Chronology of Russian Revolution

Sources: Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution 1917-1932; Hill, Lenin and the Russian Revolution; Mason, Revolutionary Europe 1789-1989; Goldstone, Revolutions, Wilde, The Russian Revolutions – a timeline

1825 3000 Russian soldiers led by army officers revolt against Imperial Russia, known as the Decembrist Revolt

1848-1870 Herzen’s ideas blend Western Socialism with traditional peasant communes of Russia

1861-1864 Peasant emancipation, Disappointment with emancipation leads to peasant violence and unrest

1866-1870 White terror after attempt on Tsar

1868 Tsar Nicholas II born

1870 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is born

1879 Leon Davidovich Trotsky is born

1881 Tsar Alexander II is assassinated

1894 Tsar Alexander III dies, Nicholas II assumes the throne

1895 Lenin is arrested and held for a year, then exiled to Siberia

1897 Lenin is given three-year exile

1898 Russian Social Democratic Labor Party is founded in Minsk

1901-1905 Economic downturn creates discontent

1902-1907 Peasant unrest as continuing response to injustices of emancipation

1904 Russo-Japanese war begins

1905 January Bloody Sunday - Tsarist troops open fire on a peaceful demonstration of workers in St Petersburg.

1905 October General Strike sweeps Russia which ends when the Tsar promises a constitution.

1905 December In response to the suppression of the St Petersburg Soviet the Moscow Soviet organises a disastrous insurrection that the government suppresses after five days

1906 The promised parliament, the Duma, is dissolved when it produces an anti government majority even though elected on a narrow franchise.

1911-1914 A new wave of workers unrest ends with the outbreak of the First World War

1917 Feb After several days of demonstrations in Petrograd (formally St Petersburg) the government orders troops to open fire. The next day these troops mutiny. The Tsar abdicates when he hears that Moscow too has joined the Revolution. An agreement is reached between the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government headed by Lvov.

1917 March 12th Abolition of the death Penalty

1917 April 18th Milyukov note. Milyukov tells allies that war aims unchanged.

1917 April 20 - 21 The April Days. Opposition to the Foreign Minister Milyukov boils over due to his refusal to renounce annexations.

1917 May Milyukov resigns. Members of the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries join the government.

1917 June 3 First All-Russia Congress of Workers and Soldiers Soviets opens.

1917 June 18 Offensive launched by Russia against Austria Hungary.

1917 July The July Days. (3rd and 4th) Workers and soldiers in Petrograd demand the Soviet takes power. Sporadic fighting results and the Soviet restores order with troops brought back from the front. Trotsky arrested. Lenin goes into hiding. A new provisional government is set up with Kerensky at it's head (8th).

1917 July 12th Death Penalty reintroduced for the front.

1917 Aug The Kornilov putsch. An attempt by General Kornilov to establish a right wing dictatorship is a disastrous flop. Chernov the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries resigns from the government denouncing Kerensky for complicity in the plot.

1917 Sept The Bolsheviks win control of the Petrograd Soviet.
In the countryside peasant seizure of land from the gentry continues and reaches the level of near insurrection in Tambov.

1917 Oct The Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional government on the eve of the meeting of 2nd All-Russia Congress of Soviets.

1917 26/27 Oct Soviet proclamations on land and peace. Death Penalty abolished.

1917 30 Oct Kerensky repulsed outside Petrograd

1917 2 Nov Bolsheviks gain Moscow

1917 7th Nov Ukraine proclaimed independent by the Central Rada.

1917 Nov 12-14 Elections to the Constituent Assembly. Socialist Revolutionaries the largest party.

1917 12 Dec Left-SRs join Sovnarkom

1917 Dec (early) Congress of Socialist Revolutionaries results in victory for the left under Chernov. Likewise Menshevik Congress gives victory to Martov's Menshevik internationalists.

1918 Jan 5th The Constituent Assembly in which the Bolsheviks are a minority meets for one day before being suppressed. Earlier that day a demonstration is fired on by Bolshevik units and several demonstrators are killed

1918 10-18 Jan 3rd Soviet Congress

1918 Jan 28th Trotsky denounces the German Peace Terms as unacceptable and walks out of the peace negotiations at Brest- Litovsk.

1918 Feb 1/14 Russia adopts Western (Gregorian) calendar.

1918 Feb 18th The Germans invade Russia which is all but defenceless as virtually the entire army has deserted.

1918 March The Bolsheviks accept the dictated peace of Brest-Litovsk. The Left SRs denounce the peace and leave the government.

1918 April 12th Moscow headquarters of the anarchists surrounded and attacked by Bolshevik troops

1918 May 9th Bolshevik troops open fire on workers protesting at food shortages in the town of Kolpino

1918 May (late) The Czechoslovak legion mutinies against the Bolshevik government. Using the railways they are able to sweep away Bolshevik control from vast areas of Russia. The Socialist Revolutionaries support the rising.

1918 July Fifth Soviet Congress. The left SRs assassinate the German ambassador and are in turn crushed by the Bolsheviks.

1918 16 July Gorky’s Novaia Zhizn , the last opposition paper, banned.

1918 23rd Aug 3 ministers of the Siberian Government are arrested by supporter of Mikhailov, the finance Minister, when they arrive in Omsk. They are told to resign their posts. Two agree. The third, Novoselov, refuses and is hacked to death.

1918 22nd Sept Siberian Oblast Duma dismisses Mikhailov and is itself dispersed by Mikhailov

1918 18th November Kolchak, stages a coup against the Directory, the multi party government in Siberia, and establishes a counterrevolutionary despotism.

1918 Dec Perm falls to Kolchak's Whites

1919 Jan Mensheviks legalised and allowed to publish Vsegda Vpered in Moscow. Era of relative freedom begins in Bolshevik controlled Russia

1919 25 Feb The Cheka closes down Vsegda Vpered. This marks a return to despotic rule by Bolsheviks.

1919 White Armies attack the Bolsheviks from all directions but the Red Army is finally victorious.

1920 25 Apr Poland invades Russia.

1920 19th Aug Start of peasant insurrection in Tambov

1920 14 Nov. Last White army under Wrangel evacuates the Crimea

1921 Peasant unrest sweeps Russia. These risings are suppressed but the New Economic Policy is proclaimed that gives the peasants the right to sell their grain surpluses

1921 1-17 Mar The old Bolshevik stronghold of Kronstadt rises demanding free election to the Soviets but is suppressed.

1921 May Tambov insurrection suppressed

1924 Lenin dies. Trotsky is defeated by a triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev. Though Stalin stays in the background it is he who is the real power as the other two will shortly discover.