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Assassination of Czar Alexander II
One of the three revolutionary groups of time, the “People’s Will”, a terrorist group looking to overthrow the Russian czarist autocracy, achieved their goal of killing the Czar on March 31, 1881, when one member threw a bomb. The Czar was very relaxed with laws, allowing the people to plot his demise. This assassination was the end of many murders of officials and attempts to kill the Czar. It also paved the way for Czar Alexander III, who was stricter with the rules of the people. -
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday was an act of violence against the radical priest Georgy Apollonovich Gapon and his group of workers when they were shot down while marching on the Winter Palace with many demands on reforms for the country. Immediately afterwards, people outraged by this massacre started strikes and riots across the country. The only way to control the chaos was for Nicholas to create the Dumas, which gave some temporary democratic power to the people and took some power away from the czar. -
U.S.S.R. Established
During the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks dominated the soviet forces, a collection of workers and soldiers committees that demanded for the creation of a socialist state in Russia. The USSR was run by the Communist party, and it grew into one of the world’s most powerful states, with 15 republics inside. -
World War One Begins
In 1914, World War One started. During the war, there were two sides. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers), against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). The war was lethal and unforgiving, taking record breaking numbers of lives with new military technologies and trench warfare. By the time that the Allied Powers won the war, over 16 million people (soldiers and civilians) were dead. -
Russia Withdraws
After everything that happened in Russia, the chaos, the strikes, the killings and the outbursts, Russia decided that enough was enough. There were food shortages, the government was down because of the lack of czar, the economy was terrible because of the war costs, and the people had suffered enough because of all of this. -
February Revolution begins
The Russian military was no match for Germany. Russia was poorly equipped, causing many casualties. Because of this chaos and the costs that came with it, the Russian economy was failing. On March 8, 90,000+ people looking for bread took over the streets of Petrograd. On March 11, protesters were shot. That same day, the Czar disbanded the Dumas, and upset the soldiers. Frustrated, they switched teams to the protester side, and the provisional government took control when the imperials resigned. -
Nicholas Abdicates Power
Crowned on May 26, 1894, Nicholas was not ready to rule. He led Russia into war, making food scarce, soldiers tired of fighting, and defeats roll in like tides. All of these things made it obvious he was an inefficient ruler. In March 1917, sick of the misfortune, workers and soldiers at Petrograd caused much commotion, demanding social reforms. In the end, Ǹicholas was forced to abdicate his throne, and was killed shortly after with his family in July. -
Lenin Returns
After the February Revolution, German authorities allowed Lenin to cross Germany in a sealed railway car on his way to Sweden from Switzerland. Lenin wanted to overthrow the Provisional Government, and because of that he was condemned. In July, he fled to Finland, but his call for “peace, love and bread” increased support for the Bolsheviks in Russia. In October, he arrived in Petrograd, and soon after, the Provisional government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks. -
Uprising Fails in Petrograd
The July Days were a chunk of days in the Russian Revolution where workers and soldiers of Petrograd rose up and temporarily declined the Bolshevik influence and the information of a new Provisional government by staging armed demonstrations against the Provisional government. On July 3, protesters marched through Petrograd to the Tauride Palace, demanding that the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies take power in the country. The Bolsheviks supported them after resisting temporarily. -
The October Revolution
Also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, the October Revolution started when Bolshevik Red Guards began to take control of Russia’s capital in its key points; the railways and its stations, the telegraph offices and the government buildings. By the end of the night, they had control of the entire city, except the Winter Palace, the headquarters of the Provisional Government. -
Russian Civil War begins
Throughout Russia, people split into three groups, the Reds, the Whites, and the Greens. The Reds were communists following Leninism. Backed by England and America, the Whites wanted to install either democracy or autocracy back into the nation to establish some sort of government. The Greens were peasants who had been working the land for years, and all they wanted was to be able to keep the land. It is obvious that these groups had clashing interests, and because of that, a war began. -
Bolsheviks change their name
When the Bolsheviks rose into power, a democratic election was promised to the people. When less than 25% of the new national assembly was represented by Bolsheviks, Lenin forced the assembly to disband rather than sharing power. This started a complicated three-year war in Russia. The Bolsheviks created the Red Army, named after the symbolic meaning of socialism that the color red had in the country. They changed their party’s name to the Communist party the next month. -
The Russian Civil War Ends
The Russian Civil war was a war spread through the entire nation and its people. The people split into three groups, the Reds (the communists) the Whites (the democrats and/or the people who wanted some sort of government to take charge) and the Greens (the peasants who had been working the land for their whole life and just wanted to have it for their own for once). The three teams had fought for three years until 1922, when the Reds won and formed the USSR by joining these republics together. -
The Capital Changes
Around the time of the capital change, the Russian Civil war was starting up. As the German troops advanced farther and farther into Russia, their target the capital. When they got too close to the then capital of Russia, the Bolshevik government decided to move the capital farther away to Moscow, and make Petrograd just a regional center. -
Crowning of Czar Nicholas II
In May of 1896, the last czar of Russia was crowned. Czar Nicholas II was crowned Czar of Russia after his father Alexander III’s death in November of 1894. The same month as his father’s death, the new czar married German-born princess Alexandra. After enduring a period of mourning his father’s death, Nicholas and wife Alexandra were crowned czar and czarina in the old Ouspensky Cathedral in Moscow. -
Romanov Family Executed
In March 1917, Czar Nicholas abdicated his throne. That November, the Bolsheviks took control of Russia. Civil war broke out in Russia in June 1918, and the following July, the Whites advanced on Yekaterinburg, the location of the imperial family. The death penalty was put on the family. On July 16, the family was herded into the cellar of the house they were being held in for a picture. Suddenly, armed Russian forces came and shot them. Anyone who was alive was stabbed to death. -
Lenin’s Death
Vladimir Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks, a radical group who believed in communism and who took over Russia in hopes of making it a communist nation. Lenin was very successful, as they were in power for many years. He seemed to be very lucky, because he managed to take over the entire country of Russia with an idea. On January 21, 1924, however, he wasn’t very lucky, and he passed away. His body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin.
