Feb 2 Battle of Stalingrad: The German Sixth Army surrendered.
Feb 3, Finland began talks with the Soviet Union.
Feb 8, Red Army recaptured Kursk.
Feb 9, The Russians took back Kursk 15 months after it fell to the Nazis.
Feb 14, Soviets recaptured Rostov.
Feb 16, The Red army conquered Kharkov.
Mar 14, The Germans reoccupied Kharkov in the Soviet Union.
Mar 18, Red Army evacuated Belgorod.
Apr 13, Nazi's discovered a mass grave of Polish officers near Katyn.
May 15 The Comintern was dissolved.
Jul 5, The battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, began as German tanks attacked the Soviet salient.
Jul 6, In the 2nd day of battle at Kursk some 25,000 Germans were killed.
Jul 7, In the 3rd day of battle at Kursk the Germans occupied Dubrova. Erich Hartmann shot 7 Russian aircraft at Kursk.
Jul 8, The 4th day of battle at Kursk: Gen Model used his last tank reserve.
Jul 12, Russians beat Nazis in a tank battle at Prochorowka. Some 12,000 died.
Jul 13, Greatest tank battle in history ended with Russia's defeat of Germany at Kursk.
Jul 23, Battle of Kursk, USSR, ended in Nazi defeat. 6,000 tanks took part.
Aug 22, Soviet troops freed Kharkov.
Aug 25, Red Army under Gen Vatutin recaptured Achtyrka.
Sep 8 Stalin allowed a church council, which unanimously elected Sergius to the Patriarchate of Moscow.
Sep 25, Red Army retook Smolensk from the Germans who were retreating to the Dnieper River in the Soviet Union.
Oct 19, Delegates from the USSR met with representatives from the Allied nations of Great Britain, the U.S., and China, in an attempt to hammer out a greater consensus on war aims, and to improve the rapidly cooling relations between the Soviet Union and its allies.
Oct 30, The Molotov-Eden-Cordell Hull accord over operations at UN.
Nov 6 The Russians recaptured Kiev.
Nov 28, Tehran, conference begins.
Dec 1, Tehran conference concluded and agreed to Operation Overlord (D-Day).
Dec 12, The exiled Czech government signed a treaty with the USSR for postwar cooperation.
Dec 20, "International" was no longer USSR National Anthem.
1944 Jan 6 The Red Army crossed into Poland.
Jan 17, Russia rejected a Polish proposal to negotiate a boundary dispute.
Jan 27 Siege of Leningrad: The last German forces were expelled from the city.
Feb 23, Stalin ordered the mass deportation Caucasian Muslim nations.
Mar 18, The Russians reached the Rumanian border in the Balkans.
Mar 21, Finland rejected a Soviet armistice.
Apr 2, Soviet forces entered Romania, one of Germany's allied countries.
Apr 10, Soviet forces liberated Odessa from Nazis.
May 5, A Russian offensive took place against Sebastopol Krim.
May 6, The Red Army besieged and captured Sevastopol in the Crimea.
May 9, Russians recaptured Crimea by taking Sevastopol. [see May 6]
May 15 Sergius died.
May 18, The expulsion of more than 200,000 Tartars from Crimea by Soviet Union began.
Jul 3, During World War II, Soviet forces recaptured Minsk.
Jul 16, Soviet troops occupy Vilna, Lithuania, in their drive towards Germany.
July 21 The Communist Lublin Government of Poland was established.
Jul 23, Soviet troops took Lublin, Poland, as the German army retreated.
Jul 24, Soviet forces liberated the Majdanek concentration camp.
Jul 31, The Soviet army took Kovno [Kaunas], the capital of Lithuania.
Aug 1 Warsaw Uprising: The Polish Home Army began an attack on German forces in Warsaw.
Aug 21, The US, Britain, the Soviet Union and China opened the Dumbarton Oaks conference in Washington, D.C.
Aug 22 Warsaw Uprising: Stalin denied the Allies use of his landing strips to supply aid to the insurgents.
Aug 23 Michael I of Romania led a coup against the military dictatorship of Ion Antonescu.
Aug 30, Ploesti, the center of the Rumanian oil industry, fell to Soviet troops.
Aug 31 Soviet occupation of Romania: The Red Army captured Bucharest.
Sep 12 Romania signed an armistice with the Allies, placing itself under the command of an Allied Commission led by Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky.
Oct 28, German rocket engineers began work in the USSR.
Nov 19 Romanian general election, Rigged elections gave a vast majority of seats in the Romanian legislature.
Dec 11 Iran regained control over the territory of the Azerbaijan People's Government.
Dec 15 Iran conquered Mahabad.
1947 Jan 19 Polish legislative election, 1947: Rigged elections gave the Communist bloc 80 percent of the vote.
Feb 17, The Voice of America began broadcasting to the Soviet Union.
Mar 10, The Big Four met in Moscow to discuss Germany.
May 31, Communists grabbed power in Hungary.
Jun 16, Pravda denounced the Marshall Plan.
Jul 3, Soviet Union didn't partake in the Marshall Plan.
Jul 16, Raoul Wallenberg reportedly died at the Lubyanka prison in Moscow of an alleged heart attack.
Jul, Kennan article "The Sources of Soviet Conflict" in the quarterly Foreign Affairs, which he signed "X,".
Aug 31 The Hungarian Communist Party won a plurality of seats in elections to the Hungarian legislature.
Oct 5 The Cominform was established in order to coordinate Communist parties under Soviet control.
Nov 26, France expelled 19 Soviet citizens, charging intervention in internal affairs.
Nov 27 A speech to the Central Committee of the KSČ by Chairman Klement Gottwald denounced "reactionary forces" and triggered the purge of non-Communists from the Czechoslovakian security forces.
Dec 30 King Michael I of Romania was forced to abdicate.
Russia Sgt. Mikhail Kalashnikov (b.1919) created the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova) automatic rifle.
1948 Jan 23, The Soviets refused UN entry into North Korea to administer elections.
Feb 20 Non-Communist ministers resigned from the Czechoslovakian parliament in order to force an election.
Feb 21 KSČ established the Workers' Militia, banned non-Communists from television broadcasts, and occupied the non-Communist ministries.
Feb 25 Czechoslovakian president Beneš accepted resignations of non-Communist ministers and replaced them according to demands of KSČ.
Mar 31, Soviets, in Germany, began controlling the Western trains headed toward Berlin.
April 13 A new Romanian constitution declared that country a People's Republic.
Jun 7, Communists completed their takeover of Czechoslovakia with the resignation of President Eduard Benes.
Jun 19, USSR blocked access road to West Berlin.
June 24 Berlin Blockade: The Soviet Union blocked rail and road access to West Berlin.
June 25 Berlin Blockade: The commander of American occupation zone ordered an airlift of supplies into West Berlin.
June 28 Yugoslavia was expelled from the Cominform.
July 2, Meeting in Paris among foreign ministers, Molotov called Marshall Plan "imperialist" plot for enslavement of Europe.
Jul 8, The 500th anniversary of the Russian orthodox church was celebrated in Moscow.
Sep 9 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established.
Sep 19, Moscow announced it would withdraw all soldiers from Korea by the end of the year.
Oct 16, Moscow Jews held a demonstration honoring Israeli ambassador Golda Meir.
Nov 30, Communists completed the division of Berlin, installing the government in the Soviet sector.
In the Leningrad Affair a group of high officials was purged following the death of Andrei Zdhanov.
Russian engineers from Ozersk dumped radioactive waste into Techa River contaminating 100,000 people in farming villages downstream.
1949 Feb 14, US charged the U.S.S.R. with interning up to 14 million in labor camps.
Mar 4, Molotov was replaced by Vishinsky and Minister of Defense Bulganin replaced by Vassilievsky.
Mar 25, Soviet occupiers of Lithuania began Operation "Priboj," a 2nd major deportation program (Mar 25-28).
Mar, Some 20,000 Estonian civilians were rounded up and deported to Siberia under orders from Joseph Stalin.
May 11 Berlin Blockade: The Soviets lifted the blockade.
May 12, The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin blockade. [see Sep 30, 1949]
May 27, Russians stopped train traffic to and from West Berlin.
Aug 18 A new Communist constitution came into force in Hungary.
Aug 29 Joe 1: The Soviet atomic bomb project culminated in a successful test detonation.
Sep 3, A US Air Force B-29 detected a radioactive cloud over the Pacific, which indicated that the Soviets had detonated an atomic device.
Sep 23, Truman announced that the Soviet Union was exploding atomic bombs thus breaking the US atomic monopoly.
Sep 27, The USSR repudiated its 1945 treaty of friendship with Yugoslavia.
Sep 30, Berlin airlift ended its operation after 277,264 flights.
Oct 2, USSR recognized the People's Republic of China.
Dec 16, Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung was received at the Kremlin in Moscow.
Dec 31, Stalin’s 70th birthday was the occasion for a world-wide Communist celebration.
George Orwell wrote his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four."
1950 Jan 30 Korean War: Regarding invasion of South, Stalin wrote to North Korea: "Tell him [Kim] that I am ready to help him in this matter."
Feb 15, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung signed a mutual defense treaty in Moscow.
Mar 1, USSR issued golden rubles.
Mar 8, Marshall Voroshilov of the USSR announced the Soviet Union had developed an atomic bomb. [see Aug 29, 1949]
Mar 16, Acheson called for a seven-point cooperation plan with the Russians.
June 25 Korean War: The North Korean army launched a 135,000 man surprise assault across the 38th parallel.
Oct 2, Mao Tse Tung sent a telegram to Stalin. China intervened in Korea.
Nov 1 Korean War: Soviet-piloted MiG-15s first crossed the Yalu River and attacked American planes.
Joel Barr (d.1998 at 82), an electronics engineer, defected to Czechoslovakia and later settled in the Soviet Union.
NSC-68 document by Paul Nitze (1907-2004) called for containment of the Soviet Union and the building up of American nuclear forces.
1951 Feb 16, Stalin contended that the U.N. was becoming the weapon of aggressive war.
Jun 23, Soviet U.N. delegate Jacob Malik proposed cease-fire discussions in the Korean War.
Jun 23, British diplomats and Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the USSR.
Jun 26, The Soviet Union proposed a cease-fire in the Korean War.
Jun 29, US invited the Soviet Union to the Korean peace talks on a ship in Wonson Harbor.
Sep 24, The Soviet Union conducted its 2nd nuclear test.
Oct 6, Stalin proclaimed Russia has an atom bomb.
The nuclear weapons research facility near Nizhzny Novgorod was established by Yuli Khariton (1904-1996).
1951-1956 There were 9 US reconnaissance aircraft lost and believed shot down by Soviet forces in and near the Russian Far East during this period with 77 crew members lost.
1952 Mar 25, The U.S., Britain, and France rejected the Soviet proposal for an armed, reunified, neutral Germany.
Jun 16, Soviet Fighters shot down a Swedish Catalina reconnaissance flight.
Aug 12, In the USSR 13 former members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) were executed following mock trials.
Aug 20, Russia's Stalin met China's Chou Enlai.
Nov 20 Prague Trials: A series of show trials purged the Czech Communist Party of Jews and insufficiently orthodox Stalinists.
A trail was held for 15 leading Jewish writers, intellectuals and scientists, who were associated with the Anti-Fascist Committee.
1953 Jan 13 Pravda accused prominent doctors - particularly Jews - of participating in a vast conspiracy to poison top Soviet leaders.
Feb 12, The Soviets broke off diplomatic relations with Israel after the bombing of Soviet legation.
Feb 28, Stalin met with Beria, Bulganin, Khrushchev & Malenkov.
March 5 Stalin died.
March 6 Malenkov succeeded Stalin as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party.
Mar 9, Josef Stalin was buried in Moscow.
March 14 Khrushchev became First Secretary.
April 3 Presidium of Central Committee officially acquitted those arrested in connection with so-called "doctors' plot".
April 8 First Indochina War: Viet Minh and Pathet Lao forces invaded Laos and attacked French bases there.
June 16 Uprising of 1953 in East Germany: In response to a 10 percent increase in work quotas, between 60 and 80 construction workers went on strike in East Berlin. Their numbers quickly swelled and a general strike and protests were called for the next day.
June 17 Uprising of 1953 in East Germany: 100,000 protestors gathered at dawn, demanding the reinstatement of old work quotas and, later, the resignation of the East German government. At noon German police trapped many of the demonstrators in an open square; Soviet tanks fired on the crowd, killing hundreds and ending the protest.
June 26 Beria was arrested at a special meeting of the Presidium.
Jul 20, USSR and Israel recovered diplomatic relations.
Aug 8, In Russia Georgi Malenkov reported the possession of hydrogen bomb.
Sep 7 Khrushchev was confirmed as head of the Central Committee.
Sep 12, Khrushchev became the 1st Secretary of USSR Communist Party.
USSR Lt. Gen’l. Pavel Sudoplatov, spy, was arrested after the death of Stalin and sent to the Gulag.
1954 March 13 Battle of Dien Bien Phu: Viet Minh forces loosed a massive artillery barrage against the surrounded French airbase at Dien Bien Phu.
Apr 21, Gyorgy Malenkov became premier of USSR.
May 7 Battle of Dien Bien Phu: The battle ended in a French defeat.
May 7, US, Great-Britain and France rejected Russian membership in NATO.
May 16 Kengir Uprising: Prisoners at a Gulag adjacent to Kazakh village of Kengir occupied the camp's service yard.
June 25 Kengir Uprising: The prison camp at Kengir was invaded and subdued by Soviet troops and tanks.
Jun 27, The 1st atomic power station opened near Moscow at Obninsk, Russia.
July 21 Geneva Conference (1954): The signing of Geneva Accords promised a complete French withdrawal, partitioned Vietnam into a Communist North and a monarchist South, and scheduled unifying elections for July 1956.
Sep 6, A US plane was shot down above Siberia.
Nov 26, Jonas Zemaitis (b.1909), a founder of the Lithuanian independence movement and presidium head, was shot to death in Moscow.
Uzbekistan the Soviet Union established a biological weapons test site on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea.
Cheka was reorganized as the KGB.
1955 Feb 8, Malenkov resigned as USSR premier. Bulganin replaced him.
Mar 25, E. Germany was granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR.
May 14, Representatives from eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, signed the Warsaw Pact in Poland.
May 26, Khrushchev arrived in Belgrade.
June 2 Khrushchev and Tito issued Belgrade declaration, "different forms of Socialist development are solely concern of individual countries."
Jun 24, Soviet MIG’s down a lightly armed US Navy patrol plane over Bering Strait. Molotov expressed his country’s regrets the next day.
Jun 29, The Soviet Union sent tanks to Pozan, Poland, to put down anti-Communist demonstrations.
July Ho Chi Minh visited Moscow and agreed to accept Soviet aid.
Jul 21, During Geneva summit, Eisenhower presented his "open skies" proposal under which US and Soviet Union would trade information on each other's military facilities and allow aerial reconnaissance.
Aug 25, Last Soviet forces left Austria.
Oct 26, Austria, under request by Russia, promulgated a constitutional law of perpetual neutrality.
Zhukov (d.1974) was named defense minister.
USSR lifted a ban on abortion that had been imposed by Stalin in 1936.
1955-1958 Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin served as Premier.
1956 Jan 25, Khrushchev said that he believed that Eisenhower was sincere in his efforts to abolish war.
Feb 25 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev read "Secret Speech," denouncing Stalin.
Mar 23, Soviet students protested the campaign to desanctify Stalin.
April 17 The Cominform was officially dissolved.
Jun 4, A speech by Khrushchev blasting Stalin was made public.
June 28 Poznań 1956 protests: Poles upset with the slow pace of destalinization turned to protests, and then to violent riots.
Oct 19 The liberal Władysław Gomułka was elected leader of the Polish Communist party.
Oct 23 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A small pro-Gomułka demonstration in Budapest expanded into a 100,000 head protest. The protestors marched on Parliament; when they were fired on by the Hungarian Security Police, they turned violent and began to arm themselves.
Oct 24, Soviet troops invaded Hungary and Imre Nagy became PM of Hungary.
Oct 31 Hungarian Revolution: Hungary under Nagy withdrew from the Warsaw Pact.
Nov 2, Hungary appealed for UN assistance against Soviet invasion. The Soviets chose Janos Kadar to form a counter-government.
Nov 4 Hungarian Revolution: A Soviet invasion, 2,500 Hungarians were killed in the ensuing battle.
Nov 8, UN demanded USSR leave Hungary.
Nov 8 Hungarian Revolution: Pro-Soviet János Kádár announced the formation of a new "Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government," with himself as Prime Minister and leader of the Communist Party.
Nov 17, Khrushchev told Western diplomats "We will bury you."
Dec 2 Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and his followers in the 26th of July Movement landed in Cuba.
Dec 10 Angolan War of Independence: Angolan independence movements united to form Marxist Popular Movement for Liberation of Angola.
Khrushchev unveiled the city of Dubna and its Joint Institute for Nuclear Studies as the locus of basic research into atomic physics.
Andropov organized the repression of the Hungarian Revolution.
1956-58 The Soviet Union provided intermediate-range ballistic missile to China for study.
1957 Mar 12, German DR accepted 22 Russian armed divisions.
May 4, It was reported that NATO warned Soviet Union that it would meet any attack with all available meads including nuclear weapons.
June 18 Led by the Stalinist Anti-Party Group, the Presidium voted to depose Khrushchev as First Secretary.
Presidium reversed its vote under pressure from Khrushchev and defense minister and deferred decision to later meeting of Central Committee.
June 29 A Central Committee vote affirmed Khrushchev as First Secretary
Jul 14, Soviet steamer "Eshghbad" sank in Caspian Sea and 270 drowned.
Jul 26, USSR launched the 1st intercontinental multistage ballistic missile.
Jul 28, The 6th World Youth Festival opened in Moscow with the motto “For Peace and Friendship.”
Aug 26, The Soviet Union announced it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Oct 4, The Space Age and "space race" began as the Soviet Union launched
