Free Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell Page A

circle of top Politburo defense officials. There were others in the Kremlin who were envious of this tight structure, and who endlessly tried to circumvent the system to gain more power in the Communist empire. Most of these schemers were in some way or another in a camp that believed the control of the system should be exercised through the parallel hierarchy of the KGB.
    The Soviet naval system had built-in checks and balances throughout the officer structure, to ensure that official orders involving missile submarines originated at the top, and that these orders were strictly followed down the chain. Admiral Gorshkov, an ironfisted commander with direct lines to the politicians in the Kremlin, was a ruthless disciplinarian. A respected naval hero of the Great Patriotic War, Gorshkov became an admiral at the age of thirty-two, the youngest any Soviet officer had attained that respected rank.
    Some deployment of missile submarines—such as the assignment of boats to squadrons, divisions, and flotillas—was invested in superiors at fleet headquarters in Vladivostok. But when it came to the strategic missions for these boats, the authority was executed by Supreme Soviet navy command headquarters in Moscow.
    The fourteen command and operations officers of K-129, all regulars, were the final link in the chain of command. Their job was to obediently carry out the orders, and they had practically no authority otherwise.
    The next tier of K-129 crewmen was even more rigidly indoctrinated to follow orders without question. These were the senior enlisted men, including three with the rank of michman (warrant officer) and six chief petty officers. Most warrant officers and senior petty officers in the Soviet navy were also career professionals. They were highly trained in the technical skills required to operate the submarine and specialized in their fields of expertise, such as electronics, engine mechanics, communications, and weaponry. Unlike enlisted submariners in the American Navy, their Soviet counterparts were not cross-trained, and stayed in their specific jobs for the duration of their service.
    The regular K-129 crew also included two dozen petty officers. All the men in these senior enlisted ranks were better trained than the common seamen, and all were volunteers. The typical tour of service of these ranking crewmen was six years. However, since the privileges of housing, clothing, and food for the trained submariner so exceeded what was available to civilians or enlisted personnel in other service branches, many of these petty officers chose to remain in service.
    It had been years since many of the K-129 senior enlisted personnel had been granted leave to take the long trips home to western Russia. A handful of eager young Soviet submariners, returning in January from the latest extended mission, were lucky enough to be granted furloughs. These men quickly vanished into the vast Russian winter, hitching rides on whatever military transport they could find, or cramming onto the cheap Aeroflot commercial flights that shuttled between the military outposts of Asia and western Russia.
    Normally, Soviet regulations required any active submarine to retain a sufficient number of officers and men needed to sail and fight the ship at a moment’s notice. Captain Kobzar had been allowed to bend rules and permitted eight senior enlisted men to take leave. In addition, the duty tours of seven first-class and regular seamen had expired and they were permitted to leave the service. Furloughing so many crew members was a risk the captain thought worth taking. He did not expect to be ordered back to sea for an extended patrol until early summer.
    The majority of the K-129 crew members, approximately four dozen, were lower-ranking enlisted men. These seamen received no leave for the duration of their conscription. They were drafted for three- to four-year stints and remained on duty until their service obligation was fulfilled.
    When