Biographies & Memoirs

Abbreviations

AMB Archives of the Ministry of Security

AMBRF Archives of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation

APRF Archives of the President of the Russian Federation

ECCI Executive Committee of the Communist International

GARF State Archives of the Russian Federation

GPU State Political Administration

KGB Committee of State Security

NKGB People's Commissariat of State Security

NKVD People's Commissariat of the Interior

OGPU Combined State Political Administration

PSS V.I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Complete Works), 5th edition, 55 vols., Moscow, 1970-85

RTsKhIDNI Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Recent Historical Documentation

TsAKGB Central KGB Archives

TsAMBRF Central Interior Ministry Archives of the Russian Federation

TsAMO Central Archives of the Ministry of Defence

TsGALI Central State Archives of Literature and Art

TsGASA Central State Archives of the Soviet Army

TsGoA Central State Special Archive

TsGVIA Central State Military History Archives

TsIK Central Executive Committee

TsKhSD Centre for the Preservation of Contemporary Documentation

VTsIK All-Russian Central Executive Committee

Chronological Table

Until February 1918 dates in Russia conformed to the Julian or Old Style Calendar, which by the twentieth century was lagging thirteen days behind the Gregorian Western Calendar, or New Style. Thus, the February Revolution of 1917 took place in March according to the Western calendar and the Bolsheviks seized power on 25 October 1917, when in the West the date was 7 November. In the text we have used New Style dates, adding Old Style where any ambiguity might arise. In the following table, all dates are according to New Style.


1870	22 April	Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) born.
1879	7 November	Lev Davydovich Bronshtein (Trotsky) born.
	21 December	Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin) born.
1880	January	Georgy Plekhanov flees Russia for Western Europe.
1881	13 March	Tsar Alexander II assassinated.
1883	September	Plekhanov forms Marxist ‘Emancipation of Labour Group’ in Geneva.
1886	24 January	Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (Lenin's father) dies.
1887	20 May	Alexander Ulyanov (Lenin's brother) hanged.
	25 August	Lenin enters Kazan University.
	17 December	Arrested in student protest demonstration.
1891	November	Passes law examination as external student at St Petersburg University.


1892		Practises as defence lawyer in Samara.
1894	September	First published work, ‘What are the “Friends of the People” and how they Fight Against the Social Democrats’.
1895	May-September	Goes abroad and meets Plekhanov.
	21 December	Arrested in St Petersburg.
1897	10 February	Exiled for three years to Siberia.
1898	March	Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) founded in Minsk.
	22 July	Lenin marries Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya in Shushenskoe, Siberia.
1900	10 Febuary	Lenin's exile ends.
	March	Arrives in St Petersburg.
	3 June	Arrested for ten days.
	20 June	Visits Krupskaya in exile in Ufa.
	29 July	Leaves Russia for Western Europe.
1901	Winter	Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR) founded.
1902	March	Lenin's What is to Be Done? published.
	April-May	Lenin in London.
1903	30 July-23 August	Second Congress of RSDLP in Brussels and London.
		Bolshevik-Menshevik split.
	December	Lenin resigns from Iskra.
1904	9 February	Russo-Japanese war breaks out.
	14 March	Lenin resigns from Party Central Committee.
1905	22 January	‘Bloody Sunday’ in St Petersburg.
	23 January	Strikes begin throughout Russia.
	25 April-10 May	Third Congress of RSDLP in London.
	27 May	Russian fleet sunk in Straits of Tsushima, off Japan.
	June	Mutiny on battleship Potemkin in Black Sea.
	15-July	Vyacheslav Plehve, Minister of Interior, assassinated in St Petersburg.
	5 September	Russo-Japanese Treaty of Portsmouth, USA.
	mid-October	General strike in Russia.
	25 October	Constitutional Democratic party (Kadets) formed.
	26 October	St Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies formed with Trotsky as deputy leader.
	30 October	Nicholas II issues manifesto promising civil


		rights and a legislative assembly, the State Duma.
	21 November	Lenin arrives in St Petersburg.
	16 December	St Petersburg Soviet arrested.
	21 December	Bolshevik-led armed uprising in Moscow crushed by army.
1906	23 April-8 May	Fourth Congress of RSDLP in Stockholm.
	10 May	First State Duma opens in St Petersburg.
	21 July	Duma dissolved; Peter Stolypin appointed Prime Minister.
1907	January-April	Lenin resides in Kokkala, Finland.
	5 March	Second Duma opens.
	15 June	Second Duma dissolved.
	13 April-1 June	Fifth Congress of RSDLP in London.
	20 November	Third Duma opens, based on new electoral law.
	December	Lenin takes up residence in Switzerland.
1908	December	Moves to Paris.
1909		Meets Inessa Armand in Paris.
1912	June	Moves to Cracow in Austrian Poland.
	28 November	Fourth Duma opens.
1913	May	Lenin moves to Poronin.
	July	Accompanies Krupskaya to Berne for her surgery.
1914	30 July	Russia mobilizes.
	1 August	Germany declares war on Russia.
	3 August	First World War begins.
	August	St Petersburg renamed Petrograd.
	August	Russia invades Austrian Galicia and East Prussia.
	8 August	Lenin arrested in Austrian Poland as Russian spy.
	19 August	Released.
	September	Russian forces defeated in East Prussia.
	September	Lenin leaves Austria for Switzerland
1915	22 July	Russian forces withdraw from Poland
	4 September	Nicholas II takes over supreme command of Russian forces.
	September	Lenin participates in conference of anti-war socialists at Zimmerwald, Switzerland.


1916	April	Second meeting of anti-war socialists at Kienthal, Switzerland.
	30 December	Rasputin murdered in Petrograd.
1917	8 March	Start of February Revolution in Petrograd.
	12 March	Petrograd Soviet formed.
	14 March	Moscow Soviet formed.
	15 March	Provisional Government formed. Nicholas II abdicates.
	25 March	Stalin and other Bolsheviks arrive in Petrograd from Siberian exile.
	16 April	Lenin arrives in Petrograd from Switzerland.
	17 April	Lenin issues his ‘April Theses’.
	May	Bolshevik Red Guards organized.
	May	Trotsky returns to Russia from New York.
	16 June	First Congress of Soviets opens.
	4 July	Provisional Government issues orders to arrest Lenin and other leading Bolsheviks.
	13 July	Lenin flees to Finland.
	17 July	Bolsheviks attempt coup in Petrograd—‘July Days’.
	18 July	Lenin goes into hiding.
	24 July	Alexander Kerensky becomes Prime Minister.
	August	Sixth Bolshevik Party Congress in Petrograd.
	mid-September	Kornilov campaign against Soviets launched and crushed.
	8 October	Trotsky becomes Chairman of Petrograd Soviet.
	23 October	Lenin returns secretly to Petrograd for Central Committee meeting to vote on armed uprising.
	6 November	Armed uprising by Bolshevik Red Guards.
	7 November	Trotsky declares seizure of power at Second Congress of Soviets, where Lenin's decrees on land and peace are passed.
	17 November	Sovnarkom given supreme legislative power by TsIK.
	November	First phase of civil war opens in Ukraine.
	25 November	Elections to Constituent Assembly begin.
	3 December	Soviet-German armistice talks open at Brest-Litovsk.



	15 December	Russian-German armistice signed.
	20 December	Cheka (Extra-ordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution and Sabotage) established.
	December	Don Cossacks revolt, (White) Volunteer Army formed under Generals Kaledin and Kornilov.
1918	9 January	Peace talks reopen at Brest-Litovsk.
	14 January	Attempt on Lenin's life in Petrograd.
	18 January	Constituent Assembly convened and is forcibly dispersed by Bolsheviks.
	22 January	Ukraine declares independence.
	9 February	Ukraine and Central Powers sign treaty.
	18 February	Germans resume war against Russia.
	3 March	Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed by Soviet Russia and Germany. Bolshevik troops enter Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
	9 March	Allied expeditionary force lands at Murmansk.
	10 March	Capital of Soviet Russia transferred from Petrograd to Moscow.
	13 March	Trotsky appointed People's Commissar for War. Begins formation of Red Army.
	4 April	Japanese expeditionary force lands at Vladivostok.
	June	British expeditionary force lands at Archangel.
	12 June	Tsar's brother, Grand Duke Michael, murdered near Perm in the Urals.
	16 June	Lenin reintroduces death penalty.
	4 July	Constitution approved by Fifth Congress of Soviets.
	6 July	Count Mirbach, German Ambassador to Moscow assassinated.
	17 July	Tsar Nicholas II and his family executed in Yekaterinburg.
	30 August	Lenin shot and wounded in Moscow. Uritsky, Head of Petrograd Cheka, murdered.
	4 September	Lenin orders hostage-taking. Red Terror begins.


	September	Red Army captures Kazan and Simbirsk from Whites in Volga campaign.
	Early November	Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates.
	6 November	Soviet embassy expelled from Berlin for revolutionary agitation.
	11 November	Allies and Central Powers sign Armistice.
	13 November	Soviet Government renounces Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
	December	French intervention forces land at Odessa.
1919	11 April	Concentration camps created in Soviet Russia.
	2-6 March	First Congress of Communist International (Comintern).
	March	Opening of civil war in Urals.
1920	26 April	Poland invades Soviet territory.
	8 May	Polish army captures Kiev in Ukraine.
	June	Red Army repels Poles.
	July	Red Army reaches Warsaw and is repelled.
	21 July-6 August	Second Congress of Communist International in Moscow.
	August	Red Army retreats from Poland.
	24 September	Inessa Armand dies in the Caucasus.
	November	White forces in mass evacuation from Crimea to Turkey.
1921	1-18 March	Anti-Bolshevik uprising on Kronstadt island.
	8 March	Tenth Bolshevik Party Congress in Moscow. NEP announced.
1922	April	Stalin appointed to newly created post of General Secretary of the Party.
	26 May	Lenin suffers his first stroke.
	Summer	Convalesces at Gorki.
	16 December	Second stroke.
	25 December	Dictates his ‘Letter to the Congress’, or ‘Testament’.
1923	10 March	Third stroke.
	17-25 April	Twelfth Bolshevik Party Congress.
	18 October	Lenin visits Moscow and Kremlin for last time.
1924	21 January	Lenin dies.
	27 January	Lenin's mummified body installed in Mausoleum.

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