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THE SOVIET PERIOD, 1917-1991 |
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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 |
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1918-1924 |
VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN  |
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1918 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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1921 |
NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP) BEGINS
Kronstadt Uprising
10th Party Congress: orders for Purge
Treaty of Riga with Poland; establishment of Curzon Line |
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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 |
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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 |
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1927-1953 |
JOSIF VISSARIONOVICH STALIN

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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  |
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1983 Sept. 5 |
Korean airliner shot down by Soviets |
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1984-1985 |
KONSTANTIN CHERNENKO |
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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) |
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1985-1991 |
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV |
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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 |
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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 |
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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
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June 12 |
I Congress of Peoples Deputies of RSFSR passes "Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia" (Independence Day)
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November
Nov 19 |
Law on Peasant Farms allows kolkhozniks to own private farms
CFE Treaty signed in Paris |
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This page was last up-dated:
Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837 © 1996 Robert Beard
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