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provisional government overthrown
Bolsheviks overthrow provisional government led by Alexander Kerensky, with workers and sailors capturing government buildings and the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, and eventually taking over Moscow. -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
According to which Russia took large tracts of land to Germany; Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and many others. -
Civil war between Bolsheviks, or Reds, and anti-Bolsheviks, or Whites.
In northern Russia, British, French and US troops capture Murmansk and Archangel until 1919, while in the Russian Far East they occupy Vladivostok, which was held by the Japanese until 1922. -
Policy of "war communism"
The state takes control of the whole economy; millions of peasants in the Don region starve to death as the army confiscates grain for its own needs and the needs of urban dwellers. -
Union treaty
Union treaty formally joins Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasus - which were divided in 1936 into Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - into the Soviet Union. -
constitution on dictatorship
Soviet Union adopts constitution based on the dictatorship of the proletariat and stipulating the public ownership of land and the means of production; Lenin dies and is replaced by Joseph Stalin. -
5 year plan.
Adoption of first Five-Year Plan, with the state setting goals and priorities for the whole economy, signifies the end of the New Economic Policy. -
troops enter poland
Soviet troops enter Poland, which is then divided between Germany and the USSR. -
war is over
Russian-Finnish war, which ends with Finland ceding territory to the USSR - the present Russian constituent republic of Karelia. -
Stalin death
Stalin dies and is succeeded by Georgi Malenkov as prime minister and by Nikita Khrushchev as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.