Backgrounds to
the Russian Revolution
of 1917
Sources:
Julius Lecture: “Whither Russia?” (1995)
The Face of Russia (PBS)
Russian History (Bucknell)
Chronology of Russian History (Bucknell)
Table of Contents
Geography is Destiny
Victory over Napoleon (1812)
Themes of Russian History
19th Century Economic Structure
Kievan Rus
Whither Russia?
Conversion to Christianity
The Role of Writers
Mongol Conquest (1247)
The Fathers
Rise of the Tsars
The Sons
Time of Troubles (1584-1613)
The Grandsons
Peter the Great (1689-1725)
1917 Chronology
Catherine the Great (1762-1792)
World Physical Map (pdf.)
Geography is Destiny:
the impact of a harsh climate on social structures:
Inefficient agriculture
•Only 10.8% of the land is arable.
• Permafrost: only top 16” will thaw, creates a swamp
• Pine Forest: acidic soil (Ukraine has most fertile lands)
• Temperature extremes; little precipitation
• Brief growing season
• No mountains to block east/west prevailing winds
• No fertilizer, no seeds, no modern equipment
• Despite hard work of the peasants, the government must import food
to feed its people.
Themes of Russian History
•Autocratic political systems (Autocracy gives way to
anarchy at regular intervals.) Asian model in which the
state controls the principle source of wealth (land)
•Slavery: two stories: the gentry and the serfs are both
enslaved in different ways
•Cultural Schizophrenia: proud, patriotic connection to
‘Russian-ness’ simultaneous with a inferiority complex
with the European West
•Geography is destiny: Russia’s sprawl makes her
subject to invasion.
•Geography is destiny: linguistic, racial, religious and
ethnic diversity creates powerful centripetal forces that
constantly threaten imperial unity.
Kievan Russia
Kievan Era to 1237 AD
Economic System:
• in Ukraine on the Dneiper River on Byzantine trading
routes
• Trade with Vikings to West and with Constantinople to the
South
• Subsistence farming
Ethnicities:
• Slavic Language with overlay of Varingian (Viking)
• Turkic peoples
Culture
• Pagan religious customs: animistic ala
Greece, Germany, India
Kievan Era to 1237
Social Structure:
Ruling class:
• druzhina: small efficient cavalry warriors, like Knights of
the Round Table.
• Varangian Warriors had Viking ancestry.
(Myth
has it that the Russian Princes could not rule themselves, so
the Varangians were invited to take over: first borrowing from
the West)
Political Structure:
• Loose confederation: Prince of Kiev appoints sons to rule
over local cities.
• Long tradition of local rule; town councils served as check
on power to local prince.
Conversion to Christianity
• Orthodox Christianity selected by Prince Vladimir of Kiev between
980 and 1015
• Byzantine Architecture
• Byzantine alphabet
• Tradition of icon painting
Ancient Jewish Culture
• Jewish communities on eastern shores of Black Sea
• Perhaps Eastern Europe’s Jews were descended from them and not
from Israel.
Mongol Conquest (1247)
Impact of Mongol Rule (1247-1462)
• Mongol Invasion: important in the establishment
of autocratic rule and the centralization of power
in Moscow
• No Renaissance in Russia
• Mongol Khans authorize Russian Princes to rule lands for them.
They are only interested in payment in tribute and soldiers.
• The Tartars become the enforcers for Russian Princes.
• Moscow Princes are helped by the Tartars to put down rival princes,
and then they came to imitate the Mongol Khans in their absolute rule
as Tsars.
• The Byzantine Church becomes the propaganda arm of the state.
•Frontier Mentality: Armed forces are needed to protect the frontiers
from future invasions; this requires the militarization of the state.
Muscovite Rule (1462-1584)
•Mongol liberation/Slav consolidation: Moscow becomes
the center of Russia
•Ivan the Terrible: Livonian Wars
against the Poles and Swedes for Baltic
States
Resistance to Autocracy:
• Boyar Duma- highest ranking noble families form a
‘senate’, a deliberative body to advise the tsar
• Zemsky Sobor- “from the land” an assembly of different
classes from all the lands
• Mestnicestvo- Tsar grants government jobs to most ancient
and powerful families: the first nomenklatura. Nobles desire
for power thus channeled and controlled
• Votchina- Nobles in the Kievan System owned land on the
basis of heredity. That system was replaced by a new feudal
system in which a family owned land as long as it pleased the
state
Time of Troubles (1584-1613)
• Ivan the Terrible dies. Having brained his son,
Ivan leaves a dimwit Feodor to take the throne.
• Boris Gudonov, regent until Ivan’s third son
Dimitri is murdered, and Boris is elected Tsar.
Boyars and Poles ally in opposition to Boris.
• 1605- Boris Gudonov dies, and the Poles try to
seize the throne.
• Social Anarchy: Peasants and Cossacks in revolt
• 1612-13- National Revulsion at Violence.
Michael Romanov, son of a high church leader, is
named Tsar. His dynasty would rule in Russia until
1917.
• Consequences: Russians will tolerate repression in
return for order. (1917-1921: A Second Time of
Troubles)
Peter the Great (1689-1725)
Great Northern War: Peter captures the
Baltic States and establishes St. Petersburg
as the new capitol.
To compete with the Western (European)
Peter needs to tighten up the state,
more efficient.
Powers,
and make it
Reforms:
•Table of Ranks- Noblemen must work for the state. (two
story slavery: noblemen must work.)
•Administrative Colleges- Western style bureaucracies
•Abolishes Patriarchate (Head of Orthodox Church) and
makes Russian Church a branch of the government
•St. Petersburg- Nearly overnight, Peter creates a Western
European Capitol, built atop the graves of thousands of
forced laborers.
E. Falconet. "The Bronze Horseman." Bronze statue. 1782. St. Petersburg
The Enlightenment in Russia
Catherine the Great (1762-1792)
• Models herself as an Enlightened Despot
ala Voltaire’s model. She promises reform,
backs off when it comes to surrendering
power.
but
autocrat’s
• Enlightenment science does not impact the economy. Russia would not begin its
industrial revolution until the end of the nineteenth century.
Successful Wars of Conquest:
• Partition of Poland: land was not returned until after WWI
• Ottoman Empire Wars: Russia expands to the Black Sea
• Peasant rebellions as the Russians spread serfdom. (Pugachev Rebellion)
Alexander I
• Like Catherine, he too wanted reform and even had a councilor draw up a liberal
constitution
• Napoleon invades, and Alexander instead imposes the Arkacheevna: a new
police state with intense repression.
Nineteenth Century Economic Structure
• Inefficient agriculture
•Only 10.8% of the land is arable.
• Permafrost:only top 16” will thaw, creates a swamp
• Pine Forest: acidic soil (Ukraine has most fertile lands)
• Temperature extremes; little precipitation
• Brief growing season
• No mountains to block east/west prevailing winds
• No fertilizer, no seeds, no modern equipment
• Despite hard work of the peasants, the government must
import food to feed its people
Early Nineteenth Century Russia
• Political Structure: Autocratic
• Economic Structure: Backward
• Social Structure: Regressive
• Diplomatic Posture: Conservative and Imperialistic
Nineteenth Century Tsar:
• Head of a vast bureaucracy and a huge army
• The Tsar’s power depends on his ability to control the
nobility:
• Catering to their desires with land grants and job promotions.
• Secret Police to prevent any liberalization of the government’s
structure
Early Nineteenth Century Russia
Nobility: (dvorianstvo) 6%
• All nobility are officially registered by the government in
a specific rank.
• Most nobility are not wealthy (fewer than 100 serfs)
• Status is measured in rank (mobility through military
service)
• Cultural Isolation: Western Education makes the nobility
less Russian.
Middle Class: (merchants, doctors, lawyers, urban) 4%
• Tiny size compared with burgeoning Middle Class in
England and France which broke the traditional power of
the aristocracy.
Peasantry (90+% of the population)
Kievan Era
• peasants owned land: the mir: a collective unit
Muscovite Era: the origin of serfdom
• Tsar’s grant lands to favorite nobles
• 14th-15th c.: peasants become tenant farmers
• the Obrok- peasant pays for land with part of crop
• the Barschina- labor tax: peasant owes work to landlord
Romanov Era: the codification of serfdom
•Ulozhenie of 1649: codification of serfdom
• Peter the Great: poll tax indebted serfs and enabled the tsar to draft
them into military service’
• Catharine the Great: geographic spread of serfdom. State serfs
owned directly by the tsar.
Nineteenth Century Serfdom (90+% of the population)
•Obschina: peasant village: the basic organization of
peasants before, during, and after serfdom until Stalin
•the kulak: Some families could hold and work more land
indefinitely and thus profit.
•Poor hygiene, illiteracy, alcoholism, intense religious
belief
•Survival: geared to harsh adversity of Russian climate
and culture: “You don’t work; you don’t eat.”
“Whither Russia?”
Political Reform in the Nineteenth Century:
Nineteenth Century Tsars:
• Nicholas I (1825-55) repressive
• Alexander II (1855-1881) reformist
• Alexander III (1881-1894) repressive
• Nicholas II (1894-1917) reformist
Conservative Forces:
• Gentry Self Interest
• Tsar’s Self Interest
• Church’s Self Interest
“Whither Russia?”
Forces for Change:
• Gentry Idealism: liberal writers who have been educated in
West, have traveled in Europe, and who look at Russian society
through Western eyes (1825: The Decembrist Revolt)
• International Necessity: Russia begins losing wars because of
poor technology:
• Crimean War (1856) leads to freeing of serfs
• Russo-Japanese War (1905)- leads to first constitutional
monarchy
• Birth of Middle Class
• Peasant Misery: they want land. Past revolts had been anarchic.
By the end of the century the peasants will be better organized.
“Whither Russia?”
The Role of Writers:
State Censorship prevents any direct expression of dissent.
Therefore, it is the writers of literature, not the gentry, the clerics or the
politicians, who will tell a growing literate public what must be done.
Writers in Russia occupy a special place in 19th and 20th century: the
George Washingtons, Thomas Jeffersons, and Abraham Lincolns of
Russian History are all writers.
Two Main Streams of Ideological Debate:
Westernizing: Make Russia like Western Europe:
Liberal (gradual reform and constitutional democracy)
Radical (revolutionary nihilism, socialism and marxism)
Slavophile: Russia has a unique destiny, non-Western and noncapitalist.
The Role of Writers:
Three Generations of 19th c. Russian Writers used poetry, short
stories and novels to debate the direction of Russia’s future.
• Each generation became more and more radical in their ideas
and methods. By the end of the century, terrorism and political
violence became commonplace as the country spiraled towards
revolution.
Fathers (1830’s –1855) (Pushkin, Gogol, Belinsky)
• Aristocratic, idealistic, liberal and reformist
Sons (1855-1881) (Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy)
• Heterogeneous, materialistic, radical, revolutionary
Grandsons (1881- 1917) (Chekhov, Lenin)
• Ideologically diverse and politically practical
1812 June 24 Napoleon's invasion of Russia
August 26 Battle of Borodino
Sept 14 Napoleon enters Moscow
October 19 Napoleon departs Moscow
1813-1814 Alexander's pursuit of Napoleon to Paris
1815-1825 Ascendancy of Arakcheev and the Secret Police
1819 University of St. Petersburg founded
1825 NICHOLAS I ROMANOV named Tsar
1825 Decembrist Uprising
1830 Alexander Pushkin completes Eugene Onegin
1832 Uvarov's three principles enunciated: autocracy,
orthodoxy, nationality
Fathers: Alexander Pushkin
•The father of Russian Literature
•An innovator in Western Forms: the historical novel,
short story, epic poems
• The Captain’s Daughter (ala Walter Scott)
• Eugene Onegin (Shakesperean Tragedy)
• The Queen of Spades (realism/fantastic)
• Inventor of Russian Prose Style
• High Romantic Lifestyle
• Marries the most beautiful woman in Russian Court
• Tsar Nicholas: his personal censor
• Shot dead in a duel
Fathers:
Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Times (1840)
Lermontov explores the Romantic hero, basing his novel on a
Pushkin-like character: a pro-western Byron-esque hero set lose in
a Russian landscape:
• A highly educated, charismatic, ambitious, ruthless, social
climbing hero ala Napoleon,
• but in Russia these qualities change nothing.
• In the end he just gets bored and chooses to reject life.
• Purposely gets himself killed in a duel.
• Last words: “Le fin de commedia”
Fathers: Nikolai Gogol
Gogol picks up on the fantastic aspects of Pushkin’s fiction and
spins utterly original visions of a decidedly irrational reality.
Russia has contracted a spiritual disease from contact with
Western capitalism. In his St. Petersburg the Devil lures
bureaucrats mad for status and money into a spectral anteroom to
hell.
The Inspector General
“The Nose”, “The Overcoat”, and other Ukrainian Puppet tales
Dead Souls, part one
Dead Souls, part two
(Gogol starved himself to death in despair over failing to
conceptualize a way for Russia to achieve her unique destiny.)
Fathers: Vissarion Belinsky
The first in a great line of Russian writer/activists, Belinsky
edited a literary magazine which introduced to the Russian
reading public many of the greatest writers of the century:
Gogol, Turgenev, and Doestoevsky to name a few.
Belinsky was a child of the Enlightenment who, like Voltaire,
believed that Russia could only overcome backwardness and
achieve social justice by adopting Western liberalism: a
constitutional government and free market capitalism.
Belinsky insisted upon strict empiricism in his political
philosophy. He believed that the Russian ruling class
maintained its hold on power by confounding the masses with
religious belief.
Belinsky, Letter to Gogol (1847)
Fathers: Alexander Herzen (1812-70)
Alexander Herzen (1812-70) was a social thinker who became known as
the "father of Russian socialism." Under the influence of utopian socialists
like Charles Fourier, Herzen envisioned a loose federation of selfgoverning communes. That ideal society would be a free association of
individuals which provided for the full flowering of each individual.
After the failed liberal revolutions of 1848, Herzen argued that socialism
would actually come first to Russia because communal institutions such as
the peasant commune (the mir) survived and bourgeois attitudes hadn't yet
emerged. This sense of the advantages of Russian "backwardness" was
influential among the Populists in the 1870s.
Herzen has been called a "gentry revolutionary." The revolution he
envisioned was for the people but would be led by the intelligentsia;
however, he was not a Marxist: his socialism was a national destiny rather
than a class one; also he promoted the value of individualism in
collectivist form--in other words, the full flowering of the individual could
best be realized in a socialist order.
See Spartacus: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSherzen.htm
1847 Herzen leaves Russia forever; Belinsky's “Letter to
Gogol”
1849 Dostoevsky sentenced to forced labor in Siberia
1852 Turgenev's Hunting Sketches
1853-1856 Crimean War
1855 Death of Nicholas I
1855-1881 ALEXANDER II ROMANOV
1861 Feb 19 Emancipation of the serfs
1862 Turgenev's Fathers and Sons
1863 Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done?
1866 Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is published
1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace is published.
1870 April 22 Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) is born
1872 Russian translation of Marx's Capital
1873 Beginning of the movement To the People (V narod)
1878 Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
1879 People's Will Party and Black Partition established
1880 Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov
1881 March 1 Assassination of Alexander II
Sons: Ivan Turgenev
A nobleman who lived most of his life in self imposed exile in the
European West, Turgenev also endorsed liberalism. However, his
literary art was of such high quality that he clearly foresaw the coming
generation’s abandonment of liberal ideals for revolutionary nihilism in
the wake of the failed revolutions of 1848.
Hunting Sketches: A moving collection of sketches of peasants and
owners that was so popular that it helped push the tsar to finally
emancipate the serfs.
Fathers and Sons: Central Character: Bazarov, the first in the line of
revolutionary nihilists that would culminate in the real life figure of
Lenin.
Sons: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Discovered by Belinsky after writing a harrowing and realistic depiction
of poverty, Dostoevsky broke with his mentor in his Gogol inspired
psychological novel The Double.
Dostoevsky was imprisoned for belonging to a reading club which
professed Utopian Socialist beliefs. He spent 10 years imprisoned at hard
labor in Siberia.
When he returned to St. Petersburg in 1860, Dostoevsky embarked on a
twenty year burst of creativity, writing completely modern novels which
examine the irresolvable paradoxes of human nature and the
impossibility of creating a utopian state.
Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Possessed, The
Idiot, and finally the great The Brothers Karamazov.
Sons: Count Lev Tolstoy
Tolstoy pursued a grand vision of reconstructing Russian
along unique lines which would pursue a class system
based on merit and use Western science to modernize the
nation’s agricultural system.
Tolstoy is best know for the unmatched skill with which he
brings complicated and fully rounded characters to life.
When you read a novel like Anna Karenina, you encounter
characters so artfully that they seem to exist in real time.
This may be the ultimate liberal accomplishment.
War and Peace
Anna Karenina
1881-1894ALEXANDER III ROMANOV
1884 Reactionary regulations for universities
1891 Beginning of the Trans-Siberian railway
1891-1893 Making of the Franco-Russian alliance
1892-1903 Witte as minister of communications, finance and
commerce
1894-1917NICHOLAS II ROMANOV
1896 production of Chekhov's The Seagull in St. Petersburg
1897 Jan 28 First all-Russian census counts 128,907,692 people
1898 Moscow Art Theater founded, Chekhov's Sea Gull
1st Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party (Minsk)
The Grandsons: Anton Chekhov
The son of a peasant, Chekhov used his writing ability to pay his way
through medical school. Chekhov fought cholera epidemics among the
peasants, like the Turgenev hero Bazarov, and he conducted a ground
breaking study of the scandalous conditions in the Russian prison
system.
Chekhov’s short stories and plays are regarded by many as the greatest
in their genres. He observes human nature with the rigor of a scientist
and concludes that no plan exists which can satisfy our ideals of social
justice. The problems of society and human nature are just too complex
and ever changing. Many of his educated, passionate, and hopeful
characters seem doomed to utterly superfluous lives. Despite his
skepticism, Chekhov depicts humanity with enormous compassion and
he celebrates the richness of our moments together: evanescent, fragile,
beautiful. Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard,
and The Three Sisters.
1900 Boxer Rebellion; Russia occupies Manchuria
1901 Jan 31 Chekhov's Three Sisters opens at MKhAT
1902 Gorky's Lower Depths opens at MKhAT
1903 2nd Party Congress (Brussels) Split into Mensheviks and
Bolsheviks
1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War
1905 January 22 1905 REVOLUTION:
General Strike
Bloody Sunday
October Manifesto
October 17
Potemkin Mutiny 3rd Party Congress
Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) Program
1906 April 4th Party Congress First Duma First Constitution
(Fundamental Law)
1906-1911 The Stolypin | Land Reforms
1907 Second Duma 5th Party Congress Emergence of Triple
Entente (France, Britain, Russia) against Triple Alliance
(Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy) Third Duma
1908 Trotsky becomes editor of Pravda in Vienna
1910 November 7 Igor Stravinsky's Firebird scandalizes Paris
1912 April 4 Fourth Duma Lena gold field massacre (from
which Lenin took his pseudonym)
1913 Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring
1914 World War I begins
The Grandsons: Vladimir Illych Lenin
The brother of a man executed for participating in
the plot to assassinate Alexander III, Lenin is the
epitome of the modern revolutionary. In a lifetime of
political agitation and argument, Lenin formed the party
which would successfully bring the first socialist
government in European history into being
The Bolshevik (minority) wing of the Marxist Social
Revolutionary Party broke with the Mensheviks (Majority)
over their interpretation of Marx’s “dialectical materialism.”
Marx had argued that built into capitalism were the inevitable seeds of its
own downfall. A highly developed capitalist economy must eventually
collapse and bring into being a revolutionary worker’s state.
The Mensheviks believed that Russia would have to go through a stage of
industrial capitalism before the revolution could take place.
Lenin disagreed. He was not willing to wait.
The Grandsons: Lenin
Lenin believed that a revolutionary vanguard, a small group of
ruthless and utterly committed revolutionaries, could topple the Tsar
and institute a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’
These absolute rulers would then drive Russia quickly through the
bourgeois stage of industrial development, consciously and quickly
remaking the state into a socialist economy.
The state would command all economic decisions: setting commodity
prices, wages and production goals for all industries and business.
The state would collectivize all agricultural enterprise, manage labor
and divide production among the people.
Lenin’s goal was to export revolution as well. In formulating an
alternate model for modernization to capitalist imperialism, Lenin’s
brand of Marxism became popular among countries throughout the
3rd World during the 20th century.
1917 Chronology
1916 Dec 16 Murder of Rasputin by Felix | Yusupov et al.
1917 REVOLUTIONS (February 23/March 8)
February
Duma convened
Bread riots and strikes in Petrograd
March
Abdication of Nicholas II in favor of GP Mikhail
GP Mikhail transfers power to Provisional Government
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
August
Kerensky becomes dictator
Constituent Assembly election postponed to November 25
Sept 9-14 Kornilov uprising
November
OCTOBER | REVOLUTION (October 25/November 7)
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
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 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 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
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 27
Non-Agression Pact with Finland
First mention of "socialist realism“
Soviet/French non-aggression pact
1933-1937
Second Five-Year Plan
1934
Kirov assassinated; beginning of Stalinist purges
1935
Collective farm statute
Campaign of Stakhanovism begins
1936
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
Trial of Bukharin, et al.
1938-1941
Third Five-Year Plan
1939
18th Party Congress
Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact signed.
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
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