The premise of "The Hunt for Red October" is straight out of a Cold War nightmare. An untraceable nuclear submarine goes dark somewhere between Russia and America, and the Americans think the Russians are preparing to attack, while the Russians think the vessel's commander is defecting. Both countries are ready to do what they have to in order to protect themselves, the threat of war hanging thick in the air. It turns out that at least some of this story is rooted in truth.
In November 1975, Soviet political officer Valery Sablin had grown tired of USSR president Leonid Brezhnev and his treatment of the working class of Russia. He resented the leaders of the political party in power and wished to change the lives of the middle class and bring down the hypocrisy of the Russian elites. He led a mutiny aboard the battleship Sentry, taking heavy inspiration from the October Revolution of 1905. Sablin's revolt ultimately failed, as others on the ship feared retribution from the leaders in the Kremlin. He was sentenced to death and executed in August of the following year.
As War History Online noted of the incident, the story of Sablin may have inspired Tom Clancy's tale, but the gaps between fact and fiction rendered the comparison almost unrecognizable. Apart from the obvious difference between submarine and battleship, Sean Connery's character looked to defect to the West, starting a new life in America. Sablin endeavored to do the opposite — to usurp the leadership in the USSR and replace the president with himself. While the story as told in "The Hunt for Red October" was enough to propel Clancy to a very successful career, it amounts to little more than inspired fiction.
