20-21 Apriclass="underline" 'April Days' - Petrograd riots, instigated by Bolsheviks, against Provisional Government, and particularly Foreign Minister Miliukov.
4-5 May: Formation of coalition government including socialist leaders. Miliukov out. Kerensky Minister of War.
16 June: Disastrous 'Kerensky Offensive' launched.
20-30 June: Rising tension in Petrograd as troops ordered to front.
3-4 July: 'July Days'. Military mutiny. Demonstrators occupy
Petrograd and threaten to overthrow Government. Lenin fails to give decisive lead. Demonstration fizzles out. Loyal troops arrive.
5 July: Lenin goes back into exile. Other Bolshevik leaders arrested.
7 July: Lvov resigns and names Kerensky as Prime Minister.
18 July: Kornilov appointed Commander in Chief.
31 July: imperial family depart for Tobolsk.
Aug: Elections and convocation of Constituent Assembly put back
to November.
26-27 Aug: Kerensky secures dictatorial powers, pronounces Kornilov traitor. Kornilov mutinies.
30 Aug: Release of imprisoned Bolsheviks ordered.
1 Sept: Kornilov arrested.
Oct: Bolshevik Central Committee, with Lenin present, votes to prepare to seize power.
20-25 Oct: Bolsheviks in effect take control of Petrograd garrison.
24 Oct: Lenin, in disguise, makes way to Smolny in evening. Persuades Bolsheviks to launch coup.
25-26 Oct: 'Storming ofWinter Palace'. Kerensky escapes to front to seek support. Other ministers arrested. Non-Bolshevik parties walk out of Congress of Soviets when announcement is made. Bolshevik government (Sovnarkom) with Lenin as chairman set up.
Oct: Opposition press outlawed.
Oct - 2 Nov: Various anti-Bolshevik strikes and military actions (particularly in Moscow) overcome.
12-30 Nov: Elections to Constituent Assembly. Socialist revolutionaries get 40 per cent, Bolsheviks 25 per cent.
20 Nov (OS): Armistice negotiations begin at Brest-Litovsk.
Nov: Demonstration in favour of Constituent Assembly. Constitutional Democrats banned and leaders arrested.
Dec: Cheka established.
Late December: Generals Alexeev and Kornilov found 'Volunteer' (ie White) Army.
1918
5 Jan: Meeting of Constituent Assembly. Demonstration in support repressed. Assembly closed down late that night, and locked out the following morning.
15 Jan - 3 March: Conclusion of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Lenin presses colleagues for acceptance of punitive terms, but only prevails when Germans renew their military offensive and demand even more concessions.
Early March: Bolshevik government moves to Moscow in face of German threat to Petrograd.
9 March: Allied contingent lands in Murmansk. This is the first of a series of allied interventions, eventually in support of the Whites, in NW Russia, Ukraine and the Far East. Final withdrawal in the West in Aug 1919, and by the Japanese from Vladivostok in Oct 1922.
26 March: Trotsky becomes War Commissar. Over next few weeks overcomes fierce party resistance to recruit former Tsarist officers to Red Army.
12 Apriclass="underline" Kornilov killed in action. Denikin takes over command.
26 Apriclass="underline" Nicholas and family sent to Ekaterinburg.
9 May: First Bolshevik efforts to requisition grain from peasants.
May: Czech Legion in Chelyabinsk refuses to disarm. Align themselves with Whites. Take over Trans-Siberian railroad.
June: Czechs occupy Samara. Komuch formed.
12-13 June: Grand Duke Michael murdered in Perm.
16-17 July: Murder of Nicholas II and family in Ekaterinburg.
30 Aug: Fanny Kaplan attempts to kill Lenin.
5 Sept: Red Terror launched. Widespread massacres of prisoners and hostages.
23 Sept: Anti-Bolshevik 'Provisional All Russian Government', notionally answerable to Komuch, formed in Omsk.
11 Nov: Armistice ends World War I. Germany rapidly abandons gains in Eastern Europe, most of which over the next two years are reclaimed by Russia.
18 Nov: Kolchak coup in Omsk effectively makes him military dictator of White cause.
January: 'Razverstka', policy of grain requisition from peasants, formally introduced.
March-May: Kolchak launches offensive in Siberia. Initially
successful, almost reaching the Volga. But halted by mid-May and then forced into retreat.
July-Oct: Denikin launches offensive against Red Army in South, and Yudenich in North West. Both initially make good progress, with Denikin approaching Tula and Yudenich almost taking Petrograd, but by October are forced into retreat.
14 Nov: Kolchak retreats to Irkutsk. Yudenich disbands his army.
17 Dec: Kolchak forced to resign, Subsequently he is handed over to the Bolsheviks and shot (7 Feb 1920).
27 March: Denikin abandons command. Vrangel takes over.
August: Tambov rising of peasants against grain requisitioning, followed by a spate of similar risings elsewhere.
7 Nov:White army under Vrangel evacuates via Crimea. End of Civil War.
March: A spate of demonstrations against food shortages culminates in the naval uprising at Kronstadt, brutally put down. The Communist Party bans factions within it, paving the way for total dictatorship, but also abandons grain requisitioning and so initiates the New Economic Policy (NEP).
16 February: Decree on confiscation of church valuables marks start of Bolshevik campaign against Church. Patriarch Tikhon publicly opposes campaign.
3 Apriclass="underline" Stalin becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party, the basis for his future dominance.
26 May: Lenin has first major stroke.
June: Metropolitan Veniamin and a number of other priests tried for counterrevolutionary activity and subsequently shot.
Dec: 'League of Militant Godless' established.
1923-24
Lenin, increasingly incapacitated by a series of strokes, dies 21 January 1924. He leaves a testament recommending (with reservations) Trotsky as his successor, and arguing that Stalin should be demoted.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost I must thank the contributors to this book. They agreed to take on what for a professional historian was an offbeat, if not suspect, task. They have delivered magnificently.
I owe extra thanks to two of them. Orlando Figes has been encouraging from the start and offered me many useful tips in my search for contributors. Dominic Lieven was kind enough to read through my own draft chapter and offer a professional commentary to remedy my amateurisms. The defects that remain are of course mine alone.
For the Afterword I needed the advice of someone with a deep knowledge of today's Russia. Duncan Allan was exactly the right person to turn to, and could not have been more helpful. Again the remaining faults belong exclusively to me.
The whole team at Profile have been splendid, but I must mention two names in particular. The late Peter Carson enthused about my original concept and was crucial in enabling me to run with it. He is still widely missed, including by me. And Nick Sheerin picked the project up and has worked tirelessly at bringing it to fruition. In many ways he is co-editor of this book.
Finally, my family; Sue, Tim, Kate and Jenny. They have over the years had to put up with a lot because of my obsession with Russia. This book is dedicated to them.
• xvll •
RUSSIA IN 1917
was revolution inevitable?
INTRODUCTION
tony brenton
We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. If one had to pick the single event which has most shaped twentieth- century history, and so our world in the early years of the twenty-first, this must be it. The Revolution put in power the totalitarian communism that eventually ruled one third of the human race, stimulated the rise of Nazism in the 1930s, and thus the Second World War, and created the great antagonist the West faced for the forty years Cold War balance of terror. It is hard to think of another example where the events of a few years, concentrated in one country, and mostly in one city, have had such vast historical consequences.