sparknotes
Joseph Stalin
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Timeline
December 21, 1879:
·birth of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, later
known as Stalin
September 1888:
·Stalin enters Gori Church School
September 1894:
·Stalin enrolls in Tiflis Theological Seminary
March 1898:
·First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour
Party
May 29, 1899:
·Stalin is expelled from the Seminary
April 5, 1902:
·Stalin arrested for the first time, exiled to Siberia
Summer 1903:
·the Social Democrats split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
January 5, 1904:
·Stalin escapes from Siberia, the first of many escapes
from exile in the following decade.
1905:
·Revolution in Russia. Nicholas II announces constitutional
reforms, and the creation of the Duma, or elected assembly. Stalin
marries Yekaterina Svanidze.
December 1905:
·Stalin goes as a delegate to Bolshevik conference
in Finland, meets Lenin for the first time.
March 1907:
·Birth of Stalin's first child, Yakov
October 1907:
·Death of Yekaterina
January 1912:
·Bolsheviks officially separate from Social Democrats,
Stalin appointed to the Party's Central Committee by Lenin.
January 1913:
·Stalin co-writes, with Lenin, "Marxism and the National Question"
August-September 1914:
·Outbreak of World War I.
March 1917:
·Beginning of Russian Revolution. The Tsar's government
falls, replaced with a Provisional Government. Bolsheviks, including Stalin,
hasten to St. Petersburg
April 1917:
·Lenin returns from Switzerland, rebukes Stalin for
taking a conciliar line with the Provisional Government.
November 1917:
·Bolsheviks overthrow Provisional Government, seize
power. Stalin plays only a minor role.
February 1918:
·Stalin marries Nadezhda Alliluyeva
1918-1920:
·Civil war in Russia. Trotsky organizes Red Army;
Stalin commands forces in Tsaritsyn, Petrograd (St. Petersburg),
and elsewhere.
1921:
·Birth of Stalin's second child, Vasily
1922:
·Official founding of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
April 1922:
·Stalin elected General Secretary of the Communist
Party
May 25, 1922:
·Lenin suffers his first stroke
January 4, 1923:
·Lenin, in a postscript to his Testament, warns the
Party to remove Stalin from his position of power.
March 7, 1923:
·Lenin suffers final stroke, loses his powers of speech
January 21, 1924:
·Death of Lenin. Stalin survives the reading of the
Testament by the Central Committee in May.
1924-25:
·Stalin publicly attacks Trotsky for being unfaithful
to "Leninism."
December 1924:
·Stalin publicly articulates his theory of "Socialism
in One Country."
December 1925:
·Allied with Bukharin and the "Rightists," Stalin begins
attacks on Zinoviev.
February 28, 1926:
·Birth of Stalin's third child, Svetlana
October-November 1926:
·At the Fifteenth Party Congress, Stalin attacks the
"United Opposition" of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky.
1927:
·Beginning of the first Five-Year Plan
November 1927:
·Kamenev and Zinoviev expelled from the Party; Trotsky expelled
and sent to Central Asia.
April 1929:
·Stalin begins assault on Bukharin
November 1929:
·Bukharin removed from the Politburo
December 1929:
·Stalin announces "liquidation of the kulaks as a class";
collectivization begins in earnest.
1931-32:
·Terrible famine across the Soviet Union; millions
die
November 8, 1932:
·Suicide of Nadezhda
December 1, 1934:
·Murder, by Stalin's agents, of Sergei Kirov. Beginning
of "Great Terror," which continues until 1938.
January 1935:
·Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others are arrested, accused
of complicity in Kirov's assassination.
August 1936:
·First "Show Trial." Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their
allies confess and are executed.
January 1937:
·Second Show Trial
June 1937:
·Purge of the army begins, top generals are tried and
executed
March 1938:
·Third Show Trial, conviction and execution of Bukharin,
Rykov, others.
March 1939:
·At Eighteenth Party Congress, Stalin announces end
of the Great Terror.
August 23, 1939:
·Nazi-Soviet Pact is signed in Moscow
September 1939:
·Outbreak of World War II
August 20, 1940:
·Trotsky assassinated, by Stalin's agents, in Mexico
City.
June 21, 1941:
·Hitler invades Soviet Union
August 1942-February 1943:
· Battle of Stalingrad. Germans are defeated, marking
the turning point in the war.
November 1943:
· Stalin meets with Roosevelt and Churchill in Teheran
February 1945:
·Stalin meets with Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta
April 31, 1945:
·Hitler commits suicide in bombed-out Berlin, ending
war in Europe. Red Army controls all of Eastern Europe.
August 1945:
·United States uses atomic bomb against Japan, bringing
an end to the war in the Pacific.
February 1948:
·Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia, cementing
Soviet control of Eastern Europe.
Summer 1948:
·Soviets blockade East Berlin.
1949:
·Communists, under Mao, are victorious in Chinese Civil
War.
September 1949:
·Soviets explode their first atomic bomb.
December 1949:
·Stalin celebrates his seventieth birthday.
February 1950:
·Sino-Soviet Treaty signed
1950-53:
·Korean War
January 1953:
·Announcement of Jewish "Doctors' Plot" against Stalin,
plans for new wave of terror.
March 5, 1953:
·Death of Stalin
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