History & the Novel

Key Timeline, Russia & the Road to Revolution,

1853 – 1918

1853-56

• Crimean war. Ends in Russian defeat.

• Tsar Alexander II recognises need for reform.

1860s & 70s

• Tsar Alexander II begins wide ranging liberal reform programme, starting with Emancipation of Serfs (1861)

1880s

• Assassination of Alexander II. Succession of Alexander III and new repression

1890s

• Russia begins Industrialisation under Chief Minister Witte

• Tsar Nicholas II succeeds his father (1894), bringing reform & repression

1904-5

• Russian Defeat in war with Japan.

• First Russian Revolution follows• Introduction of Duma follows –

new elected central assembly

1906-1912

• Following criticism of Tsar, Duma has its powers reduced

• Agricultural reforms under Chief Minister Stolypin

• Leads to growth of ‘kulaks’ – rural middle class

1914

• Outbreak of WWI

1915-16

• War creates economic and political crisis in Russia

1917 February Revolution

• Tsar forced into abdication by elite led revolt; Replaced by Liberal Provisional Government in loose alliance with Petrograd Soviet

1917 March – September

• March: Soviet Order No.1: - Soviet sets clear limits to its support

• April: Lenin returns from exile – attacks Provisional Government and its Soviet supporters

• May: Cabinet reshuffle – brings Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries (SRs) directly into government, SR leader Kerensky becomes Prime Minister

• June: Military Offensive – fails • July: Failed popular uprising –

blamed on Bolsheviks• August/September: General Kornilov

attempts a coup – Kerensky implicated

1917 October Revolution

• Bolsheviks take advantage of crisis to take power.

• At first relatively liberal & allow planned elections to take place

1918

• Bolsheviks come second in elections. • Trotsky forcibly closes new elected

Assembly with help of Red guards, in name of ‘Soviet Power’.

• Dictatorship and Civil War begins