Petrichenko was born in 1892 in the village of Nikitenka not far from the city of Kaluga to a family of peasants. Two years after his birth his family moved to Alexandrovsk, where Stepan graduated from City College and joined the local ironworks as a metalworker. In 1913 Petrichenko was called up for military service with the Russian navy, where he was assigned to the Russian battleship Petropavlovsk, part of the Baltic Fleet.