8th March 1917
February revolution
The Provisional government
replaced the Tsar
April 3rd 1917
Lenin’s April Thesis
“Peace, Bread, Land!”
August 1917
Kornilov Affair
Army commander in Chief Kornilov ordered troops
to march on Petrograd to protect
the provisional government from the
threat of Bolshevik violence.
October 25th 1917
October Revolution
Saw the official transition of power
from the Provisional Government
to the Bolshevik Party.
7th November 1917 – 25th October 1922
Civil War
Red Army vs White Army
March 3rd 1918
The Treaty of Brest Litovsk
Removed Russia from World
War 1.
1918 – 1921
War communism
Total war
“everything to the front”
11th November 1919
World War 1 Ends
March 1921
New Economic Policy
Aimed at destroying war
Communism
16th April 1922
Treaty of Rapallo signed
Renounced all territorial and financial
claims against the other following the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and World War I.
1923
Lenin’s Levy
Allowed Stalin to recruit
500,000 men to the Bolshevik Party
in favour of him.
January 21st 1924
Lenin dies
1927-28
Scissor Crisis
Provided Stalin with dual opportunity:
he was able to destroy his rivals on the right, and had
an excuse to launch the Soviet Union into massive
program of economic modernisation.
1928 - 1932
First Five Year Plan
AIM: industrialisation
1930 – 1955
Gulag’s began
1930
Zhenotdel shut down
1933 - 1937
Second Five Year Plan
AIM: Electrification and transport
1st December 1934
Murder of Kirov
Stalin used this murder to justify
assaults on “enemies of the state”:
The Show Trials
16th August 1936
First Show trial
Murder of Zinoviev and Kamenev
March 1938
‘Great Purge Trial’
Murdered Bukharin and
Yagoda (head of NKVD at the
beginning)
23rd August 1939
Nazi Soviet Aggression pact signed