most famous incidents include the Yankee-class submarine K-219 , and

6873-684: Was General Sun Li-jen , who was educated at the American Virginia Military Institute . Chiang Ching-kuo then arrested Sun Li-jen, charging him of conspiring with the American Central Intelligence Agency of plotting to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. Sun was placed under house arrest in 1955. An early kind of political commissar was established during the February Revolution 1917 as

6960-558: Was a huge difference between the February Revolution and the October Revolution , their leaders in each case feared a counter-revolution, and both regarded the military officers as the most likely counter-revolutionary threat. Later commissars in the Eastern bloc could exercise broader roles in social engineering . In the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), the political commissar ( Russian : комиссар , romanized :  komissar ) existed, by name, only during

7047-540: Was a particularly interesting type of information that the Soviets sought about the West's submarine-production methods, and the long-active John Anthony Walker spy ring may have made a major contribution to their knowledge of such. The Soviet Navy possessed numerous purpose-built guided missile submarines , such as the Oscar-class submarine , as well as many ballistic missile and attack submarines; their Typhoon class are

7134-615: Was established, and the political commissar, as a military institution, faded. The introduction of edinonachalie was two-fold, either the military commander joined the Communist Party and became his own unit's political officer, or a pompolit ( Russian : помполит , assistant commander for political work) officer was commissioned sub-ordinate to him. Earlier, in 1924, the RVSs were renamed as Military Councils, such high-level political officers were known as ChVS ( Chlen Voennogo Soveta , Member of

7221-785: Was fired on with warning shots by American aircraft: "the plane, flying over the conning tower, 1 to 3 seconds before the start of fire turned on powerful searchlights and blinded the people on the bridge... when [the commander] blinked and blinked his eyes and could see again, it became clear that the plane was firing past and along the boat. And the subsequent similar actions (there were 12 overflights altogether) were not as worrisome any longer." Immediately upon return to Russia, many crew members were faced with disgrace from their superiors. One admiral told them "It would have been better if you'd gone down with your ship ". Olga, Arkhipov's wife, said that "he didn't like talking about it, he felt they hadn't appreciated what they had gone through". Each captain

7308-495: Was promoted to vice admiral in 1981 and retired in 1988. He settled in Kupavna (which was incorporated into Zheleznodorozhny, Moscow Oblast , in 2004), where he died on 19 August 1998. The radiation to which Arkhipov had been exposed in 1961 may have contributed to his kidney cancer, as it did for the illnesses of many others who served with him in the K-19 accident. Nikolai Zateyev ,

7395-615: Was required to present a report of events during the mission to Marshal Andrei Grechko , who substituted for the ill Soviet defense minister . Soviet military officials were infuriated with the crew's failure to follow their strict orders of secrecy, but this anger was mitigated when the Collegium learned that diesel-electric submarines had been involved—not, as originally planned, nuclear submarines. The diesel-electric submarines were not so well-suited for long-range voyages in Caribbean waters as

7482-451: Was the reason those weapons had not been fired. Orlov presented the events less dramatically, saying that Captain Savitsky lost his temper, but eventually calmed down. Robert McNamara , U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis , stated in 2002 that "We came very, very close [to nuclear war], closer than we knew at the time." Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. , an advisor for

7569-745: Was to create an aircraft carrier capable of basing fixed-wing fighter aircraft in defense of the deployed fleet. The project was canceled during the planning stages when strategic priorities shifted once more. In 1981, the Soviet Navy ordered its first true aircraft carrier, Tbilisi , subsequently renamed Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov , which carries Sukhoi Su-33 'Flanker-D' and MiG-29 fighters, as well as Ka-27 helicopters. A distinctive feature of Soviet aircraft carriers has been their offensive missile armament (as well as long-range anti-aircraft warfare armament), again representing

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