Rise of Joseph Stalin: 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 byLenin.

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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