1917

• Opposition to Tsar – SRs, social democrats, Liberals


  30,000 workers strike in Moscow, 145,000 in Petrograd

  23,000 Bolshevik supporters
• February/March

  February/March Revolution

  • Women's Day March, Rodzianko's telegram, Volynskii regiment mutiny
  • 1st March: Petrograd Soviet's "Order No. 1" – Soldiers' rights; Tsar ordered to abdicate
  • 2nd March: Tsar agreed to abdicate
• April


  3rd: Lenin return from exile in Switzerland

  7th: April Theses – peace, land, bread; all power to the soviets
• July

  5th: July Days

  • Kronstadt sailors, workers and soldiers' armed demonstrations against rising prices and unemployment
• June/August


  Kornilov Coup to impose military dictatorship – suppressed by Bolsheviks, undermined Kerensky
• October


  • 10th: Lenin convince CC it was time for a revolution; returned to Russia secretly
  • 16th: MRC set up by Trotsky and Dzerzhinsky; 60k Baltic sailors, 200k Red Guards, 150k soldiers
  • 23rd: Kerensky attempted to reduce MRC power – order to close newspapers, troops cut off Bolshevik area
• October/November Revolution

  25th: Aurora battleship shot; Red Guards enter Winter Palace

  26th: Peace decree agreed

  27th: Land decree agreed; Sovnarkom set up

  • 200,000 Bolshevik supporters
• December

  Decrees on Workers’ rights, Cheka, Social {Press, Judicial, outlaw sex discrimination, Church}

  Veshenka set up for state control over economy; nationalisation of banks