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Czar Alexander II is assassinated by the terrorist group ‘People’s Will’
Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, is killed in the streets of St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary “People’s Will” group. The People’s Will, organized in 1879, employed terrorism and assassination in their attempt to overthrow Russian czarist autocracy. They murdered officials and made several attempts on the czar’s life before finally assassinating him on March 13, 1881. -
Nicholas II crowned czar of Russia
Nicholas was neither trained nor inclined to rule, which did not help the autocracy he sought to preserve in an era desperate for change. Born in 1868, he succeeded to the Russian throne upon the death of his father, Czar Alexander III, in November 1894. That same month, the new czar married Alexandra, a German-born princess who came to have great influence over her husband. After a period of mourning for his late father, Nicholas and Alexandra were crowned czar and czarina in May 1896 -
Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg begins the 1905 Russian Revolution
Bloody Sunday, Russian 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 -
World War I begins
after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States.Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people were dead. -
The February Revolution begins with strikes, demonstrations, and mutinies in Petrograd
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. -
Czar Nicholas II abdicates (gives up power)
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 Czarskoye Selo palace, then in the Yekaterinburg palace near Tobolsk. In July 1918. -
Lenin returns from exile and arrives in Petrograd via a sealed train
After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Lenin returned to Russia. The revolution, which consisted mainly of strikes throughout the Russian empire, came to an end when Nicholas II promised reforms, including the adoption of a Russian constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature. However, once order was restored, the czar nullified most of these reforms, and in 1907 Lenin was again forced into exile. -
Bolshevik uprising fails in Petrograd
in the Russian Revolution during which workers and soldiers of Petrograd staged armed demonstrations against the Provisional Government that resulted in a temporary decline of Bolshevik influence and in the formation of a new Provisional Government, headed by Aleksandr Kerensky. -
The October Revolution - the Bolsheviks take over Petrograd
the October Revolution officially known in Soviet literature as the Great October Socialist Revolution and commonly referred to as Red October, the October Uprising, the Bolshevik Revolution, or Bolshevik Coup was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Lenin that was instrumental in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 7 November (25 October, Old Style) 1917. -
The capital of Russia is changed from St. Petersburg to Moscow
Between 1713 and 1728 and in 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of Imperial Russia. In 1918, the central government bodies moved to Moscow. -
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 Bolshevik Party changes its name to the Communist Party
The 7th Congress of the RSDLP Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, also known as the Extraordinary 7th Congress of the RCP Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks, was held between 6–8 March 1918. During this congress the Bolsheviks changed the name of the party to include the word "Communist". -
Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed
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. -
Russian civil war begins
The Russian Civil War (1918-21) was fought to decide who should control Russia in the wake of the October 1917 revolution. During this period a conglomerate of anti-Bolshevik groups, dubbed the Whites, fought to remove the Bolsheviks from power and restore some elements of the old order. -
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.) established
In post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation (divided in 1936 into the Georgian, Azerbaijan, and Armenian republics). Also known as the Soviet Union, the new communist state was the successor to the Russian Empire and the first country in the world to be based on Marxist socialism. -
Lenin dies
Lenin’s government nationalized industry and distributed land, and on December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. Upon Lenin’s death in early 1924, his body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. Fellow revolutionary Joseph Stalin succeeded him as leader of the Soviet Union.
