His initial service was aboard the battleship Sevastopol, transferring to the cruiser Diana he served during the Russo-Japanese War and was interned with his ship in Saigon.

On returning to Russia, Schastny served in the Kronstadt Naval Base as an instructor in the Torpedo School (1906–1909) and as Flag Lieutenant to the commander destroyers, Baltic Fleet.

Trotsky declared at his trial that: "Schastny strongly and steadily deepened the gulf between the navy and the Soviet government.

He was the vanguard of the conspiracy of the officers of the mine divisions, he openly put forward the slogan ‘dictatorship of the fleet’.”Schastny was sentenced to death and shot on the orders of the Revolutionary tribunal on 22 June 1918.

[2] In his testimony before the Revolutionary Military Tribunal, Trotsky referenced accounts of other naval commanders such as Admiral Zelyonoy that Shchastny had made unauthorised orders to blow up Fort Ino, disobeyed orders to negotiate with German command, possessed implicatory documents in his briefcase and refused to arrest several naval mutineers who sought to openly overthrow the Soviet government with a proposed resolution for a "dictatorship of the Baltic fleet".