Add new comment

Two other major uprisings began on battleships. One was Brazil's Revolt of the Lash, where a government had bought two hugely expensive dreadnought battleships and a modern cruiser. These ships were powerful enough to sink all the rest of Brazil's navy, yet the government treated their crew like slaves. The result was an uprising that included shelling targets in Rio with a battleship's main guns. With no possible military option against these superships, the government was forced to negotiate, though (as always) in bad faith. The sailors won an end to the use of whips aboard ship, amnesty, and more, but after a later revolt many concessions were taken back.

Even more powerful was the sailor's revolt in Germany, where most of the surface navy(but not the U-boat crews) rebelled at the end of WWI. The uprising spread first to the port cities, than all the cities and forced the Kaiser from power, bringing about the end of the war and of monarchy in Germany. Fascism rose later, in great part a reaction by ruling classes to the shudders of fear they felt as a Red Tide of Revolution threatened to sweep over all of Europe.

Today's equivalent of either of these rebellions in the US would require the mutineers to capture every US aircraft carrier and every "boomer" land-attack, missile-armed submarine. Probably they would also have to capture enough of the Air Force to prevent their new navy from being destroyed by land-based bombers. The equivalent of the German uprising would require even more: taking not only the ships but the ports they are based in and the cities around the ports too. The rebels would control ports from New York to San Diego and be able to choke off trade to remaining pro-capitalist areas.

Time and again, revolutions have armed themselves by taking over the Enemy's most powerful weapons and turning them against their masters.