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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