Russian Revolution Timeline

  • Czar Alexander II is assassinated

    Czar Alexander II is assassinated
    Alexander II was the Czar of Russia from 1855 to 1881. He was killed in the streets of St. Petersburg by a bomb, and the person that threw was a member of the “People’s Will” group. The People’s Will group was made in 1879. They were terrorists and assassins and their goal was to overthrow the Czars of Russia.
  • Nicholas II crowned czar of Russia

    Nicholas II crowned czar of Russia
    In 1914, Nicholas led his country into another costly war, World War I, and discontent grew as food became scarce, soldiers became war-weary, and devastating defeats at the hands of Germany demonstrated the ineffectiveness of Russia under Nicholas. In 1915, the czar personally took over command of the army, leaving Czarina Alexandra in control at home.
  • Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg

    Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg
    On January 22, 1905, 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 protesters, 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.
  • World War I

    World War I
    On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland, but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914. Despite that victory, Russia’s assault had forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.
  • Russian civil war

    Russian civil war
    The Russian Civil war was a conflict in which the Red Army successfully defended the newly formed Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Lenin against various Russian revolutionary groups and other groups. This war lasted for three years. This war happened because a lot of people didn’t like the way that Lenin was ruling so they tried to overthrow him.
  • The February Revolution

    The February Revolution
    In Russia they weren’t as industrialized as they were in Germany, and Russia didn’t have a lot of weapons or equipment. So this made it so there were a lot of casualties. This war made it so Russia's economy fall, and on March 8, about 90,000 people went to the streets of Petrograd. They all fought off the police forces.
  • Czar Nicholas II abdicates

    Czar Nicholas II abdicates
    In March 1917, the army garrison at Petrograd joined striking workers in demanding socialist reforms, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Nicholas and his family were first held at the Czarskoe Selo palace, then in the Yekaterinburg palace near Tobolsk. After a secret meeting, a death sentence was passed on the imperial family, and Nicholas, his wife, his children, and several of their servants were gunned down on the night of July 16.
  • Lenin returns from exile

    Lenin returns from exile
    In December 1895, Lenin and the other leaders of the Union were arrested. Lenin was jailed for a year and then exiled to Siberia for a term of three years. After he returned from exile he returned to his revolutionary activity. He had a newspaper published to the people that entitled What Is to Be Done? which argued that only a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries could bring socialism to Russia.
  • Bolshevik uprising fails in Petrograd

    Bolshevik uprising fails in Petrograd
    Leon Trotsky was the person who encouraged people to revolt against their government. This was led by Vladimir Lenin, he had just got back from exile and they saw their chance to seize the streets of Petrograd. The the provisional government started to destroy the Bolshevik’s newspaper industry offices and Lenin didn’t think it was safe and stop revolting and went into hiding.
  • The October Revolution

    The October Revolution
    Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, leftist revolutionaries launch a nearly bloodless coup d’État against Russia’s ineffectual Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in the Russian capital of Petrograd and within two days had formed a new government with Lenin as its head. Bolshevik Russia, later renamed the USSR, was the world’s first Marxist state.
  • Russia withdraws from World War I

    Russia withdraws from World War I
    Russia’s disastrous involvement in World War I was a primary factor that led to Vladimir Lenin’s successful Marxist revolution in November 1917. In December 1917, Germany agreed to an armistice and peace talks with Russia, and Lenin sent Leon Trotsky to Brest Litovsk in Belarus to negotiate a treaty. The talks broke off after Germany demanded independence for Russian holdings in Eastern Europe, and in February 1918 fighting resumed on the eastern front.
  • The Bolshevik Party changes its name to the Communist Party

    The Bolshevik Party changes its name to the Communist Party
    When the Bolsheviks had came into rule, they had a democratic election for the people of Russia. When only 25% of the whole national assembly showed they decided to dissolve this and not share power together. This lead on to a three year war. The Bolshevik party made the Red army, then the next month they changed it to the Communist party
  • The capital of Russia is changed from St. Petersburg to Moscow

    The capital of Russia is changed from St. Petersburg to Moscow
    The capital of Russia is changed from St. Petersburg to Moscow for some good reasons. Moscow was in the center of russia which made its location better than St. Petersburg. Also the population in Moscow was larger, so they decided that it was better to have the capital of Russia to have a large population. Last Moscow was very far from the front lines
  • Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed

     Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed
    Crowned in 1896, Nicholas wasn’t trained or inclined to rule, which did not help the autocracy he sought to preserve among a people desperate for change. The disastrous outcome of the Russo Japanese War led to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which ended only after Nicholas approved a representative assembly the Duma and promised constitutional reforms.
  • Russian civil war ends

    Russian civil war ends
    The Russian Civil War raged from 1918 until the start of 1921. During this time, the Bolsheviks faced massive opposition to their rule in the form of the White Armies, led by former officers of the Tsarist state, and also from intervention by the forces of foreign countries. The Bolsheviks were surrounded, often outnumbered by their opponents, and had no experienced military commanders. At times, their situation seemed hopeless.
  • The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.)

    The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.)
    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, and the party’s politburo, with its increasingly powerful general secretary, effectively ruled the country.
  • Lenin dies

     Lenin dies
    In 1905, workers rebelled across Russia, but it was not until 1917, and Russia’s disastrous involvement in World War I, that Lenin realized that the opportunity for Communist revolution had come. In March 1917, the Russian army garrison at Petrograd defected to the Bolshevik cause, and Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Lenin immediately left Switzerland and crossed German enemy lines to arrive at Petrograd on April 16, 1917.