The Bolsheviks take power in Petrograd

A group of militants attacked an imperial bank carriage in Tiflis to obtain funds for the revolutionary movement. Stalin’s precise operational role remains disputed; the episode illustrates the...

At the Prague Party Conference, Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders co-opted Stalin to the Central Committee while he was in exile. (The conference date is often given as 17 January Old Style; this...

The Bolshevik daily Pravda began publication in St Petersburg. Stalin contributed to its editorial work; the paper became a channel for political education and agitation among urban workers, under...

After returning to underground work, Stalin was arrested again and banished to the Turukhansk region. He remained in remote exile until the overthrow of the tsar in 1917.

The fall of the tsarist monarchy enabled Stalin and other exiles to return. He joined the Bolshevik leadership in Petrograd during a rapidly changing struggle over war, land, workers’ power, and the...

The new Soviet government assigned Stalin responsibility for nationalities. His office addressed the future of peoples and territories formerly ruled by the empire; later policy combined formal...

The treaty ended Russia’s participation in the First World War at the cost of extensive territory and population. Stalin supported the Bolshevik government as it faced military intervention, civil...

The Bolshevik leadership sent Stalin to help organize defense against White forces around Tsaritsyn. The Civil War brought mass violence, requisitioning, famine, and competing claims to political...

The Red Army defeated the Georgian Democratic Republic and established Soviet rule. Stalin, a Georgian Bolshevik, supported incorporation into the Soviet system; the event exposes tensions between...

The Central Committee elected Stalin General Secretary of the Communist Party. The office gave him influence over appointments and party administration, which he used to build a durable political...