| 1905 Jan | Bloody Sunday - Czarist troops open fire on a peaceful demonstration of workers in St Petersburg. |
| 1905 October | General Strike sweeps Russia which ends when the Csar promises a constitution. |
| 1905 December | In response to the suppression of the St Petersburg Soviet the Moscow Soviet organises a disastrous insurrection that the government suppresses after five days |
| 1906 | The promised parliament the Duma is dissolved when it produces an anti government majority even though elected on a narrow franchise. |
| 1911-1914 | A new wave of workers unrest ends with the outbreak of the First World War |
| 1917 Feb | After several days of demonstrations in Petrograd (formally St Petersburg) the government orders troops to open fire. The next day these troops mutiny. The Tsar abdicates when he . hears that Moscow too has joined the Revolution. An agreement is reached between the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government headed by Lvov. |
| March 12th | Abolition of the death Penalty |
| April 18th | Milyukov note. Milyukov tells allies that war aims unchanged. |
| April 20 | - 21 The April Days. Opposition to the Foreign Minister Milyukov boils over due to his refusal to renounce annexations. |
| May | Milyukov resigns. Members of the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries join the government. |
| June 3 | First All-Russia Congress of Workers and Soldiers Soviets opens. |
| June 18 | Offensive launched by Russia against Austria Hungary. |
| July | The July Days. (3rd and 4th) Workers and soldiers in Petrograd demand the Soviet takes power. Sporadic fighting results and the Soviet restores order with troops brought back from the front. Trotsky arrested. Lenin goes into hiding. A new provisional government is set up with Kerensky at it's head (8th). |
| July 12th | Death Penalty reintroduced for the front. |
| Aug | The Kornilov putsch. An attempt by General Kornilov to establish a right wing dictatorship is a disastrous flop. Chernov the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries resigns from the government denouncing Kerensky for complicity in the plot. |
| Sept | The Bolsheviks win control of the Petrograd Soviet. In the countryside peasant seizure of land from the gentry continues and reaches the level of near insurrection in Tambov. |
| Oct | The Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional government on the eve of the meeting of 2nd All-Russia Congress of Soviets. |
| Oct 26/27 | Soviet proclamations on land and peace. Death Penalty abolished. |
| Oct 30 | Kerensky repulsed outside Petrograd |
| Nov 2 | Bolsheviks gain Moscow |
| Nov 7th | Ukraine proclaimed independent by the Central Rada. |
| Nov 12-14 | Elections to the Constituent Assembly. Socialist Revolutionaries the largest party. |
| Dec 12 | Left-SRs join Sovnarkom |
| Dec (early) | Congress of Socialist Revolutionaries results in victory for the left under Chernov. Likewise Menshevik Congress gives victory to Martov's Menshevik internationalists. |
| 1918 Jan 5th | The Constituent Assembly in which the Bolsheviks are a minority meets for one day before being suppressed. Earlier that day a demonstration is fired on by Bolshevik units and several demonstrators are killed |
| Jan 10-18 | 3rd Soviet Congress |
| Jan 28th | Trotsky denounces the German Peace Terms as unacceptable and walks out of the peace negotiations at Brest- Litovsk. |
| Feb 1/14 | Russia adopts Western (Gregorian) calendar. |
| Feb 18th | The Germans invade Russia which is all but defenceless as virtually the entire army has deserted. |
| March | The Bolsheviks accept the dictated peace of Brest-Litovsk. The Left SRs denounce the peace and leave the government. |
| April 12th | Moscow headquarters of the anarchists surrounded and attacked by Bolshevik troops |
| May 9th | Bolshevik troops open fire on workers protesting at food shortages in the town of Kolpino |
| May (late) | The Czechoslovak legion mutinies against the Bolshevik government. Using the railways they are able to sweep away Bolshevik control from vast areas of Russia. The Socialist Revolutionaries support the rising. |
| July | Fifth Soviet Congress. The left SRs assassinate the German ambassador and are in turn crushed by the Bolsheviks. |
| July 16 | Gorky’s Novaia Zhizn the last opposition paper banned. |
| Aug 23rd | 3 ministers of the Siberian Government are arrested by supporter of Mikhailov the finance Ministerwhen they arrive in Omsk. They are told to resign their posts. Two agree. The third Novoselov refuses and is hacked to death. |
| Sept 22nd | Siberian Oblast Duma dismisses Mikhailov and is itself dispersed by Mikhailov |
| November 18th | Kolchak stages a coup against the Directory the multi party government in Siberia and establishes a counterrevolutionary despotism. |
| Dec | Perm falls to Kolchak's Whites |
| 1919 Jan | Mensheviks legalised and allowed to publish Vsegda Vpered in Moscow. Era of relative freedom begins in Bolshevik controlled Russia |
| Feb 25 | The Cheka closes down Vsegda Vpered. This marks a return to despotic rule by Bolsheviks. |
| 1919 | White Armies attack the Bolsheviks from all directions but the Red Army is finally victorious. |
| 1920 Apr 25 | Poland invades Russia. |
| Aug 19th | Start of peasant insurrection in Tambov |
| 14 Nov. | Last White army under Wrangel evacuates the Crimea |
| 1921 | Peasant unrest sweeps Russia. These risings are suppressed but the New Economic Policy is proclaimed that gives the peasants the right to sell their grain surpluses |
| Mar 1-17 | The old Bolshevik stronghold of Kronstadt rises demanding free election to the Soviets but is suppressed. |
| May | Tambov insurrection suppressed |
| 1924 | Lenin dies. Trotsky is defeated by a triumvirate of Stalin Kamenev and Zinoviev. Though Stalin stays in the background it is he who is the real power as the other two will shortly discover. |