The Revolution
Russian Revolution in Dates
1905 January - Bloody Sunday - Tsarist troops open fire on
a peaceful demonstration of workers in St Petersburg.
1905 October - General Strike sweeps Russia that 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 February - 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 are unchanged.
1917 April 20th - 21st - 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 3rd - First All-Russia Congress of Workers and
Soldiers Soviets opens.
1917 June 18th - Offensive launched by Russia against
Austria Hungary.
1917 July 3rd and 4th - The July Days - 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
its head (8th).
1917 July 12th - Death Penalty reintroduced for the
front.
1917 August - 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 September - 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 October - The Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional
government on the eve of the meeting of 2nd All-Russia Congress
of Soviets.
1917 October 26th-27th - Soviet proclamations on land and
peace. Death Penalty abolished.
1917 October 30th - Kerensky repulsed outside
Petrograd.
1917 November 2nd - Bolsheviks gain Moscow.
1917 November 7th - Ukraine proclaimed independent by the
Central Rada.
1917 November 12th-14th - Elections to the Constituent
Assembly. Socialist Revolutionaries the largest party.
1917 December 12th - Left-SRs join Sovnarkom.
1917 December (early) - Congress of Socialist
Revolutionaries results in victory for the left under Chernov.
Likewise Menshevik Congress gives victory to Martov's Menshevik
internationalists.
1918 January 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 January 10th-18th - 3rd Soviet Congress
1918 January 28th - Trotsky denounces the German Peace
Terms as unacceptable and walks out of the peace negotiations at
Brest-Litovsk.
1918 February 1st-14th - Russia adopts Western (Gregorian)
calendar.
1918 February 18th - The Germans invade Russia that 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 July 16th - Gorky's Novaia Zhizn, the last opposition
paper, banned.
1918 August 23rd - 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 September 22nd - Siberian Oblast Duma dismisses
Mikhailov and does Mikhailov disperse itself.
1918 November 18th - Kolchak stages a coup against the
Directory, the multi party government in Siberia, and establishes
a counterrevolutionary despotism.
1918 December - Perm falls to Kolchak's Whites.
1919 January - Mensheviks legalised and allowed to publish
Vsegda Vpered in Moscow. Era of relative freedom begins in
Bolshevik controlled Russia.
1919 February 25th - 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 April 25th - Poland invades Russia.
1920 August 19th - Start of peasant insurrection in
Tambov.
1920 November 14th - 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 March 1st-17th - The old Bolshevik stronghold of
Kronstadt rises, demanding free election to the Soviets but is
suppressed.
1921 May - Tambov insurrection suppressed.
1924 - Lenin dies. A triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev and
Zinoviev defeats Trotsky. Though Stalin stays in the background,
he is the real power, as the other two will shortly discover.
♣ Interesting links:
The Russian Revolution of 1917 ~ by Gerhard
Rempel
The Russian Revolution (1917-1918) ~
SparkNotes
The Russian Revolution ~ by David Barnsdale
(the above Chronicle is from this site!)
