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The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian
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Germany recognises the Soviet Union
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The USSR joined 18 September 1934; expelled 14 December 1939
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Soviet troops occupy and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which are then incorporated into the USSR; Romania cedes Bessarabia and North Bukovina to the USSR which declares the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic - the present independent republic of Moldova.
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Soviet Union and Japan sign a non-aggression pact.
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Germany invades the USSR and by the end of the year occupies Belarus and most of Ukraine, surrounds Leningrad (now called St Petersburg). Although a Soviet counter-offensive saves Moscow, by June 1942 the Germans were on the gates of Stalingrad (now called Volgograd) and close to the Caucasus oil fields.
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Soviet troops launch a general counter-offensive which eventually culminates in the capture of Berlin in May 1945.
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Soviet Union declares war on Japan, eventually annexing the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kuril islands.
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Soviet Union fails to prevent supplies from reaching the sectors of Berlin occupied by Western forces.
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Soviet Union and China sign 30-year alliance treaty.
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Stalin dies and is succeeded by Georgi Malenkov as prime minister and by Nikita Khrushchev as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
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Warsaw Treaty Organisation, or Warsaw Pact, set up.
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USSR troops help crush uprising in Hungary.
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Gorbachev resigns as Soviet president; US recognises independence of remaining Soviet republics.
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Russian government takes over offices of USSR in Russia.
