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Revolution in Russia. Nicholas II announces constitutional reforms, and the creation of the Duma, or elected assembly. Stalin marries Yekaterina Svanidze.
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January 1912: ·Bolsheviks officially separate from Social Democrats, Stalin appointed to the Party's Central Committee by Lenin.
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·Beginning of Russian Revolution. The Tsar's government falls, replaced with a Provisional Government. Bolsheviks, including Stalin, hasten to St. Petersburg
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November 1917: ·Bolsheviks overthrow Provisional Government, seize power. Stalin plays only a minor role.
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1918-1920: ·Civil war in Russia. Trotsky organizes Red Army.
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1922: ·Official founding of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
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April 1922: ·Stalin elected General Secretary of the Communist Party
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January 4, 1923: ·Lenin, in a postscript to his Testament, warns the Party to remove Stalin from his position of power.
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January 21, 1924: ·Death of Lenin. Stalin survives the reading of the Testament by the Central Committee in May.
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1924-25: ·Stalin publicly attacks Trotsky for being unfaithful to "Leninism."
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December 1924: ·Stalin publicly articulates his theory of "Socialism in One Country."
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December 1925: ·Allied with Bukharin and the "Rightists," Stalin begins attacks on Zinoviev.
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October-November 1926: ·At the Fifteenth Party Congress, Stalin attacks the "United Opposition" of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky.
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November 1927: ·Kamenev and Zinoviev expelled from the Party; Trotsky expelled and sent to Central Asia.
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December 1929: ·Stalin announces "liquidation of the kulaks as a class"; collectivization begins in earnest.
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1931-32: ·Terrible famine across the Soviet Union; millions die
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til 1937
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December 1, 1934: ·Murder, by Stalin's agents, of Sergei Kirov. Beginning of "Great Terror," which continues until 1938.
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January 1935: ·Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others are arrested, accused of complicity in Kirov's assassination.
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August 1936: ·First "Show Trial." Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their allies confess and are executed.
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1938–1941
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March 1938: ·Third Show Trial, conviction and execution of Bukharin, Rykov, others.
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March 1939: ·At Eighteenth Party Congress, Stalin announces end of the Great Terror.
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August 23, 1939: ·Nazi-Soviet Pact is signed in Moscow
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September 1939: ·Outbreak of World War II
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June 21, 1941: ·Hitler invades Soviet Union
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August 1942-February 1943: · Battle of Stalingrad. Germans are defeated, marking the turning point in the war.
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February 1948: ·Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia, cementing Soviet control of Eastern Europe.
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