The Soviet Union Timeline
1922 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) Was formed when Russia joined with three other countries. V. I. Lenin was the first dictator.
1922-1940 15 other countries joined the Soviet Union. The union republics were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Byelorussia (now Belarus), Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan (also spelled Kazakstan), Kirghiz (now Kyrgyzstan), Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia (now Moldova), Russia, Tadzhikistan (also spelled Tajikistan), Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
1924 Lenin died. Joseph Stalin began to gain power.
1924 St. Petersburg became Leningrad.
1920s The USSR was mainly a farming country.
1928 The Soviet Economy began to expand rapidly under a series of Industrialization tactics issued by Stalin.
1929 Stalin became the dictator of the Soviet Union.
1930s The people lived in fear of the secret police. Millions of people were arrested because they were suspected of being anti-communists. They were either shot or sent to prison camps.
1932-1933 In the Ukraine and Volga and Kuban regions of western Russia a famine devastated the land killing between 5 and 7 million people.
1939 The Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany.
1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland from the West.
3 September 1939 France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany beginning World War II.
17 September 1939 The Soviet Union occupied parts of Eastern Poland.
30 November 1939 The Soviet Union attacked Finland.
March 1940 Finland agreed to a peace treaty after the Soviets had captured much of their territory.
June 1940 The Soviet Army moved into Bessarabia and the Baltic countries.
August 1940 The Baltic countries became a part of the Soviet Union.
22 June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
September 1941 The Germans captured Kiev and attacked Leningrad.
December 1941 The Germans came close to Moscow.
1941 The Soviet Union joined the Western Allies in the fight against Germany.
Early 1942 The Red Army pushed the Germans away from Moscow.
August 1942 The five month Battle of Stalingrad began. It became a major turning point in the war.
1943 The Soviets began pushing the Germans further west, meanwhile freeing several countries from German rule.
January 1944 The German attack on Leningrad finally ended, and the Germans were driven off.
April 1945 Soviet troops attacked Berlin.
2 May 1945 Berlin fell to the Soviets.
7 May 1945 Germany surrendered.
August 1945 The Soviet Union declared war on Japan.
September 1945 Japan surrendered and World War II was officially over.
1945-1946 Berlin was divided into four sectors. The Soviet Union was in control of the eastern section. They also kept control of Eastern Germany.
1948 Several eastern European countries became satellites of the Soviet Union.
June 1948 Soviet troops blocked all land and water routes into West Berlin.
May 1949 The blockade of Berlin ended. The Soviets cut off nearly all contact with the West.
5 March 1953 Stalin died after a stroke. No one immediately replaced him. Georgi M. Malenkov held the major leadership position as premier.
September 1953 Nikita S. Khrushchev became the head of the Communist party.
1955 Malenkov was forced to resign. Nikolai A. Bulganin became the premier.
1956 Khrushchev openly criticized Stalin. He began a program to dishonor Stalin All buildings and towns that had been named for him, were renamed. Pictures and statues of Stalin were destroyed.
1956 Khrushchev announced a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West.
1958 Khrushchev became the premier.
1957 The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.
1960 An American spy plane was shot down in Soviet Territory. The pilot confessed that he had been spying. United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower admitted that the United States had been flying over the Soviet Union for four years. Khrushchev demanded an apology, but received none.
1961 Yuri A. Gargarin, a Soviet air force officer, became the first person to travel in space. He orbited the earth.
1961 The Soviet Union made a break from Communist China.
1962 The United States learned that the Soviet Union had a missile base in Cuba. President John F. Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba and demanded the removal of all military bases. The Soviets removed the missiles in exchange for the United States withdrawal of nuclear missiles from Turkey.
1963 The Soviet Union, the United Sates, and the United Kingdom signed a treaty prohibiting all nuclear weapon tests except those performed underground.
1963 The Soviet Union and the United States set up a direct connection between Moscow and Washington D.C. called the hotline. It was to prevent misunderstandings from leading to war.
1963 The Soviet Union began to buy wheat from Western markets.
1964 A conspiracy of high-ranking officials led to the overthrow of Khrushchev. Leonid I. Brezhnev became the head of the Communist Party and Aleksei N. Kosygin became premier
1968 Soviet troops went into Czechoslovakia to crush a movement of the people, who wanted more freedom.
1969 China and the Soviet Union began fighting over the border of a region they had in common.
1970s The Soviets began to expand their influence into Africa.
Early 1970s Brezhnev's power increased over Kosygin.
1972 The Soviet Union and the United States agreed to two treaties which would limit nuclear arms.
Mid 1970s Brezhnev became the dominant political figure. He pursued a friendlier relationship with the West in a program called Detente.
1975 The Soviet Union and many other countries agreed to the Final Act, which was a part of the Helsinki Accord. The Final Act agreed to basic civil liberties such as freedom of thought and freedom of religion.
Late 1970-Early 1980 Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to keep the country's pro-communist government in power.
Summer 1980 The Summer Olympic Games were held in Moscow. The United States boycotted the games as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
1981 United States President Ronald Reagan called for a U.S. military build-up in order to match the expansion of the Soviet arms.
1982 Brezhnev died. Yuri V. Andropov was his successor.
1984 Andropov died. He was replaced by Konstantin U. Chernenko.
March 1985 Chernenko died. Mikhail S. Gorbachev became the new head of the Communist Party.
1980s The government began to grant more freedoms to the people. The people were allowed to criticize the Soviet system.
1987 Gorbachev signed a treaty with the United States for both countries to reduce the size of their nuclear forces.
May 1988-February 1989 Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan.
March 1989 The Soviet Union held its first contested elections. Many top Communist officials were defeated as a result of the election.
1989 Soviet control of Eastern Europe ended.
March 1990 Non-Communist parties were allowed.
March 1990 The office of president was created.
1990 The Soviet Government granted freedom of religion.
End of 1990 All 15 republics of the Soviet Union had passed laws which took precedence over laws passed by the central government.
1990 By this year about two-thirds of the Soviet people lived in urban areas.
1991 Gorbachev and United States President George Bush signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
July 1991 Gorbachev signed a treaty which would give all the remaining republics of the Soviet Union a large amount of independence.
19 August 1991 A coup was staged. Gorbachev was imprisoned.
21 August 1991 The coup ended and Gorbachev returned to power. Boris Yeltsin had led opposition to the coup. His role had increased his power.
November 1991 All but two of the republics had declared their independence.
8 December 1991 Yeltsin and the presidents of Belarus and the Ukraine met in Minsk, Belarus. They announced that they had formed a loose confederation called the Commonwealth of Independent States. They declared that the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
25 December 1991 Gorbachev resigned from office, and the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.
Works Cited
Millar, James R. "The Soviet Union." Worldbookonline.com