| Year |
Date |
Event |
| 1812 |
|
Napoleon invaded Russia. |
| 1825 |
|
The Decembrist revolt occurred. |
| 1853 |
|
The Crimean War began. Fought between Russia, and the alliance of the United Kingdom, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Piedmont-Sardinia, the war was epitomized by military incompetence on all sides. The war was an embarrassing defeat for Russia. |
| 1855 |
March 2 |
The reign of Alexander II began. Alexander is remembered as a reformer of Russia – albeit for the sake of Tsardom. His reign saw the Emancipation of the Serfs, the creation of the Zemstva, and various legal reforms. |
| 1856 |
March 30 |
The Treaty of Paris was signed, which officially ended the Crimean war. The Black Sea was made neutral ground, which prohibited warships, and any fortifications on its shores. Russia lost territory it had been granted at the mouth of the Danube, was forced to abandon claims to protect Turkish Christians, and lost its influence over Romanian principalities. |
| 1857 |
|
The Society of Russian Railways was founded. |
| 1858 |
|
The conquest of Amur region occurred. |
|
May 28 |
The Treaty of Aigun was signed. This settled the Russo-Chinese border along the Amur river, and was one of a number of treaties forcing 19th century China to concede territory. |
| 1859 |
|
The Caucasus were conquered, and Shamil, the leader of the north Caucasian resistance, was captured. |
| 1860 |
|
The State Bank was founded. The State Bank, and the discipline it imposed on joint-stock banks, helped to improve Russian credit ratings. |
| 1861 |
|
The Edict of Emancipation of the Serfs was issued. This act, in theory, granted the serfs that worked the land full civil rights, freed them from their serf bindings to the land, gave them their own plots, and gave them the right to buy land from the landowners. They were to pay redemption fees. |
| 1863 |
|
January Uprising in Poland began. |
|
|
A University Statute was passed, which primarily removed the restrictions on subjects such as philosophy. Students were also allowed to travel abroad, and no longer had to wear uniforms. |
| 1864 |
|
The Polish uprising was crushed by a 350,000 strong Russian force, and its leader, Romuald Traugutt, was hanged outside the Citadel in Warsaw. The uprising avoided ‘flirtations with Polish nationalism’ ( - Peter Neville), and preceded the attempted Russification of Polish culture and language. |
|
|
Zemstva were created. These were elected local government bodies (voting biased very much towards landowners and gentry), complemented by the Mir (traditional village commune), which had control over local education, health, and communications. |
|
|
Judicial reform occurred. |
|
|
Provisions for primary and secondary education were established. |
| 1865 |
|
Censorship was relaxed. |
|
|
The year-long conquest of the Central Asian states of Kokand, Khiva, and Bukhara began. |
| 1866 |
|
Karakozov made his attempt on Alexander II's life. |
| 1870 |
|
Russia revoked the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris. |
|
|
There was reform of municipal government. |
|
|
Przhevalsky explored Central Asia. |
|
April 10 |
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (d. January 21, 1924), as he is better known, was to become the future leader of the Bolshevik party, and leader of Communist Russia. |
| 1871 |
|
The Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris were repealed. |
| 1873 |
|
The League of Three Emperors was founded. This was an agreement, between Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia, that each would not support an enemy if one of them went to war with a fourth country. |
|
|
The Narodniks ‘go to the people’. Involving some 3000 students and intellectuals, led by Peter Lavrov and Nicholas Mikhailovsky, the Narodniks got a lukewarm reception from the peasants. However, it alarmed the government, which arrested hundreds of those involved. It was key to the frustration that led to more radical groups such as the Peoples’ Will. |
| 1874 |
|
Universal military service was introduced. |
|
|
The Narodnik rebellion ended. |
| 1875 |
|
A series of risings began against Ottoman rule in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria. |
| 1876 |
|
The unrest in the Ottoman empire was quelled. |
| 1877 |
|
The Russo-Turkish War began. |
| 1878 |
|
The Vera Zasulich Affair took place. Vera Ivanovna Zasulich (August 8, 1849, Old Style - May 8, 1919) was a Marxist revolutionary, who shot and wounded General Theodore Trepov. A sympathetic jury later found her not guilty. She fled before being rearrested, and became a hero to the populist movement. |
|
|
The Congress of Berlin was held to ratify a Treaty of Berlin by nations dissatisfied with Russian power after the Russo-Turkish war. It revised or eliminated 18 of the 29 articles of the Treaty of San Stephano. |
|
March 3 |
The Treaty of San Stephano was signed. This concluded the Russo-Turkish war, and was signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the latter of which agreed to pay large indemnities and cede Armenia and Dobruja to Russia. |
| 1879 |
|
The Narodnaya Volya (Peoples' Will) was formed from the group Land and Liberty (Russian: ????? ? ????). It was characterized by a centralized group of professional revolutionaries, and by its successful assassination of Alexander II. |
|
October 26 |
Lev Davidovich Bronstein was born. Leon Trotsky (d. August 21, 1940), more famously, was a Marxist intellectual, Bolshevik revolutionary, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the early Soviet Union, and commander of the Red Army. He was later expelled from the party and the country as Stalin rose to power. |
| 1880 |
|
The Supreme Executive Committee was formed under General Loris-Melikov. |
| 1881 |
|
The Okhrana was established. Part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Okhrannoye otdeleniye were the secret police force of the Russian empire, dedicated to the security of the Tsar and his family. This prominently involved the infiltration of terrorist groups. |
|
|
“Temporary regulations” placed many provinces under emergency rule. |
|
March 1 |
Alexander II was assassinated. The assassination of Alexander, a reformist tsar, by the Peoples’ Will, was counter-productive, in that it brought about intense policies of suppression and Russification. |
|
March 10 |
The reign of Alexander III began. Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov (b. March 10, 1845) ascended the throne at a time of crisis, and his response, throughout his reign, was that of a series of repressive measures, known as “the Reaction.” |
| 1882 |
|
Anti-Jewish laws were formulated in the May Laws. |
| 1884 |
|
A New University Statute was passed. |
| 1887 |
|
The Reinsurance Treaty was signed. This was a secret treaty engineered by Otto von Bismarck to continue the alliance with Russia after the breakdown of the League of the Three Emperors. In it, Russia pledged to remain neutral in the event of France attacking Germany; Germany pledged to remain neutral in the event of Austria attacking Russia, or the event of Russia intervening in the Bosporus and Dardanelles. |
| 1888 |
|
Russia failed to obtain a Reichsbank loan. |
| 1889 |
|
Zemskie nachalniki (land commandants) were introduced. |
| 1890 |
|
Restrictions on zemstva were passed in the New Zemstvo Statute. |
| 1891 |
|
A famine crisis began in the Volga basin and was followed by a cholera epidemic. |
| 1893 |
|
The famine and cholera epidemic came to an end. |
| 1894 |
|
The Franco-Russian Alliance was ratified. This agreement between France and Russia, resulting from Germany's decision not to renew the Reinsurance Treaty, promised mutual military assistance if either country was attacked. |
|
November 1 |
Alexander III died. Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov acceeded as Nicholas II (d. 17 July 1918). The future, and last, Tsar of Russia proved unable to keep the old régime standing. His reign was characterized by stubbornness in maintaining absolute rule, and an ineptitude as a conciliator to increasing resistance. Peter Neville jibes, “the well-known saying ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’ has, of course, a corollary.” |
| 1895 |
December 7 |
Lenin was arrested and held by authorities for an entire year, then exiled to Shushenskoye in Siberia. |
| 1897 |
|
The first and the only Russian Empire Census was taken. |
| 1898 |
|
Peasant redemption payments ended. |
|
April |
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDRP) was founded. Uniting the various socialist revolutionary organisations into one party, the RSDLP was the group that would later split into the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. |
| 1899 |
|
An Imperial Manifesto on Finland was issued. |
|
|
Bobrikov became Governor-General of Finland. Appointed by Nicholas II, Bobrikov was hated by the Finnish population, as he considered Finland still a foreign threat to Russia. |
|
April |
Lenin published the book The Development of Capitalism in Russia. |
| 1900 |
|
Siberia lost its status as a penal colony. |
|
|
Russia occupied Manchuria. |
| Year |
Date |
Event |
| 1901 |
|
The Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) was founded. |
|
|
Zubatov police trade unions were formed. |
| 1902 |
|
Lenin published What is to be Done? |
|
|
Vyacheslav von Plehve became Minister of the Interior. Plehve was harsh, and deeply conservative, and is credited with the destruction of numerous revolutionary groups. He attempted conciliation with the Zemstva, but later turned to repression |
| 1903 |
|
Stalin was exiled to Siberia. |
|
|
Serious pogroms occurred in Kishinev and Gomel, with the encouragement of Interior Minister von Plehve. |
|
|
Bobrikov was given dictatorial powers to fire government officials and to abolish newspapers. |
|
|
The Trans-Siberian railway was completed. The construction of the railway, begun in 1891, the ‘prestige’ project of Sergei Witte, stretched from Moscow to Vladivostok. It was intended to connect remoter regions with the west, and thus encourage migration of workers and expansion of industry to the east. |
|
November 17 |
The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks formed. The split in the Social Democrats at their Second Congress essentially formed two separate parties. The Bolsheviks (‘majoritists’) under Lenin wanted a smaller, tighter, party, and were to take power in the October 1917 coup. The Mensheviks (‘minoritists’), under Julius Martov, wanted a party with an open membership. |
| 1904 |
|
Plehve was assassinated. |
|
|
Stalin returned from exile in Siberia |
|
January |
The Union of Liberation was formed. This liberal group was committed to replacing absolutism with a constitutional monarchy. |
|
February 4 |
Japan severed relations with Russia in anticipation of war. |
|
February 8 |
The Russo-Japanese War began. Originating in a desire to distract from Russia’s internal troubles, decline in Western Russia, and the need for a complete ice-free port, the war on the side of Russia is sobering in terms of its military incompetence on behalf of its commanders. It was an arguable catalyst for the Russian Revolution of 1905. |
|
July |
Pyotr Dmitrievich Sviatopolk-Mirskii became Minister of the Interior. |
| 1905 |
January 2 |
Port Arthur finally fell to the Japanese after a series of brutal, high-casualty assaults. |
|
January 9 |
The Bloody Sunday massacre occurred. Peaceful demonstrators, led by Father Gapon, presenting a petition to Nicholas II at the Winter Palace, were viewed as a threat by the regime. Soldiers, killing at least 1,000, fired upon them. This day is widely viewed as the ‘spark’ for the events of 1905. |
|
February |
Sviatopolk-Mirskii was dismissed as Minister. |
|
May |
The first Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was formed in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. |
|
August |
The All-Russian Muslim League was formed. |
|
September 5 |
The Russo-Japanese War ended. |
|
October |
A general strike took place. |
|
|
The St. Petersburg Soviet was formed. |
|
|
The October Manifesto was issued in the chaos of the 1905 revolution by Nicholas II under the influence of Sergei Witte. The manifesto promised to grant: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, a bicameral parliament, broad participation in the Duma, and that no law could be issued without its consent. |
|
|
The Council of Ministers was formed. |
|
|
A huge anti-Jewish pogrom took place in Odessa. |
|
December |
All members of the St. Petersburg Soviet were arrested. |
|
|
There was a workers’ rising in Moscow. |
| 1906 |
January |
All members of a Pre-Conciliar Commission were appointed to prepare reform of the Russian Orthodox Church. |
|
March |
Professional associations and trade unions were legalized. |
|
April 23 |
The first Duma was called. |
|
|
The Fundamental Laws were issued on the eve of the opening of the first Duma. These declared the autocracy of the Tsar, including his supremacy over the Law, the Church, and the Duma. |
|
July |
The Vyborg Manifesto was issued by the Kadets, who fled to Finland after the dissolution of the First Duma. This called for Russians to refuse to pay taxes, refuse to join the army, and take part in civil disobedience. Their appeal went largely unheard by the Russian population. |
|
July 21 |
The first Duma ended. |
|
|
Stolypin was appointed as prime minister. |
|
August |
An assassination attempt was made on Stolypin. |
|
|
Summary courts-martial were introduced. |
|
November |
Stolypin’s main agrarian reform went into effect. |
| 1907 |
|
The Triple Entente was established. The alliance of Russia, France, and the United Kingdom was born from the Franco-Russian Alliance and the Entente Cordiale. The alignment was a counterweight to the Triple Alliance. It decided main alliances taken during WWI. |
|
February |
The Second Duma began. The Kadet party dropped seats after the Vyborg Manifesto, benefiting the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and Social Revolutionary Party. The political right increased, leading to internal dispute as well as dispute with the government. The duma was dissolved in June after criticism of the government’s administration of the army. |
|
April 30 |
The fifth Party Congress began. During this, there was a failed attempt by the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks to reconcile their differences. |
|
May 19 |
The Fifth Party Congress ended. |
|
June |
A new electoral law was issued. This greatly restricted the right to vote, effectively to the propertied classes. Only one in six of the male population were entitled to vote. |
|
November |
The Third Duma began. The third duma was dominated by right wing parties after the government’s doctoring of the electoral system. Stolypin was able to develop relations with this duma to pursue his land reforms. The duma did have the right to question ministers and discuss state finances. |
| 1908 |
|
Austria annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. |
| 1909 |
|
Vekhi was published. |
|
February |
The Yevno Azef affair occurred. A double agent, working as an organizer of assassinations, and as a police spy, was exposed after the revolutionary Vladimir Burtsev began an investigation. |
| 1911 |
|
Student disorders took place in universities. |
|
|
The Western Zemstvo crisis took place. |
|
|
Prime Minister Stolypin was assassinated. |
| 1912 |
|
The Third Duma ended. |
|
April 17 |
The Lena goldfields massacre occurred. After strikes of miners through March, employers appealed to the police to arrest the leaders. At least 200 were killed as soldiers fired on a peaceful march, and the massacre was compared to that of Bloody Sunday. |
|
October 8 |
The Balkan Wars began. |
|
November |
The Fourth Duma began. After the assassination of Stolypin, subsequent ministers were unimaginative in their solutions, resorting to repression. ‘Political’ strikes rose from 24 in 1911 to 2,401 in 1914. This duma was notable for frequent criticism of policy, and work in education and in state insurance. |
| 1913 |
|
1913 was the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty. |
|
August |
The Balkan Wars ended. |
| 1914 |
|
Russia suffered defeats at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. |
|
June 28 |
World War I began. Due to Russia’s consistent poor performance, the war was arguably a catalyst for the revolution of 1917. |
| 1915 |
|
The Battle of Gorlice Tarnow took place. |
|
|
Nicholas II assumed command of the army. Nicholas’ leadership of the military correlated with successful campaigns in the Carpathian Mountain range under Brusilov, though his influence was insignificant, and disastrous for politics at home. |
|
May |
Russia suffered defeat in Galicia. |
|
|
The War Industry Committees were founded. The committees represented all parties involved in the economy: the government, Zemgor (q.v. July 1915), employers, and workers. It was an effort to oversee the conversation of factories to military purposes. |
|
July |
The Zemgor was founded. This was formed during the munitions crisis, under Prince Georgii Lvov, to assist recruitment of labour and the placing of orders for military supplies. |
|
|
Over the next three months, Russia lost possession of Poland. |
|
August |
The Progressive Bloc called for the formation of a “government enjoying public confidence.” However, Nicholas’ idea of patriotism was entirely non-civic; he adjourned the duma, and dismissed the ministers who had supported the Bloc. |
| 1916 |
June 4 |
Russia began the Brusilov offensive against Austro-Hungarians in Galicia. |
|
December 16 |
Rasputin was murdered. During WWI, Rasputin and the Tsarina Alexandra had been the two effectual powers. His assassination by Prince Felix and associates was the culmination of resentment towards his power over Alexandra, and an attempt to save the monarchy. |
| 1917 |
February |
There was a rising in Petrograd. |
|
|
The Petrograd Soviet was formed. |
|
March |
A Provisional Government was set up. The government promised the full range of civil rights, and came in a period of celebration. However, it was another government in addition to the Soviet, and it was to become a symbol of the right as the Soviet moved to the left. |
|
March 1 |
The Petrograd Soviet issued Order No. 1. This instructed soldiers to “elect committees in units, at company level and above, to take charge of all aspects of military life except actual combat.” The mood of the soldiers was transformed, and the Order undermined the soldier’s patriotism. |
|
March 2 |
Nicholas II abdicated “in order to restore internal peace for the sake of the war effort,” and offered the throne to his brother, the Grand Duke Mikhail. Mikhail declined it, ending the Romanov autocracy. |
|
April |
Lenin issued the April Theses immediately after his return to Russian soil from Zurich. They were controversial even within the party. They demanded an immediate end to the war, the confiscation of private land, the destruction of the bureaucracy, the army, and the police, and the cession of all state power to the workers’ soviets. |
|
|
The Miliukov note was uncovered. Foreign Minister Pavel Miliukov sent the Allied powers a note stating intentions to stay in the war while retaining the old tsarist war aims. Demonstrations, Bolshevik-instigated, followed the news when it reached the streets of Petrograd. |
|
June |
The first All-Russian Congress of Soviets was held. |
|
|
The Ukrainian Rada proclaimed the autonomy of Ukraine. |
|
|
The “July Days” took place. Against the advice of the leadership of the Bolsheviks, an attempt was made to over throw the government, which failed. Badly planned, it ended in farce and the arrest warrant of leading Bolsheviks. |
|
|
Kerensky became prime minister. |
|
July 26 |
The Sixth Party Congress began. |
|
August |
The Kornilov coup, a supposed right-wing attempt to undermine the revolution by a former tsarist chief of staff, took place. It failed when railway workers refused to transport Kornilov’s men to Petrograd. Its main importance is in the chance it gave the Bolsheviks, who were on the brink of collapse after the failed July coup, to defend the government. |
|
|
The Council of the Orthodox Church convened in Moscow. It reestablished the patriarchate and elected Tikhon as patriarch. |
|
August 3 |
The Sixth Party Congress ended |
|
October |
The second All-Russian Congress of Soviets took place. This consisted of 649 elected delegates, 390 of which were Bolshevik. The Left SRs had formed from dissatisfied members of the SRs; remaining SRs, and Mensheviks, walked out. Power was seized similarly elsewhere where possible; where not, MRCs coerced the Soviet. |
|
October 25 |
The October revolution, a Bolshevik coup, took strategic points in the city - including government facilities - and eventually assaulted the Winter Palace. |
|
October 26 |
The Decree on Peace was issued. |
|
|
The Decree on Land was issued. |
|
November |
The Council of the Orthodox Church ended. |
|
December |
Armistice was established on the German front. |
|
|
Finland declared independence. |
|
December 20 |
The Cheka was set up. This was the first of many Soviet secret police organizations. Headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage was eventually merged into the GPU, a section of the NKVD. |
| 1918 |
|
The Russian Civil War began. Fought between the “Reds” – the Bolsheviks and any supporters – and the “Whites” – a motley group of monarchists, conservatives, liberals and socialists – the civil war was fought on three main fronts: the south against General Denikin, the east against General Kolchak, and the northeast against General Yudenich. |
|
|
Allied intervention began. |
|
January |
The Constituent Assembly was abolished. |
|
|
Ukraine declared independence. |
|
|
A decree On the Separation of Church and State was issued. This decree passed measures to expropriate all ecclesiastical land and property, and to strip religious associations of their juridical status. |
|
February |
Russia switched to the New Style Gregorian calendar.
n.b. all dates hereafter are given in the New Style (Gregorian) calendar
|
|
March 3 |
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed between Bolshevist Russia and the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey (the Central Powers). The treaty marked Russia's final withdrawal from World War I. The terms were humiliating for Russia as an empire, but the treaty was crucial to the Bolsheviks in order to divert forces and give concession. The terms were largely reversed in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (q.v. August 23, 1939, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). |
|
March 6 |
The Seventh Party Congress began. The party became the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). |
|
March 8 |
The Seventh Party Congress ended. |
|
May |
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia declared independence. |
|
|
The Czech Legion rebelled against Soviet rule. |
|
June |
Anti-Bolshevik governments set up in Samara and Omsk. |
|
July |
The Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets ratified the first Soviet constitution. |
|
July 17 |
The Romanovs were assassinated. Tsar Nicholas II and his family, including the gravely ill Tsarevich Alexei Nicolaievich and several family servants, were executed by firing squad in the basement of the Ipatiev House, in Ekaterinburg, where they had been imprisoned by a detachment of Bolsheviks led by Yakov Yurovsky. |
|
August |
The White army captured Kazan. |
|
September |
The Red Terror was declared. This was a general “campaign” of deportation and arrest against counter-revolutionaries. Orlando Figes states, “The Terror erupted from below … The Bolsheviks encouraged but did not create this mass terror.” |
|
November |
Kolchak seized power in Omsk. |
|
November 11 |
World War I ended. |
| 1919 |
March |
The First Congress of the Comintern took place. The Communist International was intended to fight "by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State." |
|
March 18 |
The Eighth Communist Party Congress began. This Congress created both the Politburo and the Orgburo. (The former originally had just five members, and was to run the party.) |
|
March 23 |
The Eighth Communist Party Congress ended. |
|
May |
A months-long series of major White offensives, led by Denikin in the south and Yudenich in the Baltic, began. |
|
October |
Red counter-attacks, lasting into January 1920, defeated both Denikin and Yudenich. |
| 1920 |
March 29 |
The Ninth Party Congress began. |
|
April |
Soviet power was installed in Azerbaijan. |
|
|
The Russian-Polish War began with the battle of Warsaw. |
|
April 5 |
The Ninth Party Congress ended. |
|
June |
During this and the next two months, the Red Army repelled the Poles, invaded Poland, and tried unsuccessfully to capture Warsaw. |
|
August |
The Second Congress of the Comintern was held. The Comintern adopted the twenty-one “Conditions” on which socialist parties throughout the world could be admitted to Comintern. |
|
October |
A Polish-Soviet armistice was signed. |
|
November |
Soviet power was installed in Armenia. |
|
December |
The Central Committee issued its directive on Proletkult. The Proletarian Culture movement’s object was “to educate a tier of ‘conscious proletarian socialists’, a sort of working-class intelligentsia, who would then spread their knowledge to other workers and thereby ensure that the revolutionary movement created its own cultural revolution.” |
| 1921 |
|
The Russian Civil War ended. |
|
|
The Volga basin famine began. Peasants had been seeding less land due to requisitioning. During this periodical Russian drought, hunger was so severe that ‘seed grain’ for the next year’s harvest was eaten. As many as five million may have died. |
|
February |
Soviet power was installed in Georgia. |
|
|
General strikes began in Petrograd and Moscow. Factories were closing due to lack of raw materials, leading to workers’ protests; when protests were sacked, many more went on strike. They stated their aims as "overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship, free elections to the soviets, freedom of speech, press and assembly for all, and the release of political prisoners." |
|
February 22 |
Gosplan was created. This was, initially under the name "RSFSR State Planning Commission", the committee for economic planning. It initially had an advisory role, but during the Five Year Plans it took centre stage. |
|
February 27 |
The Kronstadt rebellion began. Crews of the Baltic fleet battleships set up their own Military Revolutionary Committee, demanding, as well as the demands of the general strikes (q.v. February – March 1921, General Strikes in Petrograd and Moscow), “abolition of political departments, the lifting of roadblocks and restoration of free trade, equalization of rations, and the convening of a nonparty conference of workers, soldiers, and sailors.” |
|
March |
The Kronstadt rebellion ended. |
|
|
The wave of strikes in Moscow and Petrograd ended. |
|
March 8 |
The Tenth Communist Party Congress began. Taking place during suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, the congress introduced the New Economic Policy. A relaxation of bans on trade, this had elements of capitalism, and was necessary to restart the economy. The ‘ban on factions’ within the party was also introduced. |
|
March 16 |
The Tenth Communist Party Congress ended. |
|
March 18 |
The Treaty of Riga was signed between Poland and Soviet Russia ending the Polish-Bolshevik War. |
| 1922 |
|
The Volga basin famine ended. |
|
February |
A decree authorized the seizure of church valuables for famine relief. |
|
March 27 |
The Eleventh Communist Party Congress, which would appoint Stalin general secretary, began. |
|
April |
Patriarch Tikhon was put under house arrest. |
|
April 2 |
The Eleventh Party Congress ended. |
|
April 16 |
The Treaty of Rapallo was signed. Both Germany (the Weimar Republic) and Russia renounced claims, financial and territorial, against each other; both agreed to "co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries". |
|
May |
Lenin had his first stroke partly induced by the bullet still lodged in his spine. |
|
August |
Enver Pasha was captured. |
|
December 29 |
The Treaty of Creation of the USSR was signed. This formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a union of the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Trans-Caucasian Soviet republics. Successive republics were formed by separate amendments to the treaty. |
| 1923 |
|
The Scissor crisis took place. The New Economic Policy was improving agricultural production faster than it was industrial, leading to a disparity in prices. The peasants’ income fell, they could not buy manufactured industrial goods, and as a result, they fell into the pattern of subsistence. |
|
|
The First council of Living Church was held. Formed from the schism in the church over ecclesiastical reform during the civil war, and from desperation over Church survival, the Living Church was to call for reforms and attempt a positive relationship with the regime. Some preached that Communism was a modern form of Christ’s teachings. |
|
|
Patriarch Tikhon was released. |
|
|
Lenin was effectively removed from public life. |
|
April 17 |
The Twelfth Communist Party Congress began. |
|
April 25 |
The Twelfth Communist Party Congress ended. |
| 1924 |
January 21 |
Lenin died. The city of Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honour. |
|
May 23 |
The Thirteenth Party Congress was called. This was the first Party Congress since the death of Lenin. |
|
May 31 |
The Thirteenth Party Congress ended. |
| 1925 |
|
Trotsky resigned as commissar of war. |
|
|
The League of Godless was founded. This was set up with its own journal, broadsheets, and agitational material, aiming to portray the church as oppressive and exploitative. From 1929, it was known as the League of Militant Godless. |
|
December 18 |
The Fourteenth Party Congress began. This Congress accepted Stalin's doctrine of “Socialism in one Country”. The party was also renamed the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). |
|
December 31 |
The Fourteenth Communist Party Congress ended. |
| 1926 |
|
Trotsky was removed from the Politburo. |
|
|
The New Family Code was issued. |
| 1927 |
December 2 |
The Fifteenth Party Congress began. Stalin’s power was now consolidated. |
|
December 19 |
The Fifteenth Party Congress ended. |
| 1928 |
May |
The Shakhty trial took place. This was the first of the show trials, a denunciation of “bourgeois specialists.” |
|
October |
The First Five Year Plan was introduced with the aim of making Russia militarily and industrially self-sufficient. |
| 1929 |
|
Trotsky was exiled from the USSR. |
|
|
Forced collectivization of agriculture dekulakisation became government policy. |
|
|
The 'Right Opposition' was defeated. |
|
|
Bukharin was expelled from the Politburo. |
| 1930 |
March |
Stalin’s article ‘Dizzy with Success’ appeared in Pravda. |
|
April |
The GULAG system was established. |
|
|
Mayakovsky committed suicide. Traditionally, he shot himself in his communal flat, leaving a poem as a suicide note. There is tentative evidence that his ‘suicide’ was in fact work of the NVKD, of which it has been found his lover Lily Brik was a member. In any case, “the significance of the poet’s death was clear: there was no longer room in Soviet literature for the individualist.” |
|
June 26 |
The Sixteenth Party Congress began. |
|
July 13 |
The Sixteenth Party Congress ended. |
| 1932 |
|
A famine crisis began, especially in Ukraine, Kuban, the Volga basin, and west Siberia. |
|
|
The Second Five Year Plan began. |
|
April |
A Central Committee resolution closed all literary groups and created the Union of Soviet Writers. |
|
October |
The Dniprohes hydroelectric power project opened. |
|
November |
Stalin’s wife, Nadezhda Allilueva, committed suicide. |
|
December |
Internal passports and propiska were introduced. |
| 1934 |
|
The Southern famine ended. |
|
January 26 |
The Seventeenth Communist Party Congress began. Amidst congratulating itself on the success of the first Five Year Plan and collectivization, the “Congress of the Victors” saw the challenge to Stalin’s position of General Secretary by members trying to convince Kirov to challenge for the position, and by members attacking his power in the party. |
|
February 10 |
The Seventeenth Party Congress closed. |
|
July |
The security functions of the OGPU were transferred to the NKVD. |
|
August |
The First Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers was held. |
|
September |
The USSR joined the League of Nations. With this, Russia signaled its position of power internationally, yet the League was “already discredited by its failure to resist unprovoked aggression.” |
|
December 1 |
Kirov was assassinated. He was murdered by a young party member, Leonid Nikolaev, and connection with Stalin has not been proven. However, there is evidence that he was allowed access to Kirov in the knowledge he was a potential assassin. |
| 1935 |
|
The Franco-Soviet Treaty was signed. This was a treaty of mutual security, one “intended to prevent war, not to conduct it.” It was shaken, however, by the German occupation of the Rhineland, which urged alliance against Nazi Germany for “collective security.” |
|
|
The model collective farm statute was passed. |
|
|
The press introduced “Stakhanovite” labour. They chose a Donbass coalminer, Aleksei Stakhanov, as a model for the Soviet worker. He was reported to have hewn 102 tons, rather than his quota of 7, in a single shift. This was the beginning of focus on individual achievements, and some achievers earned enough to even afford a car. |
| 1936 |
|
A purge of former Left Bolsheviks took place. |
|
|
The show trials of Zinoviev, Kamenev, etc. began. |
|
January |
The exchange of party cards was ordered. |
|
|
Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtensk was denounced in Pravda. |
|
June |
A new decree on family restricted abortion and divorce. |
|
August 23 |
Tomsky committed suicide. |
|
September |
Yezhov became head of the NKVD. |
|
December |
The “Stalin Constitution” was promulgated. |
| 1937 |
|
The Army was purged. |
|
|
Mass terror began. |
|
January |
The show trials of Radek, Piatakov, etc. occurred. |
|
|
Ordzhonikidze committed suicide. |
|
June |
Eight military leaders, including Tukhachevsky, were arrested and executed. |
| 1938 |
|
The USSR was excluded from the Munich Conference. |
|
|
The terror, and the trials of Kamenev, Zinoviev, and their associates, drew to a close. |
|
March |
The Purge of Right Bolsheviks took place. This saw the show trials of Bukharin, Rykov, etc. |
|
|
A new decree required the teaching of Russian in all non-Russian schools. |
|
October |
History of the CPSU(B) - Short Course was published. |
|
December |
Beria succeeded Yezhov as head of the NKVD. |
| 1939 |
March 10 |
The Eighteenth Party Congress began. This was the first Congress since the Great Purge. |
|
March 21 |
The Eighteenth Party Congress ended. |
|
August |
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed. In full, the Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, this lasted until Operation Barbarossa (q.v. June 22, 1941). |
|
|
The Red Army defeated the Japanese at Khalkin-Gol in Mongolia. |
|
September |
The Red Army occupied eastern Poland (western Belorussia and western Ukraine). |
|
November |
The Red Army began its winter war with Finland. |
| 1940 |
March |
Peace was concluded with Finland. |
|
June |
The Soviet Union annexed the Baltic Republics and Bessarabia. |
|
|
Unjustifiable absence from work was made a criminal offense. |
|
August |
Trotsky was assassinated. Ramón Mercader attacked Trotsky in his home in Mexico with an ice axe, working for Stalin. Trotsky was never formally rehabilitated. |
|
October |
Fees were introduced for higher and upper secondary education. |
| 1941 |
June 22 |
The Nazis initiated Operation Barbarossa. This was the codename for the invasion of Soviet Russia, the invasion that arguably resulted in the defeat of Germany at the hands of the Soviet Union. |
|
September |
The Siege of Leningrad began. After being in complete isolation until November 22, 1941, the 900 day siege of Leningrad, Operation Spark overcame German fortified zones, and the victory was an important symbol of the Soviet will to resist. It would last until January 18, 1944. |
|
|
Kiev fell. |
|
|
The United States and Great Britain agreed to deliver war supplies to the USSR. |
|
October |
Moscow was threatened and partially evacuated. |
|
December |
During December and January, the German army was thrown back from Moscow. See Battle of Moscow. |
| 1942 |
May |
The USSR, the United States, and Great Britain conclude an alliance on the basis of the Atlantic Charter. |
|
June |
The German Army launched a major offensive in Ukraine. |
|
August |
The Battle of Stalingrad began between the Axis powers and the USSR. Victory at the battle of Stalingrad marked the turn of the tide in favour of the Soviet Union in World War II. It was reputedly the largest, and bloodiest, battle in history. |
|
October |
Political commissars were downgraded in the army. |
|
November 19 |
The Soviets began Operation Uranus. This encirclement of German forces cut off more than 250,000 Axis soldiers that were besieging Stalingrad. |
|
November 23 |
Operation Uranus was completed. |
| 1943 |
|
Stalin allowed a Church Council. |
|
|
Peoples were deported from the north Caucasus and Crimea through 1944. |
|
February |
The Battle of Stalingrad ended. |
| 1943 |
May |
The Comintern was dissolved. |
|
July |
The Battle of Kursk, famously the largest tank battle in history, was initiated as a blitzkrieg by German forces. The Soviet defense, however, launched an effective counter-offensive. |
|
November 28 |
The Teheran Conference began. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met to, most importantly, plan the final strategy for the war against Nazi Germany. It succeeded the Cairo Conference (q.v.), and was succeeded first by the Yalta Conference (q.v. February 1945), then the Potsdam Conference (q.v. July - August 1945). |
|
December 1 |
The Teheran Conference ended. |
| 1944 |
|
The Red Army drove into Poland. |
|
January 18 |
The Siege of Leningrad ended. |
|
August |
The Warsaw rising began. This was an armed uprising by the Polish Home Army in an attempt to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. |
|
October |
The Warsaw rising ended. |
| 1945 |
|
USSR entered war with Japan. |
|
February |
The Yalta conference was held. |
|
|
The Church council elected Alexei patriarch. |
|
April |
During the Battle of Berlin, one of the final battles of World War II, massive Soviet forces invaded Berlin from the east. It saw the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the unconditional surrender of Germany (q.v. May 9, 1945, Unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany). |
|
May 9 |
Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally. |
|
July |
The Potsdam Conference began. The leaders of the main victors of World War I - the Soviet Union, The United Kingdom, and the United States - met to agree on how to administer the unconditional surrender of Germany – agreeing on demilitarisation, denazification, democratization, and decartelization (transition to a free market) as their aims. |
|
August |
The Potsdam Conference ended. |
| 1946 |
|
British troops withdrew from Iran in accordance with the Persian settlement. |
|
|
A famine began in the Ukraine. |
|
August |
The Central Committee issued a statement attacking Anna Akhmatova and Zoshchenko. |
|
September |
A decree was passed on “measures to liquidate breaches of the kolkhoz statute”. |
| 1947 |
|
The Ukrainian famine ended. |
|
|
The Truman doctrine signalled the beginning of the Cold War. |
|
|
The Marshall Plan was launched by the United States. This was the plan for reconstruction of Europe after World War II. Stalin saw it as a threat, and did not allow the participation of any areas under his control. |
|
|
Currency reform was undertaken. |
|
September |
The Cominform was established. The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties was to coordinate Communist parties under Soviet control, and as such, was effectively a tool for Soviet foreign policy. |
| 1948 |
|
An anti-Jewish campaign took place. |
|
|
Attacks were made on ‘formalists’. |
|
|
Tito defected from his alliance with the USSR. |
|
January |
Solomon Mikhoels died. The head of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, he was the most prominent of Jewish intellectuals communicating with non-Russian Jews. His death was marked as a ‘car crash’ and he received a state funeral, though it is thought to have been orchestrated under Stalin. |
|
February |
The Central Committee issued a statement criticizing “decadent tendencies in music”. |
|
|
The Prague coup completed Communist domination of central and eastern Europe. |
|
June |
The Soviets began the Berlin Blockade. During this, the Soviet Union blocked rail and road access to West Berlin. |
|
|
The Cominform expelled Yugoslavia. |
|
August |
Lysenko triumphed at the Agricultural Academy. |
|
November |
The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was dissolved. |
| 1949 |
|
East European Communist parties were purged. |
|
January |
Comecon was formed. The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance was an organisation of the Soviet Union and its allies in Central and Eastern Europe (later also in Third World countries) whose members provided mutual aid. |
|
April |
NATO was formed. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was created such that if the USSR and its allies launched an attack against any of its members, all members would come to its aid. |
|
May 11 |
The Berlin Blockade ended. |
|
August 29 |
The Soviets conducted their first successful test of the atom bomb. The first test, named First Lightning, or Joe 1 by the United States, was a replica of the American Fat Man, led to the Soviet Union having nuclear weaponry of equal capability to the United States, as part of the Cold War. |
| 1950 |
January 30 |
Korean War: Regarding a mass invasion of the South, Stalin wrote to his ambassador to North Korea: "Tell him [Kim] that I am ready to help him in this matter." |
|
June 25 |
Korean War: The North Korean army launched a 135,000 man surprise assault across the 38th parallel. |
|
November 1 |
Korean War: Soviet-piloted MiG-15s first crossed the Yalu River and attacked American planes. |
| 1952 |
November 20 |
Prague Trials: A series of show trials purged the Czech Communist Party of Jews and insufficiently orthodox Stalinists. |
| 1953 |
January 13 |
An article in Pravda accused some of the nation's most prominent doctors - particularly Jews - of participating in a vast conspiracy to poison top Soviet leaders. |
|
March 1 |
After an all-night dinner with party members Lavrenty Beria, Nikolai Bulganin, Nikita Khrushchev and Georgy Malenkov, Stalin suffered a paralyzing stroke. |
|
March 5 |
Stalin died. |
|
March 6 |
Malenkov succeeded Stalin as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party. |
|
March 14 |
Khrushchev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. |
|
April 3 |
The Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party officially acquitted those arrested in connection with the so-called "doctors' plot". |
|
June 16 |
Uprising of 1953 in East Germany: In response to a 10 percent increase in work quotas, between 60 and 80 construction workers went on strike in East Berlin. Their numbers quickly swelled and a general strike and protests were called for the next day. |
|
June 17 |
Uprising of 1953 in East Germany: 100,000 protestors gathered at dawn, demanding the reinstatement of old work quotas and, later, the resignation of the East German government. At noon German police trapped many of the demonstrators in an open square; Soviet tanks fired on the crowd, killing hundreds and ending the protest. |
|
June 26 |
Beria was arrested at a special meeting of the Presidium. |
|
July |
Risings took place in labour camps at Vorkuta and Norilsk. |
|
July 27 |
Korean War: An armistice was signed, ending the conflict. |
|
September 7 |
Khrushchev was confirmed as head of the Central Committee. |
|
December 23 |
Beria's execution was announced. |
| 1954 |
March 13 |
Battle of Dien Bien Phu: Viet Minh forces loosed a massive artillery barrage against the surrounded French airbase at Dien Bien Phu. |
|
May 7 |
Battle of Dien Bien Phu: The battle ended in a French defeat. |
|
July 21 |
Geneva Conference (1954): The signing of the Geneva Accords promised a complete French withdrawal, partitioned Vietnam into a Communist North and a monarchist South, and scheduled unifying elections for July 1956. |
| 1955 |
June 2 |
Khrushchev and Tito issued the Belgrade declaration, which declared that "different forms of Socialist development are solely the concern of the individual countries." |
|
July |
Ho Chi Minh visited Moscow and agreed to accept Soviet aid. |
| 1956 |
February 25 |
At a closed session of the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev read the "Secret Speech," On the Personality Cult and its Consequences, denouncing the actions of his predecessor Stalin. The speech weakened the hand of the Stalinists in the Soviet government. |
|
April 17 |
The Cominform was officially dissolved. |
|
June 28 |
Poznań 1956 protests: Poles upset with the slow pace of destalinization turned to protests, and then to violent riots. |
|
June 29 |
Poznań 1956 protests: Konstantin Rokossovsky, the Polish minister of defense, ordered the military in to end the riots. At least 74 civilians were killed. |
|
October 19 |
The liberal Władysław Gomułka was elected leader of the Polish Communist party. |
|
October 23 |
1956 Hungarian Revolution: A small pro-Gomułka demonstration in Budapest expanded into a 100,000 head protest. The protestors marched on Parliament; when they were fired on by the Hungarian Security Police, they turned violent and began to arm themselves. An emergency meeting of the Central Committee appointed the reformist Imre Nagy Prime Minister. |
|
October 31 |
1956 Hungarian Revolution: Hungary under Nagy withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. |
|
November 4 |
1956 Hungarian Revolution: A Soviet invasion, involving infantry, artillery, airstrikes, and some 6,000 tanks entered Budapest. 2,500 Hungarians were killed in the ensuing battle. |
|
November 8 |
1956 Hungarian Revolution: Pro-Soviet János Kádár announced the formation of a new "Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government," with himself as Prime Minister and leader of the Communist Party. |
|
December 2 |
Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and his followers in the 26th of July Movement landed in Cuba. |
|
December 10 |
Two Angolan independence movements united to form the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. |
| 1957 |
June 18 |
Led by the Stalinist Anti-Party Group, the Presidium voted to depose Khrushchev as First Secretary. The Presidium reversed its vote under pressure from Khrushchev and the defense minister and deferred the decision to a later meeting of the full Central Committee. |
|
June 29 |
A Central Committee vote affirmed Khrushchev as First Secretary and deposed Anti-Party Group members Molotov, Kaganovich, and Malenkov from the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee. |
| 1958 |
March 27 |
Khrushchev replaced Bulganin as Premier of the Soviet Union. |
|
June 16 |
Nagy was executed. |
| 1959 |
January 1 |
Cuban Revolution: Cuban president Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic. |
| 1960 |
April 16 |
Sino-Soviet Split: A Chinese Communist Party newspaper accused the Soviet leadership of "revisionism." |
|
July 16 |
Sino-Soviet Split: Moscow recalled thousands of Soviet advisers from China and ended economic and military aid. |
|
December 20 |
Vietnam War: The National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam was formed, with the intent to overthrow the government of South Vietnam. |
| 1961 |
April 17 |
Bay of Pigs Invasion: After a U.S. bombing run against the Cuban air force, a group of 1,500 armed exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast. As the invasion faltered, President John F. Kennedy called off the airstrikes. |
|
April 20 |
Bay of Pigs Invasion: Castro announced that all the invaders had been defeated. |
|
August 13 |
Construction began on the Berlin Wall. |
|
December 2 |
In a nationally broadcast speech, Castro declared he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism. |
|
December 10 |
The Soviet Union severed diplomatic ties with Albania. |
| 1962 |
October 16 |
Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy was shown U-2 surveillance images of SS-4 launch sites in Cuba. |
|
October 22 |
Cuban Missile Crisis: Kennedy announced that any nuclear missile attack from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union, and that the island would be placed under "quarantine" to prevent further weapons shipments. |
|
October 26 |
Cuban Missile Crisis: The Soviet Union offered to withdraw the missiles in return for a U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba or support any invasion. |
|
October 28 |
Cuban Missile Crisis: Khrushchev announced that he had ordered the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba. |
| 1964 |
October 14 |
Khrushchev's rivals in the party deposed him at a Central Committee meeting. Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin assumed power as First Secretary and Premier, respectively. |
| 1967 |
February 7 |
Sino-Soviet split: The Chinese government announced that it could no longer guarantee the safety of Soviet diplomats outside the embassy building. |
|
June 10 |
The Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with Israel. see Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli conflict |
| 1968 |
January 5 |
Prague Spring: The liberal Alexander Dubček was appointed to succeed Antonín Novotný as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. |
|
April 5 |
Prague Spring: The Czech Communist Party published their Action Programme. This document guaranteed a number of new freedoms including free speech, travel, debate and association. |
|
August 20 |
Prague Spring: Between 200,000 and 600,000 Warsaw Pact troops crossed the Czechoslovakian border. |
|
August 21 |
Prague Spring: Leading KSČ liberals - including Dubček - were arrested, flown to Moscow and forced to repeal the reforms of the Prague Spring. They agreed to the presence of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia. |
| 1969 |
March 2 |
Sino-Soviet border conflict: A Soviet patrol came into armed conflict with Chinese forces on Zhenbao Island. |
|
June |
Qahtan al-Shabi, president of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, was overthrown and replaced by Salim Rubayi Ali of the Marxist National Liberation Front. |
| 1973 |
January 27 |
Vietnam War: The Paris Peace Accords pledged the signatory parties to "respect the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of Vietnam as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Vietnam," and promised a complete withdrawal of United States forces. |
| 1975 |
January 31 |
Angolan War of Independence: A transitional unity government, consisting of the National Liberation Front of Angola, the Soviet-backed MPLA, and the Maoist UNITA, took office under the terms of the Alvor Agreement. |
|
March 11 |
Vietnam War: A large-scale North Vietnamese offensive began with the conquest of Buon Ma Thuot. |
|
April 30 |
Fall of Saigon: The South Vietnamese capital of Saigon was captured by the Vietnam People's Army. |
|
November 11 |
Angolan Civil War: Portugal accepted a declaration of independence from the MPLA, which controlled the Angolan capital of Luanda. |
| 1979 |
|
The Soviet war in Afghanistan began. |
| 1985 |
March |
The reformist Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the next General Secretary of CPSU with just one vote more than the hardliner Viktor Grishin. |
| 1989 |
|
The Soviet war in Afghanistan ended. |
| 1991 |
August |
Following the failed coup of August 1991 (Soviet coup attempt of 1991), the Central Committee was dissolved as was the Communist Party itself. |
| 1993 |
September |
The Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 began. |
|
October |
The Russian constitutional crisis ended. |
| 1994 |
|
First Chechen War Begins |
| 1999 |
December 31 |
Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin. |
| 2000 |
March 26 |
Russian presidential election, 2000: Putin was elected president with 53 percent of the vote. |
