While this was going on the army was being completely demoralized. The terrible defeat of the Russian forces by the Japanese--the foe that had been so lightly regarded--at Mukden was a crushing blow which greatly impaired the morale of the troops, both those at home and those at the front. Disaster followed upon disaster. May saw the destruction of the great Russian fleet. In June rebellion broke out in the navy, and the crew of the battle-ship _Potyamkin_, which was on the Black Sea, mutinied and hoisted the red flag. After making prisoners of their officers, the sailors hastened to lend armed assistance to striking working-men at Odessa who were in conflict with soldiers and police. VII It was a time of turbulent unrest and apparent utter confusion. It was not easy to discern the underlying significance and purpose of some of the most important events. On every hand there were strikes and uprisings, many of them without any sort of leadership or plan. Strikes which began over questions of wages and hours became political demonstrations in favor of a Constituent Assembly. On the other hand, political demonstrations became transformed, without any conscious effort on the part of anybody, into strikes for immediate economic betterment. There was an intense class conflict going on in Russia, as the large number of strikes for increased wages and shorter hours proved, yet the larger political struggle dwarfed and obscured the class struggle. For the awakened proletariat of the cities the struggle in which they were engaged was economic as well as political. They wisely regarded the political struggle as part of the class struggle, as Plechanov and his friends declared it to be. Yet the fact remained that the capitalist class against which the proletariat was fighting on the economic field was, for the most part, fighting against autocracy, for the overthrow of Czarism and the establishment of political democracy, as earnestly, if less violently, than the proletariat was. The reason for this was the recognition by the leading capitalists of Russia of the fact that industrial progress was retarded by the old regime, and that capitalist development requires popular education, a relatively high standard of living, political freedom, and stability and order in government. It was perfectly natural, therefore, for the great associations of manufacturers and merchants to unite in urging the government to grant extensive political reforms so long as the class conflict was merely incidental.