
Timeline (U3)
Modern History (Year 12) - Overview of Russia
Ben Whitten
The timeline of the unit is crucial knowledge, as it can get easy to get lost in the unit regarding the timing of events. Refer to this as needed.
Revolution (1917)
22-28 February
Workers strike in Petrograd, kickstarting the February Revolution.
The Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet form.
2 March
Tsar Nicholas II abdicates as leader of Russia.
3 April
Lenin returns to Russia and delivers his April Theses.
18 June
The Kerensky Offensive takes place.
24-31 August
The Kornilov Affair.
25 October
The Bolsheviks seize power in the October Revolution.
26 October
The Council of People’s Commissars (SOVNARKOM) is established.
December
The Extraordinary Commission against Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation (Cheka) is created.
Civil War (1918-1921)
March 1918
The Bolsheviks sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to end Russian involvement in WWI.
The Bolshevik Party is renamed the Communist Party.
The capital is moved from Petrograd to Moscow.
The Russian Civil War begins (between the Red and White Armies).
Mid-1918
War Communism is introduced.
July 1918
The Romanovs are murdered.
August 1918
Assassination attempt on Lenin.
March 1921
The Russian Civil War ends in Red victory.
Economic Turbulence (1921-1928)
March 1921
The Kronstadt Rebellion.
The New Economic Policy is introduced.
February 1922
The Cheka becomes the GPU.
March 1922
Joseph Stalin becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party.
April 1922
The Treaty of Rapallo is signed with Germany.
December 1922
The USSR is created.
Lenin dictates his Political Testament.
1924
Lenin dies.
The Bolshevik power struggle begins.
Stalin announces Socialism in One Country.
1926
Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev are expelled from the Politburo.
1927
Stalin expels Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky from the Politburo, becoming the sole leader of the USSR.
Stalinism (1928-1939)
1929
First Five Year Plan
Mass collectivisation begins.
1931
Stalin’s Cultural Revolution begins.
1932
Famine in Ukraine kills millions.
1933
Second Five Year Plan.
1936
The Stalinist Constitution is created.
1937
Third Five Year Plan.
1938
Several old Bolsheviks (such as Bukharin and Rykov) are publicly tried and executed as part of Stalin’s Great Terror.
Purges and show trials are common and ongoing throughout Stalin’s rule.
World War II (1939-1945)
23 August 1939
Stalin signs the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact with Germany.
September 1939
Germany invades Poland, beginning World War II.
Later in September, the USSR invades East Poland in line with the conditions mapped out in the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.
November 1939–March 1940
The Russo-Finnish War.
June 1941
Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.
Stalin joins forces with the USA and Britain to form the Grand Alliance.
1945
WWII ends in Allied victory.