Welsh industrialist Robert Owen takes charge of a mill at New Lanark and develops it as an experiment in paternalistic socialism
The English socialist Robert Owen purchases New Harmony from the Rappists, to test his utopian theories in a new context
The young Friedrich Engels is sent from Germany to manage the family cotton-spinning factory in Manchester
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels meet in Paris and become life-long friends
At a congress in London Engels persuades a group of radical Germans to adopt the name Communist League
The Communist Manifesto, by Marx and Engels, is published in Paris with the ringing slogan: 'Workers of the world, unite!'
The First International is established in London, with Karl Marx soon emerging as the association's leader
Lenin and comrades launch in Munich a radical newspaper, Iskra ('the spark')
Lenin's supporters become known as the Bolsheviks ('majority') as opposed to the Mensheviks ('minority') after a split at the party's Second Congress
The first soviet ("council") of workers is set up in St Petersburg, introducing a word of great significance in Russian Communist history
world war I begins
The Bolsheviks take control of power in Russia and change their name to the Communist party
Communists seize power in Jiangxi province and establish the first soviet republic in China
Stalin achieves complete personal control in the USSR after removing all his rivals from the Politburo
anti-Communist coup enables Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) to set up a National Government in Nanjing
Mao Zedong wins control over the Chinese Communists during the Long March
Kim Il Sung leads a Communist guerrilla campaign against the Japanese occupation of Korea
In preparation for the invasion of Russia, Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler set up Special Task Commandos (Einsatzkommando) to exterminate Communists and Jews
Mao Zedong becomes official leader of the Chinese Communist Party,
The Soviet army surrounds the Hungarian capital, Budapest
Ho Chi Minh proclaims the democratic republic of Vietnam
The Soviets instal a puppet government in Romania while the fight continues against Germany
Kim Il Sung becomes prime minister of North Korea on the withdrawal of the Soviet occupying force
The USSR grants nominal independence to east Germany as the newly established German Democratic Republic
The term Domino Theory is coined to reflect President Eisenhower's view of how states might fall to Communism
The East German government erects the Berlin Wall to prevent an exodus of its citizens
many communist states are successfully testing nuclear weapons.
The Soviet spacecraft Luna 10 orbits the moon and broadcasts the Internationale to the 23rd Congress of the Communist Part
berlin wall is domolished to signify the end of the cold war.
Eight more Soviet Socialist republics vote to join the three founder members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
The deformation of the soviet union
countries like north Korea, China and Cuba are still currently under communism to this day