The letter to Admiral Padorin

Here is the text of the letter Ramius posted to Admiral Padorin. It appears in The Naval Institute “Proceedings,” April 2010, p.86:

Admiral Yu. I. Padorin
Director,
Main Political Administration,
People's Commissariat of the Navy
Moscow, R.F.S.F.R.

Dear (scratched out "Admiral Padorin"): (and signed) Uncle Yuri

Thank you for your confidence, and for the opportunity you have given me with command of this magnificent ship!

As you know, I have been an officer in the Soviet Navy for nearly thirty years, and this is my seventh submarine command. It is my intention to use all my training and all my experience to carry out a mission which no Soviet vessel has ever accomplished.

I intend to defect to the west. In fact, I shall sail Red October into New York harbor, bring her to dock at the United Nations building, and present her to the President of the United States.

Why would I do such a thing, you ask? Because the Party has betrayed the revolution, has betrayed the people, and has betrayed the Rodina with its corruption. I have known this for years-since my youth. But like a coward I was unwilling to take action. I chose instead to hide in my uniform and in my career. I chose to hide in the privileges of my father's high position in the Party. I chose to believe that my career and my "noble" birth would shield me from the squalor in which the Party is content to leave the narod, the common people of our nation. My punishment for this, as you know, is a wife murdered at the hands of my brother nachalnik, another son of a nobleman, a doctor who operates while drunk, and is protected because his father sits on the Leningrad Central Committee. I was a fool to trust "the system," but I trusted it, and like so many of my countrymen, I was myself betrayed.

But unlike others, I can have my revenge. By the time you read this, my Red October will be in mid-Atlantic. Find and destroy me if you can. See how well you have trained me! See how well you have designed my ship! See how well you have trained my officers and crew, that they will follow my orders without question! See yourself how well "the system" has treated me, Comrade! Then see how well it will treat you.

This is no joke, Uncle Yuri.

(signed) Marko

M.A. Ramius