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Russo- Japan War
In 1904, the Japanese attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur before the formal declaration of war was received in Moscow, surprising the Russian navy and earning an early victory. Over the course of the next year, the two forces clashed in Korea and the Sea of Japan, with the Japanese scoring significant, but costly, victories. A Russian fleet made the long trip from the Baltic Sea around Africa and India, only to be half destroyed by the Japanese. -
Bloody Sunday
A group of workers led by the radical priest Georgy Apollonovich Gapon marched to the czar's Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to make their demands. Imperial forces opened fire on the demonstrators, killing and wounding hundreds. Strikes and riots broke out throughout the country in outraged response to the massacre, to which Nicholas responded by promising the formation of a series of representative assemblies, or Dumas, to work toward reform. -
Rasputin
Rasputin's rise to royal influence dates from his summons to the royal palace in an attempt to try and prevent their son Alexis's continuing loss of blood (as a haemophiliac). Where all others had failed Rasputin succeeding in stemming the boy's loss of blood - probably through hypnotism - and Rasputin's reputation as a mystic healer was sealed by the immense gratitude of the Tsar and (especially) the Tsarina. -
October Manifesto
In response to such wide-scale protest, and under the advice of close advisers, the Tsar published the 'October Manifesto', which granted freedom of conscience, speech, meeting and association, and the end of imprisonment without trial. In addition, no new law would become effective without the approval of the Duma, a consultative body. -
Battle of Tannenberg
Embarrassing loss to the Germans which ultimatly signaled the reduction in Russian forces in WWI. -
Czar takes command of the Military
Dissatisfied with the army's conduct of the war, Nicholas took personal command in September 1915. The Russian army were fighting on the Eastern Front and its ongoing lack of success was causing dissension at home. Unfortunately, now operating under Nicholas II's supreme command, its continued failure reflected directly upon the Tsar himself rather than the army command. Nicholas's popularity dwindled. -
Rasputin Dies
Yusupov invited Rasputin to dine at his home on 29 December 1916 where he was given poisoned wine and cakes. Alarmed at Rasputin's apparent immunity to the poison Yusupov shot him in panic. After a brief period of collapse Rasputin recovered and managed to escape into the courtyard, where he was again shot (by another conspirator, Vladimir Purishkevich). Finally, presumably to make quite sure of the matter, Rasputin's body was dropped through a hole in the Neva river, where he finally drowned -
Czar Abdicates the throne
During the February Revolution, Czar Nicholas II, ruler of Russia since 1894, is forced to abdicate the throne on this day in 1917, after strikes and general revolts break out in Petrograd -
Provincial Government established in Russia
the Provisional Government was only a transitional regime, formed to oversee Russia’s transformation from tsarism to a democratically elected Constituent Assembly. Most expected elections for this Constituent Assembly to be organised within six months, certainly well before the end of 1917. In the meantime, the Provisional Government attempted to rule as one might expect an elected government to rule. -
February Revolution
On March 8, 1917, demonstrators clamoring for bread took to the streets of the Russian capital of Petrograd. Supported by 90,000 men and women on strike, the protesters clashed with police, refusing to leave the streets. On March 10, the strike spread among Petrograd's workers, and irate mobs of workers destroyed police stations. Several factories elected deputies to the Petrograd Soviet ("council) of workers, following the model devised during the Revolution of 1905. -
Lenin Returns
In July, he was forced to flee to Finland, but his call for "peace, land, and bread" met with increasing popular support, and the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd soviet. In October, Lenin secretly returned to Petrograd, and on November 7 the Bolshevik-led Red Guards deposed the Provisional Government and proclaimed soviet rule. -
October Revolution (Bolshevik)
Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin launched a nearly bloodless coup d’état against the provisional government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in Petrograd, and soon formed a new government with Lenin as its head. -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
By the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine, Georgia and Finland; gave up Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to Germany and Austria-Hungary; and ceded Kars, Ardahan and Batum to Turkey. The total losses constituted 1 million square miles of Russia's former territory; a third of its population or 55 million people; a majority of its coal, oil and iron stores; and much of its industry. -
Czar and his family murdered
Late on the night of July 16, Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children and four servants were ordered to dress quickly and go down to the cellar of the house in which they were being held. There, the family and servants were arranged in two rows for a photograph they were told was being taken to quell rumors that they had escaped. Suddenly, a dozen armed men burst into the room and gunned down the imperial family in a hail of gunfire. -
Reds (Bolsheviks)v. Whites (Mensheviks) Allies Invade Soviet Russia
Outraged by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the anti-Bolshevik Russians who had remained loyal to the Allies now took up arms in earnest against the Bolsheviks. They were actively assisted by Allied forces in Russia, who hoped to rebuild the Eastern Front. -
Treaty of Versailles
The treaty, negotiated between January and June 1919 in Paris, was written by the Allies with almost no participation by the Germans. The negotiations revealed a split between the French, who wanted to dismember Germany to make it impossible for it to renew war with France, and the British and Americans, who did not want to create pretexts for a new war. Germany lost all of its colonies, the Alsace-Lorraine, and had a restriction placed on the size of their military. -
USSR Established
During the Russian Revolution of 1917 and subsequent three-year Russian Civil War, the Bolshevik Party under Vladimir Lenin dominated the soviet forces, a coalition of workers' and soldiers' committees that called for the establishment of a socialist state in the former Russian Empire. In the USSR, all levels of government were controlled by the Communist Party. Soviet industry was owned and managed by the state, and agricultural land was divided into state-run collective farms. -
Lenin Dies
Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Bolshevik Revolution and the first leader of the Soviet Union, dies of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 54. -
Stalin takes power
After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin eventually outmaneuvered his rivals and won the power struggle for control of the Communist Party. By the late 1920s, he had become dictator of the Soviet Union. -
Trotsky exiled
Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik revolution and early architect of the Soviet state, is deported by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Alma-Ata in remote Soviet Central Asia. He lived there in internal exile for a year before being banished from the USSR forever by Stalin.
