Chronology Through 1990
Russian History
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THE SOVIET PERIOD, 1917-1991 | |
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1917 | |
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 |
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 | |
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 | |
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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 | Intervention | begins |
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 | Height of Denikin advance |
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 | |
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 | |
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 | |
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 November Teheran Conference |
1944 May 11 | Crimean Tatars banished to Siberia |
1945 February | 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 1946First elections to the Supreme Soviet since 1937 Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" Speech at Westminster College 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 | 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 | Khrushchev at UN Assembly in New York Boris Pasternak dies |
1961 | 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 | |
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 | |
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 |
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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 | |
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 | Law on Peasant Farms allows kolkhozniks to own private farms CFE Treaty signed in Paris |
