1883 Group for the Emancipation of Labor, first Russian Marxist group, formed in Geneva, Switzerland. 1903 Bolshevik (majority) and Menshevik (minority) factions resulted from split in Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, held in Brussels and London. 1905 December: Bolshevik Conference in Tammerfors (Tampere), Finland. 1914 Start of World War I. 1917 March: Provisional government formed in Russia. Czar Nicholas II abdicated. 1917 July 20: New revolutionary government formed with Kerensky as Prime Minister. 1917 October 23: Bolshevik Central Committee approved Lenin’s proposal for armed insurrection. 1917 November 7: “Red Guards” and revolutionary troops occupied Petrograd (Russian capital) and overthrew government (called October Revolution). 1917 December: Soviet government signed armistice with Germany and Austria at Brest-Litovsk to end hostilities. 1918 March 3: Russia signed Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, abandoning Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, the Baltic provinces, Finland, and Transcaucasia. 1918 March: Soviet government and Party headquarters moved to Moscow. 1921 March: Kronstadt sailors’ unsuccessful revolt against Lenin. 1921 March: Tenth Party Congress adopted Lenin’s New Economic Policy. 1922 March 27-April 2: Eleventh Party Congress elected Stalin General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). 1925 December: Fourteenth Party Congress changed name to Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) or CPSU (B). 1927 December: Fifteenth Party Congress of CPSU (B) instructed preparation of first Five-Year Plan. 1929 Trotsky arrived in Turkey as exile from U.S.S.R. 1932-33 The Stalin Famine due, in part, to excesses of agrarian policy. Victims estimated from 4,000,000 to 10,000,000 dead. 1933 November 17: Soviet Russia recognized diplomatically by the United States. 1934 September 18: U.S.S.R. formally became member of League of Nations. 1934-38 Purges of Communist Party members and government and military officials as “counter-revolutionaries.” 1936 New constitution approved and adopted by the Eighth Extraordinary Congress of Soviets. 1939 August: Soviet-German Nonaggression Pact ratified. 1939 September 17: Soviet Russia invaded Poland. 1939 November 30: Soviet Russia invaded Finland. 1940 March: Soviet Russia and Finland signed peace terms. 1941 June 22: German armies invaded Russia. 1945 May 9: Stalin announced end of war to Russian people. 1953 March 5: Stalin died. 1953 December 23: Beria executed as “enemy of the people.” 1956 February: Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the