Czar Nicolas II 1868-1918 VI Lenin 1870-1924Russian Revolution Timeline
Russia is the largest country in Europe. For most of its history Russia was ruled by a series of
emperors or Czars of the Romanovs who had ruled for 300 years. Russia, at the start of the
twentieth century, was an farming nation with little industry. most Russians were peasants with
a small middle class, but the society was dominated by the nobility and the Russian Orthodox
Church. Russia was seen by other European countries as backward and primitive.
CHRONOLOGY
1894- Czar Nicholas Romanov II became the Czar of Russia, he was a weak leader who
refused to share political power.
1898- Russian Marxists formed the Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party.
1900- Vladimir Ilyitch Ulyanov (Lenin) joined the Social Democrats.
1903- the Social Democrats split into two groups- the Mensheviks who wanted democratic
change and the Bolsheviks who wanted revolution.
1905- a general strike forced the Czar to create a Duma or parliament.
1914- Russia entered World War One as part of the Triple Entente (the Allies). The poorly
armed and led Russian Army was defeated by the Germans. Starvation and fear spread in
Russia and the Czar lost control.
1917- Russian Revolution- the Czar tried to dissolve the Duma, Alexander Kerensky, leader of
the Duma, refused. He declared a Provisional Government and seized political power. Kerensky
kept Russia in the War in order to receive Allied aid. The Bolsheviks led by Lenin, knew that
the Russian people wanted peace and food so they promised them “Peace, Bread and Land”.
Nov. 1917- the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in a revolution and overthrew the Duma.
The Bolsheviks created worker parliaments and applied Marxist ideas to the Russian economy.
They made peace with Germany (Treaty of Brest- Litovsk, March 3, 1918) by giving up a
large piece of Russian territory including the Ukraine.
1918-21 Russian Civil War- When Russia left the war, Germany attacked the Western Front.
The Allies sent troops to Russia to overthrow the Bolsheviks. A civil war broke out between the
Soviet gov’t.- the Reds, and the Whites- a group of army officers and counter revolutionaries
supported by the Allies. The Czar and his family were murdered to avoid their rescue.
A deep hostility existed between Russia and the West. Russia became the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR). The Bolsheviks became the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union (CPSU). The Soviet Union became an international outcast, cut off from foreign aid and
capital. In 1924 Lenin died
1927- Josef Stalin (Dzhugashvili) 1878- 1953 General Secretary of the Communist Party
seized power. Stalin took complete control of the Soviet state and moved on to his policies of
Industrialization and Collectivization. Stalin became one of the worst dictators in human
history. His severe paranoia led to massive purges of Soviet society. Any person or group that
threatened Stalin’s power was accused of treason, convicted in show trials and sent to Gulags
(labour camps) in Siberia. Large numbers of old Bolsheviks, army officers and other Communist
officials were murdered. Millions of Soviet citizens disappeared.
Stalin’s control of the Soviet Union was total. He used the Committee for State Security (the
NKVD later the K.G.B.) to enforce his will. Stalin used the purges not only to destroy political
opposition to his rule but to create slave labour in Siberia and Central Asia to exploit the natural
resources there as part of industrialization. Millions of slave labourers (or zeks) died cutting
timber or digging minerals in the Gulags. Stalin’s purges and the destruction of the Kulaks was
matched by his actions in the Ukraine.
Ukrainian Famine (Holodomor)- Hunger Plague)- For a short period in 1918 after the Russian
Revolution the Ukraine existed as an independent socialist state. In 1921 it was absorbed into
the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became the bread basket of the
Soviet Union because of its fertile wheat fields. During the period of collectivization Stalin took
control of Ukrainian farms and sold most of the grain to the west to raise foreign capital.
This resulted in an artificial famine, many Ukrainians died of starvation. Anyone who resisted
were arrested and sent to Siberia or were killed outright by the Red Army or the NKVD.
Between 3 and 5 million Ukrainians died. It is probable that Josef Stalin used the famine not
merely to gain foreign capital but also to destroy the Ukrainian nationalism that threatened the
unity of the USSR.
Ukrainian Famine (Holodamor)- 1932-33- CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATES place the number
of deaths in Ukraine due to this enforced famine, at about 4,800,000. 1932- 32,680,700 persons
living in Ukraine 1939- figure of 30,960,200 - taking into account the normal 2.36 per cent
annual increase, 4,821,600 persons or roughly 18.8 percent of the Ukrainian population, died in
the years 1932-1933. The impact of the famine is shown in many ways. Just before World War
II a survey of the number of students was made. Since children start school in the USSR at
seven years of age therefore, seven years after 1932 there should be an indication of the
famine by a drop in enrollment. Look at these figures:
Russian SFSR
Ukraine
Byelorussia
1914-15
4,965,318
1,492,878
235,065
1928-29
5,997,980
1,585,814
369,684
1938-39
7,663,669
985,598
358,507
Source: Cultural Construction of the USSR, Moscow: Government Planning Pub., 1940, pages
40-50.
It is unknown how many Soviet citizens died during Stalin’s reign but reliable estimates of over
20 million deaths have been made.