Famine in Volga region prompts international relief appeal

The Tenth Party Congress approved the New Economic Policy (NEP), replacing compulsory grain requisition with a tax in kind and permitting limited private trade. It responded to peasant resistance,...

The Treaty of Riga formally ended the Polish-Soviet War. Poland acquired territories containing large Ukrainian and Belarusian populations, while Soviet leaders relinquished claims there. The treaty...

Red Army troops captured Kronstadt after an assault across the ice. Thousands of rebels were killed, imprisoned or escaped to Finland. The suppression sharply narrowed the space for independent...

Britain and Soviet Russia signed a trade agreement that reduced the risk of renewed war and opened commercial relations. The agreement did not amount to full diplomatic recognition, but it marked...

Mongolian revolutionaries and Soviet forces entered Urga in July 1921, and the Bogd Khan was restored as constitutional monarch under a new People’s Government. The revolution advanced Mongolian...

The Soviet government and the American Relief Administration concluded an agreement on 20 August 1921 to organize large-scale food relief. The operation fed millions during the famine, demonstrating...

Turkey and the Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia signed the Treaty of Kars, settling borders in the South Caucasus. The agreement involved regional governments but was shaped by...

Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan formed the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. The arrangement pooled institutions before the federation entered the USSR. It reduced separate...

Germany and Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Rapallo, renouncing claims and restoring diplomatic relations. The agreement challenged the isolation of both states after the First World War. It also...

Lenin objected to Stalin’s proposal to absorb Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian republics into the Russian federation, arguing for a union of formally equal republics. His intervention...