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A peaceful protest of the Tsar turns deadly after the Imperial Guard begins shooting protesters. This becomes known as Bloody Sunday.
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The monarchy starts to collape due to disasters on the battlefield and food and fuel shortages. In St. Petersburg, workers go on strike and protests demanding more food arise. Soldiers defect, and so the government is helpless. Finally, Tsar Nicholas II abdicates, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty.
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Alexander Kerensky is appointed by the Duma as prime minister of the provisional government.
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The Duma declares Russia a republic.
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Revolutionary socialist groups arise in cities, and set up soviets. A radical socialist group, the Bolsheviks, become very powerful. The Bolsheviks overthrow the Kerensky government and install Vladimir I. Lenin as a leader of Russia. Lenin is a determined revolutionary.
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Lenin uses terror to control the "Whites", and his own people. He creates the secret police, the Cheka.The Cheka executes ordinary citizens just because they are suspected of going against the revolution.
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Russia drifts toward Communism. The Bolsheviks end private ownership of land and distribute land to the peasants. Millions of people became happy with the changes. Lenin changes the name of the Bolshevik party to the Communist Party.
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Lenin wants peace with Germany and to leave the war, so he can focus on the problems within Russia. So, the Communist government signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany. Russia must accept territorial losses for leaving World War 1.
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Nicholas II, his wife and their children are killed by the police. Bolshevik troops kill the Romanov family in Yekaterinburg. They are burned and buried in a forest.
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The Civil war between the "Reds", or the Communists, and the "Whites", or the counterrevolutionaries, lasts 3 years. The "Whites" desired to defeat the Bolsheviks and many nationalist groups from non-Russian regions joined them. Britain, France, and Germany sent troops to help the "Whites". The war ends with the "Reds" defeating the "Whites".
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Joseph Stalin is appointed general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
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Lenin suffers the first of three strokes.
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Lenin suffers a third stroke and is removed from power, opening a power struggle.
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Lenin dies and a power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky begins. Trotsky was a brilliant Marx thinker, a skill speaker, and an architect of the Bolshevik Revolution. He urged for a world-wide Revolution against capitalism. On the other hand, Stalin was not a scholar, but he was a shrewd politician. He wanted to concentrate on building socialism at home first.
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Eventually, Stalin isolates Trotsky within the party and strips him of party membership.Trotsky is exiled, leaving Stalin in charge. Lenin warns that Stalin will be a ruthless leader.
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The Soviet Union launches the first Five-Year Plan for rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union.
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The GULAG is established. GULAG is the government agency that controlled the Soviet forced-labor camps. During Stalin's rule, there were many forced-labor camps in Russia.
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Throughout the Soviet Union millions die due to a famine caused by Stalin's forced collectivization.
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Stalin and Hitler sign a non-aggression pact with one another.
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Stalin has Trotsky executed in Mexico.
