May 22: Czech Legion refuses to surrender arms; Trotsky orders it disarmed by force. Czech rebellion begins.
May 26: Transcaucasian Federation falls apart into independent republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
May–June: Elections to urban soviets in Russia; Bolsheviks lose majorities in all cities, reimpose them by force.
Early June: British landings at Archangel.
June 8: Czechs occupy Samara, following which Committee of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) formed.
June 11: Decree ordering formation in the villages of Committees of the Poor (
Night of June 12–13: Grand Duke Michael and companion murdered near Perm.
June 16: Introduction of capital punishment.
June 26: Council of Workers’ Plenipotentiaries calls for one-day political strike on July 2.
June 28: Kaiser Wilhelm II decides to continue support of Bolsheviks; Soviet Government orders large industrial enterprises nationalized.
Summer: Civil war in the countryside as peasants resist Bolshevik expropriations of grain.
July 1: Government of Western Siberia proclaimed in Omsk.
July 2: Unsuccessful anti-Bolshevik strike in Petrograd; probable date when Bolshevik leaders decide to execute ex-Tsar.
July 4: Fifth Congress of Soviets opens in Moscow; approves Soviet Constitution.
Night of July 5–6: Savinkov’s uprising at Iaroslavl, followed by risings at Murom and Rybinsk.
July 6: Murder of Mirbach followed by Left SR uprising in Moscow.
July 7: Latvian troops suppress Left SR rebellion.
Night of July 16–17: Murder of Nicholas II, family, and servants in Ekaterinburg.
July 17: Massacre at Alapaevsk of several grand dukes and their companions.
July 21: Savinkov’s forces surrender at Iaroslavl; massacre of 350 officers and civilians.
July 29: Compulsory military training introduced; officers of Imperial Army ordered to register.
August 1–2: Additional Allied forces land at Archangel and Murmansk; Bolsheviks request German help against Allies and the White (Volunteer) forces in the south.
August 6: Berlin recalls German Ambassador from Moscow, follows by closing embassy there.
August: Lenin calls on workers to exterminate “kulaks.”
August 24: Urban real estate nationalized.
August 27: Supplementary Russo-German Treaty signed, with secret clauses.
August 30: Early in the day, M. S. Uritskii, head of Petrograd Cheka, assassinated; in the evening, Fannie Kaplan shoots Lenin.
September 4: Instruction ordering the taking of hostages.
September 5: Red Terror officially launched; massacres of prisoners and hostages throughout Bolshevik-controlled Russia.
October 21: All able-bodied Soviet citizens required to register with government employment agencies.
October 30: 10-billion-ruble contribution imposed on the urban and village “bourgeoisie.”
Early November: Soviet Embassy expelled from Berlin.
November 13: Soviet Government renounces Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and Supplementary Treaty.
December 2: Committees of the Poor dissolved.
December 10: “Labor Code” issued.
1919
January: Tax in kind (
January 7:
February 17: Dzerzhinskii announces changes in operations of the Cheka: calls for creation of concentration camps.
March: New party program adopted; party renamed Russian Communist Party; creation of Politburo, Orgburo, and Secretariat.
March 16: Consumer communes introduced.
April 11: Regulations concerning concentration camps.
May 15: Government authorizes People’s Bank to issue as many bank notes as required.
December 27: Commission on Labor Obligation created under Trotsky: beginning of “militarization of labor.”
NOTES
1. Somerset Maugham,
2. Otto Hoetzsch,
3.
4. On these events, see Samuel Kassow,
5.
6. Kassow,
7.
8.
9.
10. Kassow,
11. S. Iu. Vitte,
12. Ludwig Bazylow,
13. Cited in Edward H. Judge,
14. Melnik,
15. See below, Chap. 3.
16. Judge,
17. Vitte,
18. Judge,
19. On this, see below, Chap. 9.
20.
21. On him: Jeremiah Schneiderman,
