Chronology of Russian History

THE SOVIET PERIOD, 1917-1991
1917	1917 REVOLUTIONS (February 23/March 8)
February	Duma convened Bread riots and strikes in Petrograd
March 15	Abdication of Nicholas II in favor of GP Mikhail GP Mikhail transfers power to Provisional Government under Lvov Dual Power (dvoevlastie) begins Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies Order No. 1 Kamenev and Stalin return from Siberia
April	Finland Station: Lenin returns to Russia Lenin's April Theses
May	Miliukov's note to Allies Coalition Provisional Government
June	Election of Constituent Assembly set for September 30
July	Russian offensive against Germans Uprising against Provisional Government Prince Lvov resigns; Kerensky becomes premier 6th Party Congress
August	Kerensky becomes dictator Constituent Assembly election postponed to November 25
Sept 9-14	Kornilov uprising
November	OCTOBER | REVOLUTION (October 25/November 7) Patriarchate re-established Constituent Assembly elections begin
December	Armistice negotiations at Brest-Litovsk December 20 Establishment of Cheka Left SRs enter coalition with Bolsheviks
1918-1924	VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN
1918
January	Constituent Assembly is dissolved
February	Separation of church and state Russia moves to the Gregorian Calendar (not the Church)
March 3	Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (KOI8) 7th Party Congress British land at Murmansk
April	Japanese land at Vladivostok
June	Committees of the Village Poor established Nationalization of industry
July    July 10	Intervention | begins Lenin (RFSFR) Constitution ratified
July 17	Murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in Ekaterinburg
August	American troops land in Vladivostok
September	American troops land at Archangelsk
November	End of World War I Soviets repudiate Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (copy) French troops land at Odessa
December	British troops land at Batum
1919	Founding of the Comintern
March	Kolchak launches drive against Bolsheviks 8th Party Congress
April	French withdraw from Odessa
June    June 28	Height of Denikin advance Treaty of Versailles
October	Allies withdraw from Murmansk and Archangel
1920 January	Kolchak shot by Bolsheviks Allied blockade lifted
March	9th Party Congress
April	Wrangel replaces Denikin
November	Wrangel evacuates Crimea Civil War ends in Russia
1921	NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP) BEGINS Kronstadt Uprising 10th Party Congress: orders for Purge Treaty of Riga with Poland; establishment of Curzon Line
1922	Cheka replaced by OGPU
April	Stalin becomes secretary general Treaty of Rapallo with Germany 11th Party Congress Lenin's first stroke The USSR declared
Dec. 23	Lenin begins his Testament
1923	12th Party Congress
January 4	Lenin finishes his Testament Lenin's second stroke
1924	Lenin's death (January 21) 13th Party Congress USSR constitution ratified Petrograd renamed 'Leningrad' USSR recognized by Great Britain, France, Italy
1925	14th Party Congress Trotsky removed as war commissar
1926	Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev ousted from Politburo
1927	15th Party Congress: Trotsky, Zinoviev and followers expelled from Party; Stalin takes control Communist revolt in China crushed
1927-1953	JOSIF VISSARIONOVICH STALIN
1928	First Five-Year Plan adopted
1929	Trotsky deported Nikolai Bukharin ousted from Politburo Collectivization and industrialization begins
1930	16th Party Congress Stalin's "Dizzy with Success" speech
1932-1933	Ukrainian | Famine
1932	Dissolution of Russian Association of Proletarian Writers
January 21	Non-Agression Pact with Finland Prokofiev returns from abroad First mention of "socialist realism" Soviet/French non-aggression pact
1933	USA recognizes USSR Ivan Bunin wins Russia's first Nobel Prize in literature
1933-1937	Second Five-Year Plan
1934	17th Party Congress Birobidzhan becomes autonomous Jewish state First Congress of Russian Writers Soviet Union joins League of Nations Kirov assassinated; beginning of Stalinist purges
1935	Collective farm statute Campaign of Stakhanovism begins
1936	Gorky dies
December	Stalin constitution promulgated Show trials of Zinoviev, Kamenev, et al. prosecuted by Vishinsky
1937	Trial of Radek, et al. Much of Soviet army command executed
1937-41	Stalinshchina (Stalin Terror)
1938	Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky Trial of Bukharin, et al.
1938-1941	Third Five-Year Plan
1939	18th Party Congress Minimum labor days set for collective farms Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact World War II: Germans invade Poland Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania Stalin named 'Man of the Year' by TIME Soviet attacks on Poland and Finland
1940	Sholokhov completes Silent Don End of war with Finland Baltic states are annexed Bessarabia are annexed Trotsky is murdered in Mexico
1941	GERMAN INVASION OF USSR (June 22) Stalin names himself head of government
September 1	Mass evacuation of Volga Germans
1942	Churchill visits Moscow Lend-Lease in full operation Stalin named 'Man of the Year' by TIME again
1943	German surrender at Stalingrad Dissolution of the Comintern Sergius becomes Patriarch October The Moscow Conference November Teheran Conference
1944 May 11	Crimean Tatars banished to Siberia
1945 February	Yalta Conference Vienna and Berlin taken by Russian troops    July 17-Aug 2 Potsdam | Conference Deutsch
July 24	US successfully test an atom bomb Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, Part I, wins Stalin Prize 1946 First elections to the Supreme Soviet since 1937 Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" Speech at Westminster College    Now hear it! Zhdanov attacks Zoshchenko and Soviet composers Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, Part II, withdrawn from theaters First session of the UN opens Communist government in Bulgaria
1946-1950	Fourth Five-Year Plan
1947	Rationing abolished Cominform established
1948	Czechoslovakia joins Soviet bloc
1948	Berlin blockade Yugoslavia expelled from Cominform
1949	USSR tests atomic bomb
1950	USSR and China sign alliance treaty
1951-1955	Fifth Five-Year Plan
1952	19th Party Congress
1953	DEATH OF STALIN Malenkov, premier; Khrushchev, first secretary Beria executed
1954    April 26	Ehrenburg's The Thaw initiates 'The Thaw' Crimea transferred to Ukraine
1954-1956	Khrushchev's 'Virgin Land' program
1955	Malenkov replaced by Bulganin Summit Conference in Geneva Warsaw Pact established
1956	20th Party Congress Khrushchev's "Secret Speech"; Lenin's Testament read Party condemns "cult of the individual"    November Hungarian revolution quashed Molotov resigns
1957	Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov ousted Decentralization of economic organization First Sputnik launched USSR successfully tests ICBM
1958	Bulganin resigns US-USSR cultural exchange agreement US edition of Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak awarded Nobel Prize for literature
1958-1964	NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
1959	Mikoyan, Kozlov, and Khrushchev visit USA Khrushchev launches his corn campaign 21st Party Congress
1959-1965	Seven-Year Plan "Anti-Party Group" denounced
1960    May	Khrushchev at UN Assembly in New York Boris Pasternak dies
1961    Apr 12	Yurii Gagarin becomes the first man in space    August The Berlin Wall is built October 22nd Party Congress New Party program and rules Stalin's remains removed from Lenin Mausoleum Berlin Wall is built
1962	Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
October	Cuban Missile Crisis
1963	Russo-Chinese split deepens Central Committee Conference on Ideology Ehrenburg, Evtushenko and others attacked for non-conformity US-USSR "hotline" established    August US/USSR/Britain sign nuclear test ban treaty Founding of the Taganka Theater
1964	Joseph Brodsky trial (February-March)    October KHRUSHCHEV OUSTED; BREZHNEV FIRST SECRETARY Kosygin become Premier
1964-1982	LEONID ILYICH BREZHNEV
1965	Demonstrations in Moscow against US air-raids in North Vietnam Mikhail Sholokhov wins Nobel Prize in literature
1966	23rd Party Congress    February Andrei Sinyavski & Yulii Daniel trial for publishing abroad
1966-1970	Eighth Five-Year Plan
1967	Outer Space Treaty Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's daughter, defects
1967	Andropov becomes head of the KGB Fiftieth anniversary of Bolshevik Revolution
1968	Moscow-NY commercial airline service (PanAm and Aeroflot) Prague Spring; Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia Dissident (inakomyshlyashchii) movement begins
1969	Preliminary round of SALT talks
1970	US-Soviet Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty US-USSR cultural exchange Centenary of Lenin's birth Alexander Solzhenitsyn wins Nobel Prize for literature
1970-1971	SALT talks
1971	Khrushchev dies    February Solzhenitsyn deported from USSR 24th Party Congress
1971-1975	Ninth Five-Year Plan
1972	Nixon in Moscow for summit SALT Treaty signed Restrictions on Jewish emigration; Jackson-Vanik amendment SALT II negotiations begin Fiftieth anniversary of USSR
1974	Solzhenitsyn expelled to West Germany Third Moscow summit
1975	Apollo-Soyuz Mission Sakharov wins Nobel Peace Prize; visa to attend ceremonies denied
1976	25th Party Congress
1976-1981	Tenth Five-Year Plan
1977	Dissidents Ginzburg, Rudenko, Orlov, Shcharinskii arrested Master and Margarita staged at Taganka Theater
November	Brezhnev Constitution ratified
1978	Soviet UN Undersecretary for Political and Security Council Affairs defects to US    June 8 Solzhenytsin's Harvard speech
1979	Gorbachev is made a candidate member of Politburo    December Soviets invade Afghanistan
1980	US grain embargo to protest invasion of Afghanistan Sakharov exiled 64 countries boycott Moscow Summer Olympics to protest Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Gorbachev promoted to full member of Politburo Death of Vladimir Vysotsky
1981	26th Party Congress
1981-1985	Eleventh Five-Year Plan
1982	Andropov promoted to Secretariat Brezhnev dies; Andropov becomes General Secretary
1983-1984	YURI ANDROPOV
1983 Sept. 5	Korean airliner shot down by Soviets
1984-1985	KONSTANTIN CHERNENKO
1984	Andropov dies; Chernenko becomes General Secretary Soviets withdraw from Summer Olympics in Los Angeles Tarkovsky emigrates to Italy
1985	Chernenko dies; Gorbachev becomes General Secretary Anti-alcoholism program ('dry law') initiated Gorbachev calls for economic reforms (Perestroika)
1985-1991	MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
1986	27th Party Congress    April 26 Chernobyl disaster US/Soviet summit in Reykjavik (Reagan and Gorbachev) Gorbachev's anticorruption campaign
1986-1990	Twelfth Five-Year Plan
1987	Sakharov freed from 7 years of exile in Gorky Moscow showing of Abuladze's Repentance Mikhail Gorbachev TIME "Man of the Year" Josef Brodsky awarded Nobel Prize for literature Mathias Rust, 19 years old, lands his Cessna 172 in Red Square; Air-defense commander Koldunov removed Gorbachev sets 1991 as deadline for overhaul of the economy Soviet diplomats go to Israel for first official visit since 1967 US/Soviet summit in Washington
1988	Ethnic unrest in the Baltic republics
February 20	Nagorno-Karabakh soviet declares the region under Armenian control
February 27	Azerbaijani massacre of 32 Armenians in Sumgait suburb of Baku
March	Nina Andreeva's anti-Perestroika letter published in Sovetskaja Rossija
May 15	Soviets begin pullout from Afghanistan US/Soviet summit in Moscow Trial of Churbanov, Brezhnev's son-in-law, for bribery and extortion
June 28	Second Party Conference. New Congress of Peoples' Deputies with elected seats announced Kremlin sends troops to Nagorno-Karabakh Gorbachev becomes president Gorbachev's speech at U.N. announcing significant cuts in Soviet military strength Armenian earthquake, over 150,000 killed Doctor Zhivago first published in Russia
1989
January	Gorbachev takes control of Nagorno-Karabakh
February 1	Yuri Levada's questionnaire in Lit gazeta Completion of Soviet pullout of Afghanistan
March 26	First multi-candidate elections; several uncontested candidates defeated, Yeltsin and Sakharov overwhelmingly win seats in the Congress of People's Deputies
April 6	Protesters in Georgia demand independence, Soviet troops move in Purging of "dead souls" in the Central Committee Soviet-Chinese summit in Beijing    May Coal miners strike in Siberia, Ukraine, Central Asia Demonstrations in Baltics for independence RUKH (Popular Movement of the Ukraine) demands independence
May 25-June 9	I. Congress of Peoples Deputies of the USSR begins political reforms
July	Coal miners strike in Vorkutka, Karaganda, Siberia and the Ukraine
September 4	Azerbaijani Popular Front imposes blockade on 85% of freight entering Armenia
October	Armenia and Azerbaijani engaged in civil war
November	The Berlin | Wall comes down
Dec. 14	Andrei Sakharov dies
1990	Mikhail Gorbachev awarded Nobel Prize for peace
February	Russia's first McDonald's opens on Gorky Street
March	Elections of regional deputies of the Russian Federation Lithuania declares independence
June	28th Party Congress Yeltsin announces resignation from CP Supreme Soviet passes law to lift censorship from the press
June 12	I Congress of Peoples Deputies of RSFSR passes "Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia" (Independence Day)
November    Nov 19	Law on Peasant Farms allows kolkhozniks to own private farms CFE Treaty signed in Paris
	Chrono II Home Top History Chrono IV
This page was last up-dated: Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837 © 1996 Robert Beard