A series of political and social upheavals that saw Russia go from being an absolute monarchy to a communist state to a democracy are what make up the Russian Revolution timeline, which runs from the late 19th century to the present. The significant historical occurrences include the unsuccessful 1905 revolution, the 1917 February and October Revolutions, the ensuing civil war, the emergence of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union, and the final fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
No. | Key Events | Years | Leaders |
1 | Bloody Sunday | 1905 | Tsar Nicholas II |
2 | February Revolution | 1917 | Alexander Kerensky |
3 | April Theses | 1917 | Vladimir Lenin |
4 | October Revolution | 1917 | Vladimir Lenin |
5 | Treaty of Brest-Litovsk | 1918 | Leon Trotsky |
6 | Red Terror | 1918-1922 | Felix Dzerzhinsky |
7 | Russian Civil War | 1918-1922 | Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin |
8 | Establishment of the Soviet Union | 1922 | Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev |
9 | New Economic Policy (NEP) | 1921-1928 | Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky |
10 | Death of Vladimir Lenin | 1924 | Joseph Stalin |
11 | Stalin’s rise to power | 1920s-1930s | Joseph Stalin |
12 | Collectivization and Five-Year Plans | 1928-1938 | Joseph Stalin |
13 | Great Purge and Show Trials | 1936-1938 | Joseph Stalin |
14 | Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact | 1939 | Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov |
15 | Soviet Union enters World War II | 1941 | Joseph Stalin |
16 | Siege of Leningrad | 1941-1944 | Georgy Zhukov |
17 | Battle of Stalingrad | 1942-1943 | Georgy Zhukov |
18 | Yalta Conference | 1945 | Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill |
19 | Soviet atomic bomb test | 1949 | Joseph Stalin |
20 | Cuban Missile Crisis | 1962 | Nikita Khrushchev |
21 | Brezhnev Doctrine | 1968 | Leonid Brezhnev |
22 | Solidarity movement in Poland | 1980 | Lech Walesa |
23 | Chernobyl disaster | 1986 | Mikhail Gorbachev |
24 | August Coup | 1991 | Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev |
25 | Dissolution of the Soviet Union | 1991 | Boris Yeltsin |
26 | Russian apartment bombings | 1999 | Vladimir Putin |
27 | Beslan school hostage crisis | 2004 | Vladimir Putin |
28 | Annexation of Crimea | 2014 | Vladimir Putin |
29 | Russian military intervention in Syria | 2015-2022 | Vladimir Putin |
30 | Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the UK | 2018 | Vladimir Putin |
31 | Constitutional reforms and extension of Putin’s term | 2020 | Vladimir Putin |
32 | Alexei Navalny poisoning and arrest | 2020-2021 | Vladimir Putin |
33 | Russian military buildup near Ukraine | 2021 | Vladimir Putin |
34 | Crackdown on protests in support of Navalny | 2021 | Vladimir Putin |
35 | Satellite test that created space debris | 2022 | Vladimir Putin |
36 | Massive fuel spill in the Arctic | 2020 | Vladimir Putin |
37 | Russian troops massing near Ukraine’s border | 2021 | Vladimir Putin |
38 | Imprisonment of opposition leader Dmitry Gudkov | 2021 | Vladimir Putin |
39 | Announcement of Russia’s new hypersonic missile system | 2022 | Vladimir Putin |
40 | Large-scale cyberattacks on Western targets | 2021-2022 | Russian state-sponsored hackers |
41 | Crackdown on independent media and journalists | 2022 | Vladimir Putin |
42 | Russia’s military buildup in the Arctic | 2022 | Vladimir Putin |
43 | Passing of new laws restricting online freedom | 2022 | Vladimir Putin |
44 | Escalation of tensions with NATO | 2022 | Vladimir Putin |
45 | Approval of new constitutional amendments | 2022 | Vladimir Putin |
46 | Russia’s intervention in Belarus | 2020-2021 | Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko |
47 | The arrest of Belarusian opposition leader Roman Protasevich | 2021 | Alexander Lukashenko, Vladimir Putin |
48 | Increased military presence in Syria | 2021-2022 | Vladimir Putin |
49 | The launch of Russia’s new satellite constellation | 2022 | Vladimir Putin |
50 | Dissolution of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation | 1991 | Boris Yeltsin |