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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.
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Treaty of Brest-Litovsk according to which Russia ceded large tracts of land to Germany; Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan proclaim their independence from Russia.
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Civil war between Bolsheviks, or Reds, and anti-Bolsheviks, or Whites, ravages Russia. 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.
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Policy of "war communism" enunciated, with the state taking 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.
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New Economic Policy ushers in a partial return to the market economy and a period of stability.
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Soviet Union adopts constitution based on the dictatorship of the proletariat and stipulating the public ownership of land and the means of production
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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.
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Soviet Union and Nazi Germany conclude a non-aggression pact; Germany invades Poland, triggering World War II.
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Soviet troops enter Poland, which is then divided between Germany and the USSR.
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Germany invades the USSR and by the end of the year occupies Belarus and most of Ukraine, surrounds Leningrad. Although a Soviet counter-offensive saves Moscow, by June 1942 the Germans were at the gates of Stalingrad (now called Volgograd) and close to the Caucasus oil fields.
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Soviet Union declares war on Japan, eventually annexing the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kuril islands.
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Soviet Union explodes its first atomic device; recognises the Communist government in China
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Soviet Union explodes its first hydrogen bomb.
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Khrushchev makes a secret speech to the 20th Communist Party congress denouncing Stalin's dictatorial rule and cult of personality.
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Khrushchev becomes prime minister - in addition to Communist Party chief - after dismissing Bulganin.
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Cuban missile crisis erupts over presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
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Soviet Union and US sign SALT-1 arms control agreement, heralding the start of detente.
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Soviet Union and US sign SALT-2 agreement; Soviet troops invade Afghanistan, formally ending the period of detente with the West.
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Chernobyl nuclear power station explodes, showering large areas in Ukraine, Belarus and beyond with radioactive material.
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See the toppling of Soviet-imposed communist regimes in central and eastern Europe. Events begin in Poland and continue in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. In East Germany, an unprecedented series of mass public rallies leads to the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November.
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Soviet troops sent to Azerbaijan following inter-ethnic killings between Armenians and Azeris; Communist Party votes to end one-party rule; Gorbachev opposes independence of Baltic states and imposes sanctions on Lithuania; Yeltsin elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic by the latter's parliament and leaves the Soviet Communist Party.
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Gorbachev resigns as Soviet president; US recognises independence of remaining Soviet republics.
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