Soviet Union timeline
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Joseph Stalin Is Born
Joseph Stalin, was born in Gori, Georgia on 21st December, 1879. He was his mother's fourth child to be born in less than four years. The first... Read more
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Joseph Stalin Joins The Bolsheviks
At the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party in London in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, two... Read more
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Joseph Stalin Marries Ekaterina Svanidze
In about 1904 Stalin had married a pious Georgian girl, Ekaterina Svanidze. She died some three years later and left a son, Jacob, whom his father... Read more
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Joseph Stalin's Son Yakov Is Born
Yakov Dzhugashvili had never been popular with his father, whom he held in dread. Stalin disapproved of his choice of wife, Yulia Meltzer, a ballet... Read more
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Joseph Stalin Becomes Editor of 'Pravda'
Stalin served as the editor of Pravda {Truth} in 1913 and wrote his first treatise, Marxism and the National Question in 1914. Just prior to its... Read more
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Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War... (1918-20), conflict in which the Red Army successfully defended the newly formed Bolshevik government against various Russian... Read more
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Fanny Kaplan Attempts to Assassinate Vladimir Lenin
According to official accounts, on August 30, 1918, Lenin was speaking at a Moscow factory called "Hammer and Sickle". As Lenin left the building... Read more
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Polish-Soviet War
In the Polish-Soviet War (1920–1921), the Soviets battled the Poles all the way back to Warsaw, but Polish forces eventually drove the Soviets out... Read more
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Joseph Stalin Marries Nadezhda Alliluyeva
Stalin's wife, who was one of Lenin's secretaries after the revolution, married him when she was 17 and he was 40. As a schoolgirl she looked up to... Read more
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Soviet Invasion of Georgia
In January, 1921 the Soviet Government decided to annex Georgia. The 11th Red Army was to advance into Georgia on the pretext of supporting the... Read more
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Joseph Stalin's Daughter Svetlana Is Born
Svetlana was Communist leader Joseph Stalin’s only daughter. Her mother was his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Raised by a nurse she only... Read more
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Stalin Begins Collectivization Of Agriculture
To satisfy the state's need for increased food supplies, the First Five-Year Plan called for the organization of the peasantry into collective... Read more
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Stalin's First Five-Year Plan Begins
The first Five Year Plan introduced in 1928, concentrated on the development of iron and steel, machine-tools, electric power and transport. Joseph... Read more
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The Ukrainian Holodomor
In recent years this national tragedy has become widely known as the Holodomor (from moryty holodom ‘to kill by means of starvation’). This tragic... Read more
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Nadezhda Alliluyeva Dies
It was customary to bury not only rulers, but their wives, too, at the Novodevichy cemetery. At this point we would like to recall the wife of... Read more
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Sergey Kirov is Killed
Sergey Kirov, a leader of the Russian Revolution and a high-ranking member of the Politburo, is shot to death at his Leningrad office by Communist... Read more
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The Great Purge of 1936-1938
At three publicized show trials held in Moscow between 1936 and 1938, dozens of these Old Bolsheviks, including Zinov'ev, Kamenev, and Bukharin,... Read more
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German/Russian occupation of Poland
This article deals with the occupation of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union during the Second World War (1939–1945). In the beginning of the... Read more
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Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (Treaty of Non-Aggression between the Third German Reich and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von... Read more
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German Forces Begin Siege of Lvov
Initially, the town of Lwów was not to be defended as it was considered too deep behind the Polish lines and too important to Polish culture to be... Read more
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Soviet Union Violates Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact with Invasion of Polish Territory by Red Army
The Red Army entered the eastern regions of Poland with seven field armies, containing between 450,000 and 1,000,000 troops, split between two... Read more
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Red Army Joins Siege of Lvov
On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union declared all pacts with Poland null and void as the Polish state had in their opinion ceased to exist, and... Read more
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Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) is Ordered to Create Special Administration for Dealing with Polish Prisoners
As early as September 19, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs and First Rank Commissar of State Security, Lavrentiy Beria, ordered the NKVD... Read more
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Finland and Soviet Union Hold Negotiations to Resolve Border Dispute
On 5 October 1939, the Soviet Union invited a Finnish delegation to Moscow for negotiations. J.K. Paasikivi, the Finnish ambassador to Sweden, was... Read more
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The Shelling of Mainila
Seven shots were fired, and their fall was detected by three Finnish observation posts. These witnesses estimated that the shells detonated... Read more