-
Birth of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, later known as Stalin.
-
Stalin arrested for the first time, exiled to Siberia
-
Stalin escapes from Siberia, the first of many escapes from exile in the following decade.
-
Stalin goes as a delegate to Bolshevik conference in Finland, meets Lenin for the first time.
-
Birth of Stalin's first child, Yakov
-
Outbreak of World War I.
-
Beginning of Russian Revolution. The Tsar's government falls, replaced with a Provisional Government. Bolsheviks, including Stalin, hasten to St. Petersburg
-
Bolsheviks overthrow Provisional Government, seize power. Stalin plays only a minor role.
-
Stalin marries Nadezhda Alliluyeva
-
Civil war in Russia. Trotsky organizes Red Army; Stalin commands forces in Tsaritsyn, Petrograd (St. Petersburg), and elsewhere.
-
Birth of Stalin's second child, Vasily
-
Official founding of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
-
Stalin elected General Secretary of the Communist Party
-
Lenin suffers his first stroke.
-
Lenin, in a postscript to his Testament, warns the Party to remove Stalin from his position of power.
-
Lenin suffers final stroke, loses his powers of speech
-
Death of Lenin. Stalin survives the reading of the Testament by the Central Committee in May.
-
Stalin publicly attacks Trotsky for being unfaithful to "Leninism."
-
Stalin publicly articulates his theory of "Socialism in One Country."
-
Allied with Bukharin and the "Rightists," Stalin begins attacks on Zinoviev.
-
Birth of Stalin's third child, Svetlana
-
At the Fifteenth Party Congress, Stalin attacks the "United Opposition" of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky.
-
Beginning of the first Five-Year Plan.
-
Kamenev and Zinoviev expelled from the Party; Trotsky expelled and sent to Central Asia.
-
Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia, cementing Soviet control of Eastern Europe.
-
Stalin begins assault on Bukharin.
-
Bukharin removed from the Politburo
-
Stalin announces "liquidation of the kulaks as a class"; collectivization begins in earnest.
-
Terrible famine across the Soviet Union; millions die
-
Suicide of Nadezhda
-
Murder, by Stalin's agents, of Sergei Kirov. Beginning of "Great Terror," which continues until 1938.
-
Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others are arrested, accused of complicity in Kirov's assassination.
-
First "Show Trial." Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their allies confess and are executed
-
Second Show Trial
-
Purge of the army begins, top generals are tried and executed
-
Third Show Trial, conviction and execution of Bukharin, Rykov, others.
-
At Eighteenth Party Congress, Stalin announces end of the Great Terror.
-
Nazi-Soviet Pact is signed in Moscow
-
Outbreak of World War II
-
Trotsky assassinated, by Stalin's agents, in Mexico City.
-
Hitler invades Soviet Union.
-
August 1942 - February 1943 in Battle of Stalingrad Germans are defeated, marking the turning point in the war.
-
Hitler commits suicide in bombed-out Berlin, ending war in Europe. Red Army controls all of Eastern Europe.
-
United States uses atomic bomb against Japan, bringing an end to the war in the Pacific.
-
Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia, cementing Soviet control of Eastern Europe.
-
Soviets blockade East Berlin.
-
Communists, under Mao, are victorious in Chinese Civil War.
-
Soviets explode their first atomic bomb
-
Stalin celebrates his seventieth birthday.
-
Sino-Soviet Treaty signed (China and Soviets.
-
Korean War (1950-53)
-
Announcement of Jewish "Doctors' Plot" against Stalin, plans for new wave of terror.
-
Death of Stalin
