Post by Mr Smith on Jul 14, 2013 17:30:23 GMT
1917 - TIMELINE OF EVENTS
Background (See Timeline of events 1894-1914):
- Tsar 'sharing' power with a state Duma (parliament)
- Tsar using reactionary measure - e.g. State Police (Okhana)
- Social inequality
- War against Germany going badly. Military defeats, incapable supply lines, poor leadership, conscription in force.
- Revolutionaries and extremists seemingly all over Russia - spreading discontent, initiating strikes and political assasinations.
January 1917
• January 9: 140,000 strike in Petrograd to commemorate Bloody Sunday; strikes in other cities.
• Janaury 24: The Workers Group calls for a strike on February 14 (date of Duma's next recall) to demand overthrow of Tsar and creation of provisional government.
• January 31: Strikes across Russia.
February 1917 - The February Revolution
• February 14: 100,000+ strike in Petrograd; Duma reconvenes and attacks the government over food shortages.
• February 19: Petrograd authorities announce that bread will be rationed from March 1st; panic buying ensues.
• February 23: Demonstrations in Petrograd for International Women's Day (mainly women and striking Putilov workers) are joined by evermore striking bread demonstrators until a crowd of 100,000 forms; revolutionary banners and slogans appear. The Bolsheviks are initially opposed to the strike.
• February 24: Petrograd: buoyed by the mood of the 23rd, the strikes continue and grow ever larger; small numbers of soviets begin forming; government ministers take control.
• February 25: The Petrograd strike is now total (200,000+) and violence is increasing; demands for bread have been replaced by condemnation of the tsar; all free members of the Workers Group are arrested; Cossack troops fight police to protect protestors.
• February 26: Upon hearing of events in Petrograd, the Tsar orders the use of military force to break the strike. Troops fire on protestors causing tens of casualties but begin to mutiny later in the day. The Duma is prorogued.
• February 27: Again ordered to fire at protestors, the Petrograd garrison mutinies, joins the protestors and begins arming them by seizing arsenals; the crowd attack police and release political prisoners. The Duma refuses to disband, instead forming a Provisional Committee (PC) to govern. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies is created (PS).
• February 28th: The Tsar tries to return to Petrograd but becomes stuck in Pskov. His ministers are arrested; the Duma and Soviets elect members; the latter issues the first Order of the Petrograd Soviet, claiming authority over the army and causing troops to form soviets. Sailors mutiny in Kronstadt.
March 1917
• March 1: The Duma and Soviet together create a Provisional Government (PG). The British and French governments recognize the PG.
• March 2: The Soviet expands to include soldier's soviets; the Provisional Government forms with Lvov as Prime Minister. In Pskov, and encouraged by his ministers and generals, the Tsar abdicates on behalf of himself and his son (which was technically illegal) in order to help both the war and peace.
• March 3: Michael Romanov, brother of the Tsar and now heir, rejects the throne until a Constitutional Assembly is formed to formally invite him. Two parallel bodies now lead Russia: the largely liberal Provisional Government and the socialist Soviet.
• March - April: The February Revolution spreads across Russia, with mini dumas (public committees) taking control of official, government and police matters, while workers and soldiers create parallel soviets. Committees form for just about everything.
• March 8: The Provisional Government issues a program of goals and democratic principles, including civil rights and self-government through town dumas. It's hugely optimistic and immediately compromised by the demands of war. The Tsar and his family are arrested.
• March 12: A Bolshevik called Joseph Stalin, one of many released political prisoners, arrives back in Petrograd where he supports both the PS and PG.
• March 14: The Petrograd Soviet issues an 'Appeal to all the peoples of the world' arguing against war and requesting only a defence of Russia.
• March 28: The Provisional Government releases a Decleration of War Aims, including a rejection of the territorial claims made by the Tsar in 1915.
April 1917
• April 3: Lenin returns to Russia, where he soon dominates the Bolshevik party.
• April 4: Lenin gives a speech known as the April Thesis, which asks for power to all the soviets and promises peace, bread, land, worker control and an end to the war.
• April 18: The PG Foreign Minister Milyukov secretly confirms Russia's war aims to the Allies, including the retention of the 1915 territorial claims.
• April 23-4: Milyukov's confirmation leaks, leading to mass public demonstrations; soldiers and workers demand peace and several ministers, including Milyukov, resign. The Duma invites the PS to form a joint government. The PS agrees, creating a blurred, semi-socialist provisional government.
May 1917
• May 4: Trotsky returns to Russia from exile.
June 1917
• June 3-24: First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (1st Congress of the soviets of the workers' and soldiers' deputies) in Petrograd reveals deep splits and a rhetoric of class war. The moderate Menshevik and SR moderate parties dominate, while the Bolsheviks are sidelined.
• June 18-July 1: The Kerensky Offensive on the Eastern Front, plotted by the PG Defence Minister Fedor Kerensky, who believes a victory will restore morale. Initial successes are lost after German counter attacks; over 400,000 Russian casualties. There are new demonstrations against the war and soldiers increasingly turn to the pro-peace Bolsheviks.
July 1917
• July 2: Trotsky (no longer a Menshevik) and his party merge with the Bolsheviks.
• July 3-4: The July Days, an armed insurrection/demonstration by soldiers and workers in Petrograd against both the PG and the PS for their failures; low ranking Bolsheviks assist and only chaos and indecision prevents a coup. The PG uses troops to break the protest and arrest high-ranking Bolsheviks; in reality, these only followed, not led, the revolt.
• July 7: PG agents arrest Trotsky and seize Bolshevik offices; Lenin escapes to Finland.
• July 8: The First Coalition of the Provisional Government collapses, partly due to Chernov's agrarian policies and the question of Ukrainian autonomy. Kerensky succeeds as Prime Minister, forming the Second Coalition of the PG and PS, which drifts away from democracy, the soviet and the original PG.
• July 19: Brusilov is replaced as C-in-C of the Western Front by General Kornilov.
August 1917
• August 25-30: The Kornilov affair. Believing Russia to be at the mercy of the Soviet, right wing hero Kornilov marches to Petrograd to restore 'strong' government and crush the socialists. He has the support of many but not, as he believes, Kerensky, who turns against the coup and denounces the General.
• August 29-30: The PS forms a committee to act against the 'counter-revolution'; Bolsheviks are given equal power. Over 40,000 workers and soldiers form 'Red Guards' and disarm the approaching army; this new militia remains active.
September 1917
• September 1: Kerensky responds to events by declaring Russia a republic and creating a 5 man Directory as government; he controls the new body, but it's weak.
• September 1-30: The Kornilov Affair has renewed the radicalism of the people and broken many remaining bonds between soldiers and their officers, workers and the upper classes; strikes reach their high point, including a 3 day, 700,000 strong railway workers protest.
• September 4: Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders released from prison.
• September 14-25: The Democratic Conference, a meeting of socialist and government parties invited by Kerensky and intended to end the growing crisis; the Bolsheviks walk out. Finishes with a vote for a third coalition government and a Council of the Republic (in which the Bolsheviks take part).
• September 25: With the other socialist parties largely seen as failures, the Bolsheviks - having gained a majority in the ruling committees of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets - elect Trotsky chairman of the PS.
October 1917 - The October (Bolshevik) Revolution
October 1st - 24th
• October 9-12: The Petrograd Soviet creates a Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), developed from the counter-revolutionary committee of the Kornilov Affair. Devoted to defending Petrograd by arming workers and organising solders, the Bolsheviks are its leading creators and commanders.
• October 10: Having gained a majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, the Bolshevik Central Committee vote 10-2 in favour of Lenin's demand to seize power (he is present, in disguise). No timetable is set, but a 2nd All Russian Congress of Soviets is to be organised so it can also vote.
• October 15-18: Antonov-Duseenko travels to the Northern Front (WW1's Eastern Front) to find and organise support for Bolshevik revolution under the guise of the MRC. He is very successful.
• October 16: Bolshevik Central Committee discuss plans again; doubts are raised, but the MRC is identified as a potential tool of revolution.
• October 17-18: Articles by Bolshevik dissenters (notably Zinoviev and Kamanev) appear in non-Bolshevik newspapers, talking of the revolution and expressing dismay; Lenin reacts by publicly countering their arguments. Rumours of a Bolshevik uprising are now common; the PG does little to react.
• October 21: Petrograd's soldiers promise to support the MRC. Antonov-Ovseenko now controls the Red Guards, the Petrograd Garrison and the Baltic naval navy, easily enough to overpower PG forces. The MRC also controls the Northern Front soldiers, who refuse the PG's request for reinforcements.
• October 23: Bolshevik leaders debate launching a coup immediately, but delay until a Congress of Soviets has met and agreed. The Peter and Paul fortress garrison agrees to support the MRC; in response, the PG declares the MRC a criminal organisation and tries to arrest its leaders.
• October 24: The PG moves against Bolshevik printers and meetings in the morning, while the MRC continues to either occupy key buildings with their troops, or gain support from the existing garrisons. Lenin is frustrated that no one has officially seized power.
October 25th - 31st
• October 25: Lenin goes to a Bolshevik HQ and drafts a declaration: power has passed to the MRC, but the arrest of the government has been delayed. Shortly after, Trotsky announces to the PS that the PG has been usurped and all ministers will soon be arrested; Lenin then outlines his plans for a new Soviet govt. The Second Congress of Soviets begins but, without a majority, the Bolsheviks need to negotiate; Menshevik and Right SR delegates walk out in disgust. That evening, the MRC occupy the Winter Palace and Kerensky flees.
• October 25-November 3: Soviet power spreads across Russia, with Bolshevik and other Socialist groups seizing control. In some regions this is easy and peaceful; in others, there is violence. Moscow's Bolsheviks attempt to copy the PS and create an MRC, but they are opposed by an active local Duma.
• October 26: Antonov-Ovseenko arrests the PG. The Congress of Soviets passes several of Lenin's decrees, including those on war, land reform and government: the Council/Soviet of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) is created. This ruling council is entirely Bolshevik and will rule until a Constituent Assembly is elected. General opinion is that the Bolshevik government won't last long.
• October 27: The Decree of the Press is issued, censoring Russian publications and press; many socialists are dismayed.
• October 29: Kerensky and General Krasnov advance on Petrograd with the few loyal forces they can muster but are beaten by larger Bolshevik forces at Pulkoso heights. Vikzhel, the Executive Committee of the massive railway workers' union, pushes for an all-party soviet government and forces the Bolsheviks to negotiate.
November 1917
• November 2: The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia is issued.
• November 3: Bolsheviks finally take control of Moscow and the Kremlin.
• November 10: All ranks and titles abolished.
• November 12-19: The elections to the Constituent Assembly in which over 44 million votes are cast across Russia. The Bolsheviks gain 23.9% of the vote, with much larger support amongst soldiers, urban workers. Moscow and Petrograd. SRs get 40%.
• November 19: Official peace negotiations begin on the Eastern Front.
December 1917
• December: Soviet power spreads further throughout Russia, but in the fringe countries independence movements grow in equal numbers.
• December 2: The Supreme Council of the National Economy created to organise the entire Russian economy; answers to the Sovnarkom.
• December 7: The Cheka, the All Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle Against Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, is created. Within a year it has the right to arrest and execute people without question.
• December 9: The Bolsheviks and Left SRs agree to a coalition government in the Sovnarkom; several SRs take up important positions.
Background (See Timeline of events 1894-1914):
- Tsar 'sharing' power with a state Duma (parliament)
- Tsar using reactionary measure - e.g. State Police (Okhana)
- Social inequality
- War against Germany going badly. Military defeats, incapable supply lines, poor leadership, conscription in force.
- Revolutionaries and extremists seemingly all over Russia - spreading discontent, initiating strikes and political assasinations.
January 1917
• January 9: 140,000 strike in Petrograd to commemorate Bloody Sunday; strikes in other cities.
• Janaury 24: The Workers Group calls for a strike on February 14 (date of Duma's next recall) to demand overthrow of Tsar and creation of provisional government.
• January 31: Strikes across Russia.
February 1917 - The February Revolution
• February 14: 100,000+ strike in Petrograd; Duma reconvenes and attacks the government over food shortages.
• February 19: Petrograd authorities announce that bread will be rationed from March 1st; panic buying ensues.
• February 23: Demonstrations in Petrograd for International Women's Day (mainly women and striking Putilov workers) are joined by evermore striking bread demonstrators until a crowd of 100,000 forms; revolutionary banners and slogans appear. The Bolsheviks are initially opposed to the strike.
• February 24: Petrograd: buoyed by the mood of the 23rd, the strikes continue and grow ever larger; small numbers of soviets begin forming; government ministers take control.
• February 25: The Petrograd strike is now total (200,000+) and violence is increasing; demands for bread have been replaced by condemnation of the tsar; all free members of the Workers Group are arrested; Cossack troops fight police to protect protestors.
• February 26: Upon hearing of events in Petrograd, the Tsar orders the use of military force to break the strike. Troops fire on protestors causing tens of casualties but begin to mutiny later in the day. The Duma is prorogued.
• February 27: Again ordered to fire at protestors, the Petrograd garrison mutinies, joins the protestors and begins arming them by seizing arsenals; the crowd attack police and release political prisoners. The Duma refuses to disband, instead forming a Provisional Committee (PC) to govern. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies is created (PS).
• February 28th: The Tsar tries to return to Petrograd but becomes stuck in Pskov. His ministers are arrested; the Duma and Soviets elect members; the latter issues the first Order of the Petrograd Soviet, claiming authority over the army and causing troops to form soviets. Sailors mutiny in Kronstadt.
March 1917
• March 1: The Duma and Soviet together create a Provisional Government (PG). The British and French governments recognize the PG.
• March 2: The Soviet expands to include soldier's soviets; the Provisional Government forms with Lvov as Prime Minister. In Pskov, and encouraged by his ministers and generals, the Tsar abdicates on behalf of himself and his son (which was technically illegal) in order to help both the war and peace.
• March 3: Michael Romanov, brother of the Tsar and now heir, rejects the throne until a Constitutional Assembly is formed to formally invite him. Two parallel bodies now lead Russia: the largely liberal Provisional Government and the socialist Soviet.
• March - April: The February Revolution spreads across Russia, with mini dumas (public committees) taking control of official, government and police matters, while workers and soldiers create parallel soviets. Committees form for just about everything.
• March 8: The Provisional Government issues a program of goals and democratic principles, including civil rights and self-government through town dumas. It's hugely optimistic and immediately compromised by the demands of war. The Tsar and his family are arrested.
• March 12: A Bolshevik called Joseph Stalin, one of many released political prisoners, arrives back in Petrograd where he supports both the PS and PG.
• March 14: The Petrograd Soviet issues an 'Appeal to all the peoples of the world' arguing against war and requesting only a defence of Russia.
• March 28: The Provisional Government releases a Decleration of War Aims, including a rejection of the territorial claims made by the Tsar in 1915.
April 1917
• April 3: Lenin returns to Russia, where he soon dominates the Bolshevik party.
• April 4: Lenin gives a speech known as the April Thesis, which asks for power to all the soviets and promises peace, bread, land, worker control and an end to the war.
• April 18: The PG Foreign Minister Milyukov secretly confirms Russia's war aims to the Allies, including the retention of the 1915 territorial claims.
• April 23-4: Milyukov's confirmation leaks, leading to mass public demonstrations; soldiers and workers demand peace and several ministers, including Milyukov, resign. The Duma invites the PS to form a joint government. The PS agrees, creating a blurred, semi-socialist provisional government.
May 1917
• May 4: Trotsky returns to Russia from exile.
June 1917
• June 3-24: First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (1st Congress of the soviets of the workers' and soldiers' deputies) in Petrograd reveals deep splits and a rhetoric of class war. The moderate Menshevik and SR moderate parties dominate, while the Bolsheviks are sidelined.
• June 18-July 1: The Kerensky Offensive on the Eastern Front, plotted by the PG Defence Minister Fedor Kerensky, who believes a victory will restore morale. Initial successes are lost after German counter attacks; over 400,000 Russian casualties. There are new demonstrations against the war and soldiers increasingly turn to the pro-peace Bolsheviks.
July 1917
• July 2: Trotsky (no longer a Menshevik) and his party merge with the Bolsheviks.
• July 3-4: The July Days, an armed insurrection/demonstration by soldiers and workers in Petrograd against both the PG and the PS for their failures; low ranking Bolsheviks assist and only chaos and indecision prevents a coup. The PG uses troops to break the protest and arrest high-ranking Bolsheviks; in reality, these only followed, not led, the revolt.
• July 7: PG agents arrest Trotsky and seize Bolshevik offices; Lenin escapes to Finland.
• July 8: The First Coalition of the Provisional Government collapses, partly due to Chernov's agrarian policies and the question of Ukrainian autonomy. Kerensky succeeds as Prime Minister, forming the Second Coalition of the PG and PS, which drifts away from democracy, the soviet and the original PG.
• July 19: Brusilov is replaced as C-in-C of the Western Front by General Kornilov.
August 1917
• August 25-30: The Kornilov affair. Believing Russia to be at the mercy of the Soviet, right wing hero Kornilov marches to Petrograd to restore 'strong' government and crush the socialists. He has the support of many but not, as he believes, Kerensky, who turns against the coup and denounces the General.
• August 29-30: The PS forms a committee to act against the 'counter-revolution'; Bolsheviks are given equal power. Over 40,000 workers and soldiers form 'Red Guards' and disarm the approaching army; this new militia remains active.
September 1917
• September 1: Kerensky responds to events by declaring Russia a republic and creating a 5 man Directory as government; he controls the new body, but it's weak.
• September 1-30: The Kornilov Affair has renewed the radicalism of the people and broken many remaining bonds between soldiers and their officers, workers and the upper classes; strikes reach their high point, including a 3 day, 700,000 strong railway workers protest.
• September 4: Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders released from prison.
• September 14-25: The Democratic Conference, a meeting of socialist and government parties invited by Kerensky and intended to end the growing crisis; the Bolsheviks walk out. Finishes with a vote for a third coalition government and a Council of the Republic (in which the Bolsheviks take part).
• September 25: With the other socialist parties largely seen as failures, the Bolsheviks - having gained a majority in the ruling committees of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets - elect Trotsky chairman of the PS.
October 1917 - The October (Bolshevik) Revolution
October 1st - 24th
• October 9-12: The Petrograd Soviet creates a Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), developed from the counter-revolutionary committee of the Kornilov Affair. Devoted to defending Petrograd by arming workers and organising solders, the Bolsheviks are its leading creators and commanders.
• October 10: Having gained a majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, the Bolshevik Central Committee vote 10-2 in favour of Lenin's demand to seize power (he is present, in disguise). No timetable is set, but a 2nd All Russian Congress of Soviets is to be organised so it can also vote.
• October 15-18: Antonov-Duseenko travels to the Northern Front (WW1's Eastern Front) to find and organise support for Bolshevik revolution under the guise of the MRC. He is very successful.
• October 16: Bolshevik Central Committee discuss plans again; doubts are raised, but the MRC is identified as a potential tool of revolution.
• October 17-18: Articles by Bolshevik dissenters (notably Zinoviev and Kamanev) appear in non-Bolshevik newspapers, talking of the revolution and expressing dismay; Lenin reacts by publicly countering their arguments. Rumours of a Bolshevik uprising are now common; the PG does little to react.
• October 21: Petrograd's soldiers promise to support the MRC. Antonov-Ovseenko now controls the Red Guards, the Petrograd Garrison and the Baltic naval navy, easily enough to overpower PG forces. The MRC also controls the Northern Front soldiers, who refuse the PG's request for reinforcements.
• October 23: Bolshevik leaders debate launching a coup immediately, but delay until a Congress of Soviets has met and agreed. The Peter and Paul fortress garrison agrees to support the MRC; in response, the PG declares the MRC a criminal organisation and tries to arrest its leaders.
• October 24: The PG moves against Bolshevik printers and meetings in the morning, while the MRC continues to either occupy key buildings with their troops, or gain support from the existing garrisons. Lenin is frustrated that no one has officially seized power.
October 25th - 31st
• October 25: Lenin goes to a Bolshevik HQ and drafts a declaration: power has passed to the MRC, but the arrest of the government has been delayed. Shortly after, Trotsky announces to the PS that the PG has been usurped and all ministers will soon be arrested; Lenin then outlines his plans for a new Soviet govt. The Second Congress of Soviets begins but, without a majority, the Bolsheviks need to negotiate; Menshevik and Right SR delegates walk out in disgust. That evening, the MRC occupy the Winter Palace and Kerensky flees.
• October 25-November 3: Soviet power spreads across Russia, with Bolshevik and other Socialist groups seizing control. In some regions this is easy and peaceful; in others, there is violence. Moscow's Bolsheviks attempt to copy the PS and create an MRC, but they are opposed by an active local Duma.
• October 26: Antonov-Ovseenko arrests the PG. The Congress of Soviets passes several of Lenin's decrees, including those on war, land reform and government: the Council/Soviet of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) is created. This ruling council is entirely Bolshevik and will rule until a Constituent Assembly is elected. General opinion is that the Bolshevik government won't last long.
• October 27: The Decree of the Press is issued, censoring Russian publications and press; many socialists are dismayed.
• October 29: Kerensky and General Krasnov advance on Petrograd with the few loyal forces they can muster but are beaten by larger Bolshevik forces at Pulkoso heights. Vikzhel, the Executive Committee of the massive railway workers' union, pushes for an all-party soviet government and forces the Bolsheviks to negotiate.
November 1917
• November 2: The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia is issued.
• November 3: Bolsheviks finally take control of Moscow and the Kremlin.
• November 10: All ranks and titles abolished.
• November 12-19: The elections to the Constituent Assembly in which over 44 million votes are cast across Russia. The Bolsheviks gain 23.9% of the vote, with much larger support amongst soldiers, urban workers. Moscow and Petrograd. SRs get 40%.
• November 19: Official peace negotiations begin on the Eastern Front.
December 1917
• December: Soviet power spreads further throughout Russia, but in the fringe countries independence movements grow in equal numbers.
• December 2: The Supreme Council of the National Economy created to organise the entire Russian economy; answers to the Sovnarkom.
• December 7: The Cheka, the All Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle Against Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, is created. Within a year it has the right to arrest and execute people without question.
• December 9: The Bolsheviks and Left SRs agree to a coalition government in the Sovnarkom; several SRs take up important positions.