Under pressure created by the First World War, the Russian empire collapsed. The Russian army was repeatedly defeated, people in the cities were restless, and the whole of the county was starving. Following strikes and political protests, Nicholas II abdicated, which ended the Romanoffs’ 300-year reign on the Russian throne.

 

Under tremendous political pressure, Nicholas II announced in March 1917 that he would abdicate in favour of his brother Mikhail, who transferred power to the Provisional government. This revolution, known as the February/March Revolutions, also led to bloody violence in Viapori, Helsinki and on board ships of the Baltic Fleet. Behind this brutal violence lay the hatred of seamen and soldiers against their officers, political propaganda of the left, and an attempt by Governor-General F.A. Seyn to conceal the abdication of Nicholas II.

 

Within the space of three days, radicalised seamen of the Baltic Fleet murdered almost one hundred officers by drowning, beating, shooting or bayoneting them. Among other things, the hatred of seamen led to the murders of Vice-Admiral Adrian Nepenin, commander of the Helsinki Squadron of the Baltic Fleet, Lieutenant General of the Navy Veniamin Protopopov, Rear Admiral Arkadi Nebolsin, Colonel Nikolai Fedtšenko, artillery commander of the Viapori fortress, and Lieutenant General Pjotr Tihonovitš, commander of Viapori’s fortification troops.

 

The murder spree peaked on 16 and 18 March 1917. At the officers’ club located on the island of Iso-Mustasaari, the deputy of the fortress commandant, Colonel Aleksandr Svjatski of the First Fortification Regiment, was murdered by shooting him in the back. Stabs-kapitan Pjotr Aleksejev, who rushed to help Svjatski, was shot in his sleigh. In addition, at Bastion Palmstierna, located in the island of Susisaari, a dozen officers and non-commissioned officers were killed under suspicious circumstances.

 

The Naval Ministry attempted to investigate the officer murders and bring the perpetrators to justice, to no avail. For example, the committee of seamen on the battleship of the line Petropavlovsk refused to provide the Ministry with any information, as the events on the ship had been its “internal business”. In July 1917, Prime Minister Aleksandr Kerenski, who was counted among socialist revolutionaries, pardoned the seamen who had committed officer murders, and the investigations into them were discontinued.