|
Year
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What Happened
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Answer
|
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1917
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Led by Alexander Kerensky this group overthrow the provisional government, with workers and sailors capturing government buildings and the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, and eventually taking over Moscow.
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Bolsheviks
|
|
1918
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This treaty ceded large tracts of land to Germany and recognised the independence of Ukraine, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
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Brest-Litovsk
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1919
|
Millions of peasants in the Don region starve to death as the army confiscates grain for its own needs and the needs of urban dwellers, thereby enacting this new policy.
|
War Communism
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|
1920
|
Russia goes to war with this country.
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Poland
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1921
|
This policy ushers in a partial return to the market economy and a period of stability with "a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control."
|
New Economic Policy
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1922
|
The Treaty on the Creation of the USSR officially legalised a union of several Soviet republics that had existed since 1919 and created a new centralised federal government. What did USSR stand for?
|
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
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|
1923
|
A wide gap between industrial (high) and agricultural (low) prices causes this crisis, which saw peasants revert to subsistence farming, leading to fears of a famine.
|
Scissor Crisis
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|
1924
|
This leader dies, leading to a power struggle within the Party.
|
Vladimir Lenin
|
|
1925
|
Following the power struggle which saw Joseph Stalin take power, this man is forced to resign his military offices.
|
Leon Trotsky
|
|
1926
|
The above is expelled from this high-ranking policy-making government authority.
|
Politburo
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|
1927
|
This group, which demanded greater freedom of expression within the Communist Party, are all expelled from the Party.
|
United Opposition
|
|
1928
|
Stalin announced the beginning of state industrialisation of the Soviet economy with this plan, the first of its kind.
|
Five-Year Plan
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|
1929
|
Soviet agriculture becomes subject to this policy, which saw individual landholdings, especially farms, come into state-ownership (kolkhozes.)
|
Collectivisation
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|
1930
|
This forced-labour camp-system is introduced.
|
Gulag
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|
1931
|
This spin doctor and propagandist justifies the existence of forced labour in his speech at the Sixth Congress of Soviets of the USSR.
|
Vyacheslav Molotov
|
|
1932
|
This law is introduced, making stealing from a kolkhozes/collective farm punishable a crime. The law was used to prosecute corrupt officials and also those who gleaned even handfuls of grain or spikelets left behind in the fields.
|
Law of Spikelets
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|
1933
|
Police were instructed to prevent Ukrainian peasants from leaving their homes in search of food in this genocide, which literally translates to "murder by starvation."
|
Holodomor
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|
1934
|
The Soviet Union is admitted to this international organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, created after the First World War to provide a forum for resolving international disputes.
|
The League of Nations
|
|
1935
|
This man was reported to have mined over one hundred tons of coal in a single shift, sowing the seeds of the Stakhanovite movement.
|
Aleksei Stakhanov
|
|
1936
|
Many experienced old Bolsheviks were the primary defendants in these show trials. They were charged with conspiring with the western powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore capitalism. Of the sixteen, all but four were sentenced to death.
|
Moscow Trials
|
|
1937
|
This leading Soviet military leader is trialed in secret. His blood-stained confession stated that that he was a German agent in cahoots with Nikolai Bukharin to seize power.
|
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
|
|
1938
|
A new decree required the teaching of this language as the lingua franca of all schools in the USSR.
|
Russian
|
|
1939
|
The Soviet army attacked Finland in this three month war.
|
Winter War
|
|
1940
|
This "Vanishing Commissar", the NKVD orchestrator of some of the worst atrocities of The Great Purge is tortured, forced to confess to anti-Soviet activity and executed.
|
Nikolai Yezhov
|
|
1941
|
Three million Axis soldiers invaded the Soviet Union in this Axis 'Operation'
|
Operation Barbarossa
|
|
1942
|
This five month battle begins. It would see 478,741 Soviet soldiers killed or missing, and would become the bloodiest battle in the history of warfare.
|
The Battle of Stalingrad
|
|
1943
|
This international organization which advocated world communism is dissolved to avoid antagonising allies the United States and the United Kingdom.
|
Comintern
|
|
1944
|
This left-wing anthem is replaced by The State Anthem of the USSR. Its lyrics begin "Stand up, damned of the Earth Stand up, prisoners of starvation."
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The Internationale
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|
1945
|
Soviet Union declares war on this country, annexing the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kuril islands.
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Japan
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|
1946
|
With the support of the UK and USA, this Western Asian country begins to successfully break away from the Soviet Union, winning in military conflicts against Azerbaijan and Mahabad.
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Iran
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|
1947
|
The founding of this international communist bureau confirms the reality of a divide between the Western and Eastern Blocs.
|
Cominform
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|
1948
|
Stalin sends first advisers to this country in an effort to repair the economic damage brought on by years of civil war. 300 Soviet engineers and laborers repair Manchurian railways as part of the effort.
|
China
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|
1949
|
This nuclear bomb used in the USSR's first successful nuclear weapons test is assigned this code-name by the United States, in reference to Joseph Stalin.
|
Joe-1
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1950
|
Outbreak of this war in East Asia sees relations between the Soviet Union and the West deteriorate markedly.
|
Korean War
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1951
|
This couple are convicted of espionage for their role in passing atomic secrets to the Soviets during and after World War II
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The Rosenbergs
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|
1952
|
This antisemitic plot fabricated by Joseph Stalin accused a group of predominantly Jewish doctors from Moscow of conspiring to assassinate Soviet leaders.
|
Doctors Plot
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|
1953
|
Following Stalin's death, this man becomes First Secretary of the Communist Party.
|
Nikita Krushchev
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