Lenin speaking from an armoured car outside the Finland Station at night, a crowd with red banners below.

Russian Revolution timeline and map, 1905–1922

In January 1905 troops fired on workers marching to the Winter Palace with a petition for the Tsar. Twelve years later, in the middle of a world war, bread queues in Petrograd turned into a revolution and Nicholas II gave up his throne.

Within months Lenin’s Bolsheviks had taken power, and a civil war between Reds and Whites decided who would rule the largest country on Earth. This timeline follows it from Bloody Sunday to the founding of the Soviet Union in December 1922.

Open the mapSee the timeline

Interactive map · 1905–1922

Russian Revolution, step by step

Use Earlier and Later, or tap the bar, to move through 11 moments. Borders and labels change with each one.

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1904

Bloody Sunday

This is the same 3D map, built from real terrain, that the Steel & Sovereigns app uses in every lesson.

Timeline

Russian Revolution timeline

A Tsar quits on a train, an exile rides home in a sealed carriage, and the largest country on Earth tears itself apart. Dates before February 1918 follow the old Russian calendar, the one people used at the time.

  1. 9 Jan 1905

    Bloody Sunday

    The little father fired.

    Nicholas survived 1905 by promising a parliament, then hollowing it out. But on Bloody Sunday, millions stopped seeing him as their 'little father'.

    In the app: lesson “Bloody Sunday”

    Nicholas II at a desk, pen in hand over a document, his face tired and unhappy

  2. Aug 1915

    The Tsar takes command

    Every defeat is his.

    Russia went to war singing and lost Poland within a year. Nicholas took command, and with it the blame. At home, his wife ruled, guided by 'Our Friend'.

    In the app: lesson “The Great War”

    Empress Alexandra writing a letter at a desk piled with state papers

  3. 17 Dec 1916

    Rasputin killed

    The throne is hollow.

    How does a Tsar lose his people? He fires on them in 1905, takes the blame for a losing war in 1915, and lets a 'holy man' shadow his court. By 1917, almost no one will fight for him.

    In the app: lesson “The Holy Man”

    Freight wagons and cold locomotives stand snowed in at a railway yard while a few workers shovel.

  4. 23 Feb 1917

    Women's Day strike

    The capital falls.

    Bread lines became a general strike, and the soldiers chose the crowds. Petrograd is lost. And the Tsar? He's on a train, trying to get home.

    In the app: lesson “Bread”

    A grand columned palace crowded with soldiers, workers and politicians, two meetings going on in different wings

  5. 2 Mar 1917

    Nicholas abdicates

    Two signatures, two days.

    Cut off on a train and abandoned by his generals, Nicholas gave up a 304-year-old throne, and his brother refused it. Far away in Zurich, an exile reads the news.

    In the app: lesson “The Train to Pskov”

    Grand Duke Michael sitting stunned in an armchair holding a telegram, politicians crowding the drawing room

  6. 3 Apr 1917

    Lenin returns

    The plague bacillus.

    How does a dynasty fall in a week? Its soldiers stop shooting and its generals stop obeying. Now Germany has delivered the man who means to take what's left. Churchill later wrote that he came 'like a plague bacillus'.

    In the app: lesson “The Sealed Train”

    A night crowd with red flags around an armoured car outside a railway station, a small figure speaking from its turret

  7. Aug 1917

    The Kornilov affair

    Now they have the guns.

    In July the Bolsheviks were hunted. By September they had rifles, Red Guards, Trotsky and the Petrograd Soviet. Lenin wants one thing: an uprising.

    In the app: lesson “The Summer of Chaos”

    A clean-shaven Lenin writes letters fast at a small lamplit table in a hiding place.

  8. 25 Oct 1917

    The Bolsheviks take power

    The palace falls.

    The Bolsheviks took the capital in a night, almost without a fight, because almost nobody would defend the Provisional Government. Now they have to keep it. And Lenin has promised peace.

    In the app: lesson “The Winter Palace”

    Lenin at a podium gripping its edges, facing a packed, smoky congress hall

  9. 6 Jan 1918

    The assembly is shut

    An obscene peace.

    How did a small party seize Russia? It moved while everyone else hesitated, then kept power by shutting the elected assembly and paying Germany for peace. Now its enemies are gathering.

    In the app: lesson “The Obscene Peace”

    Lenin standing at a tall Kremlin window, hands behind his back, looking out over the domes of Moscow

  10. 17 Jul 1918

    The Romanovs are killed

    The Tsar is dead. The war goes on.

    The Romanovs died eight days before the Whites arrived. The civil war now burns on every side, and in August it reaches the Volga at Kazan.

    In the app: lesson “The House of Special Purpose”

    A narrow staircase leading down to a closed basement door, lit by a single hanging lamp

  11. Oct 1919

    The Whites' high tide

    Both capitals hold.

    By the end of 1919 the White tide had turned on every front. The Reds survived on railways, ruthlessness and their enemies' disunity. One last White army clings to Crimea.

    In the app: lesson “Trotsky's Train”

    An armoured train with gun turrets on a wide steppe, Red soldiers loading at a railway junction

  12. 30 Dec 1922

    The USSR is born

    The Tsar is gone. The empire isn't.

    Why did the Reds win? They held the centre and the railways, fought under one command and used terror without limit, while the Whites stayed divided. They rebuilt most of the old empire, and Stalin will rule it.

    In the app: lesson “The Red Empire”

    Stalin at a desk piled with personnel files in a Kremlin office, reading one by lamplight

Learn it in the app

The Russian Revolution: Fall of the Tsars

Twelve five-minute lessons in four units, each with the map, hand-painted scenes, British narration and a few quick questions. Steel & Sovereigns is a history learning app for iPhone, built like Duolingo.

Unit 1

The Last Tsar

  1. Bloody Sunday
  2. The Great War
  3. The Holy Man

Unit 2

February

  1. Bread
  2. The Train to Pskov
  3. The Sealed Train

Unit 3

October

  1. The Summer of Chaos
  2. The Winter Palace
  3. The Obscene Peace

Unit 4

Reds and Whites

  1. The House of Special Purpose
  2. Trotsky's Train
  3. The Red Empire
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