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Abolishment of serfdom
In 1861 Alexander II freed all serfs in a major agrarian reform, stimulated in part by his view that "it is better to liberate the peasants from above" than to wait until they won their freedom by risings "from below". Serfdom was abolished in 1861, but its abolition was achieved on terms not always favorable to the peasants and served to increase revolutionary pressures. -
Alexander III
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Alexander III
Alexander III (1845, St. Petersbur- 1894, Livadiya), was the emperor of Russia from 1881 to 1894, opponent of representative government, and supporter of Russian nationalism. He adopted programs, based on the concepts of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and narodnost, that included the Russification of national minorities in the Russian Empire as well as persecution of the non-Orthodox religious groups. -
Trans Siberian Railway
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Trans Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railroad is the longest single rail system in Russia, stretching from Moscow to Vladivostok or to the port station of Nakhodka. It had great importance in the economic, military, and imperial history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It was conceived by Tsar Alexander III, the construction of the railroad began in 1891 and proceeded simultaneously in several sections. -
Nicholas II
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Nicholas II
Nicholas II (1868, Tsarskoye Selo- 1918, Yekaterinburg), was the last Russian emperor (1894–1917), who, together with his wife Alexandra and his children, was killed by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. -
Division of Marxists into two groups
In July 1903, clandestinely met the Second Congress of the RSDLP. The first sessions were held in Brussels but at the imminence of police interference, delegates moved to London. During this congress two fractions were configured: a majority called Bolshevik around Lenin, who won the approval of much of the program proposed by Iskra, and a minority called Mensheviks around Julius Martov. -
Russo Japanesse War
The Russo-Japanese War was a military conflict in which a victorious Japan forced Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in the Far East, becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power. It developed out of the rivalry between Russia and Japan for dominance in Korea and Manchuria. -
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday was a massacre in St. Petersburg, Russia, of peaceful demonstrators marking the beginning of the violent phase of the Russian Revolution of 1905. At the end of the 19th century, industrial workers in Russia had begun to organize; police agents, eager to prevent the Labour Movement from being dominated by revolutionary influences, formed legal labour unions and encouraged the workers to concentrate on making economic gains and to disregard broader social and political problems. -
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World War I
The World War I was an international conflict that embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the Central Powers, mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, against the Allies, mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States. It ended with the defeat of the Central Powers. -
Murder of Rasputin
The death of the Russian monk Grigori Rasputin, was a murder work of several members of the Russian nobility, led by Prince Felix Yusupov. Despite how easy it was thought at first the plan's implementation, it became much more complicated than expected, and several assassination attempts were needed on the same night to finally remove him. -
March Revolution
The March, or February Revolution was the first stage of the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which the monarchy was overthrown and replaced by the Provisional Government. This government, intended as an interim stage in the creation of a permanent democratic-parliamentary polity for Russia, was in turn overthrown by the Bolsheviks in October of the same year. -
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Provisional Government
The Provisional Government is the name given to the government that led Russia from March 1917 to November 1917. Throughout its existence, the Provisional Government met at the Tauride Palace. By July it was led by Alexander Kerensky - the man who had informed the Duma on March 11th that 25,000 troops were on the way to support them. -
October Revolution
The October Revolution, also called Bolshevik Revolution was the second and last major phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which the Bolshevik Party seized power in Russia, inaugurating the Soviet regime. -
Lenin
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Lenin
Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870, Simbirsk- 1924, Gorki), was the founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), inspirer and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and the architect, builder, and first head (1917–24) of the Soviet state. He was the founder of the organization known as Comintern (Communist International) and the posthumous source of “Leninism,” the doctrine codified and conjoined with Marx’s works by Lenin’s successors to form Marxism-Leninism. -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaties of Brest-Litovsk were peace treaties signed at Brest-Litovsk by the Central Powers with the Ukrainian Republic and with Soviet Russia , which concluded hostilities between those countries during World War I. They were divided into several sessions, during which the Soviet delegation tried to prolong the proceedings and took full advantage of its opportunity to issue propaganda statements, while the Germans grew increasingly impatient. -
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Civil War in Russia
The Russian Civil War was the conflict in which the Red Army successfully defended the newly formed Bolshevik government against various Russian and interventionist anti-Bolshevik armies. -
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NEP
The New Economic Policy attempted to reverse the crisis that plunged Russia due to the civil war and foreign aggression. The revolution had survived, but at a huge cost; agricultural production had dropped sharply compared to 1914, industrial production declined, the migration to the countryside and depopulation of cities was brutal and the standard of living of the population was under minimum. -
USSR
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also called Soviet Union former northern Eurasian empire stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and, in its final years, consisting of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. The capital was Moscow, which is now the capital of Russia. During the period of its existence, the USSR was by area the world’s largest country. -
Stalin
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Stalin
Joseph Stalin (1879, Gori- 1953, Moscow) was the secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–53) and premier of the Soviet state (1941–53), who for a quarter of a century dictatorially ruled the Soviet Union and transformed it into a major world power. -
Trotsky into exile
Leon Trotsky (1879- 1940) was one of the key figures of the Russian revolution, and of the early days of the Soviet Union. He was renowned for his organisational abilities, and his ruthlessness, and is widely credited with developing an effective Red Army to consolidate the Bolshevik position in the Russian Civil War. Trotsky was over time forced out of the Soviet leadership by Stalin, and eventually forced into exile. He remained a vocal critic of Stalin, who finally ordered his murder in 1940.
