STORY OF RUSSIA FROM BEGINNING TO THE PRESENT

Dates are correct for the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia until
1918. It was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar during the 19th
century and thirteen days behind it during the 20th century.

Date(s) Event(s)

1855 Start of reign of Tsar Alexander II

1861 Emancipation of the serfs

1866- 74 The White Terror

1881 Alexander II assassinated; succeeded by Alexander III

1883 First Russian Marxist group formed

1894 Start of reign of Nicholas II

1898 First Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP)

1900 Foundation of Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR)

1903 Second Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.

Beginning of split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

1904- 5 Russo-Japanese War; Russia loses war

1905 Russian Revolution of 1905.

January - Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg.

June - Battleship Potemkin uprising at Odessa on the Black Sea (see

movie The Battleship Potemkin)

October - general strike, St. Petersburg Soviet formed; October Manifesto:

Imperial agreement on elections to the State Duma

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1906 First State Duma. Prime Minister - Petr Stolypin. Agrarian reforms
begin

1907 Second State Duma, February - June

1907 Third State Duma, until 1912

1911 Stolypin assassinated

1912 Fourth State Duma, until 1917. Bolshevik/ Menshevik split final

1914 Germany declares war on Russia

1915 Serious defeats, Nicholas II declares himself Commander in Chief.

Progressive Bloc formed.

1916 Food and fuel shortages and high prices

1917 Strikes and riots; troops summoned to Petrograd

February-1917 Revolution

Nicholas II, March 1917, shortly after the revolution brought about his
abdication.

The February Revolution was the result of the acute aggravation of the
economic and political crisis in Russia. It came about seemingly
spontaneously when people of the Russian capital Petrograd started to
rally against the war and against the food supply shortages in the city.

As the protests grew, various political reformists (both liberal and radical
left) started to coordinate their activities. In February the protests in
Petrograd turned violent as large numbers of city residents rioted and
clashed with police and soldiers, followed by the total strike. Eventually
the bulk of the soldiers garrisoned in Petrograd joined the protests, and
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the uprisen people occupied most of the important places in the city. This
had led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in a nearly bloodless transition
of power.

A new Provisional Government was formed. Between February and

October revolutionaries attempted to foment further change, working
through the Petrograd Soviet and other organizations. The driving force
behind the provisional government was a young and popular lawyer
named Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky, as minister of war, decided to
continue the Russian effort in World War I despite the enormous
unpopularity of the war. He appointed new generals and began a new
offensive, the Kerensky Offensive, which started well and then turned into
yet another defeat. Kerensky's government tried to shame the soldiers
into fighting by creating a Women's Battalion, but without success. The
failure of his offensive brought about much resentment from the people.

The Russian Civil War, which broke out in 1918 shortly after the
revolution, brought death and suffering to millions of people regardless of
their political orientation. The war was fought mainly between the Red
Army ("Reds"), consisting of radical communists and revolutionaries, and
the "Whites" - the monarchists, conservatives, liberals and moderate
socialists who opposed the drastic restructuring championed by the
Bolsheviks. The Whites had backing from nations such as the UK, France,
USA and Japan.

Also, during the Civil War, Nestor Makhno led a Ukrainian anarchist
movement which generally cooperated with the Bolsheviks. However, a
Bolshevik force under Mikhail Frunze destroyed the Makhnovist
movement, when the Makhnovists refused to merge into the Red Army. In
addition, the so-called " Green Army" (nationalists and anarchists) played
a secondary role in the war, mainly in Ukraine.

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The Russian revolution and the world

Lenin and Trotsky said that the goal of socialism in Russia would not be
realized without the success of the world proletariat in other countries, e.g.
without German Revolution. Indeed, a revolutionary wave lasted until
1923.

This issue is subject to conflicting views on the communist history by

various Marxist groups and parties. Stalin later rejected this idea, stating
that socialism was possible in one country.

The confusion regarding Stalin's position on the issue stems from the fact
that he, after Lenin's death in 1924, successfully used Lenin's argument -
the argument that socialism's success needs the workers of other
countries in order to happen - to defeat his competitors within the party by
accusing them of betraying Lenin and, therefore, the ideals of the October
Revolution.

After 1945_ end of WW2:

The Cold War was not exclusively a struggle between the US and the
USSR but a global conflict that affected many countries, particularly the
continent of Europe.

Indeed, Europe, divided into two blocs, became one of the main theatres
of the war. In Western Europe, the European integration process began
with the support of the United States, while the countries of Eastern
Europe became satellites of the USSR.

Mikhail Gorbachev’s reformist policies in the Soviet Union fuelled

opposition movements to the Communist regimes in the Soviet bloc
countries. Demonstrations became more frequent. Governments were
forced to accept measures — recommended, moreover, by Gorbachev —

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towards liberalisation.

The Cold War finally came to an end in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall
and the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

The perestroika reforms constituted a profound iconoclasm and brought

about a harsh state of social disintegration for many people.

In order to trace the contemporary perceptions of these changes,

possible threats, crisis scenarios, as well as the opportunities that the
perestroika entailed, this article explores the attitudes of former Soviet
consumers towards money, and their consumer practices based on 42
oral history interviews. They strongly suggest that the late Soviet society
was not characterised by disintegration.

From a comparative perspective on Soviet and post-Soviet times, Soviet

money practices offered reliability and predictability of living conditions in
an environment with less consumer choice than today. Many people
perceived the Soviet social, cultural and economic framework as having
provided comparatively greater security in everyday life. The new privacy
of the 1960s and the 1970s offered considerable sources for building
people's trust in the regime as it became linked to notions of stability,
security, and predictability.

Therefore, we should consider these subjective dimensions of

«normality» as providing grounds for current nostalgia about the alleged
socio-economic stability and political security up until perestroika. the
perestroika reforms constituted a profound iconoclasm and brought about
a harsh state of social disintegration for many people.

1991: U S S R was gone with the wind.

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FEBRUARY-2022 AND LATER - RUSSIA AND UKRAINE

Two Grim months over and millions of people have been displaced and
thousands killed in the violence that sanctions and diplomatic talks have
not been able to put an end to. [26 April]

There have been talks between the two countries which have only put
brief pauses on the violence.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a war on its

neighbour Ukraine, a former Soviet republic sparring with Moscow for
years.

Take a look at the latest developments of the Ukraine-Russia war.

1) The United States has pledged more than $700 million in additional
direct and indirect military aid, including $300 million to allow Ukraine to
buy weapons. The US has sent some $4 billion in military aid since US
President Joe Biden's term began last year.

2) Ukraine has proposed fresh talks and invited Russia near Mariupol, a
devastated city largely under Moscow's control. The city is on the “brink
of collapse” with just a handful of Ukrainian soldiers defending the port city
with depleting weapons.

3) “Two months after Putin launched an unprovoked and unjustified attack

on Ukraine, Kyiv still stands. President Zelenskyy and his democratically-
elected government remain in power. We will continue to support
Ukrainians in their fight to defend their homeland,” Biden tweeted.

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4) “Two months of heroic nationwide resistance of Ukraine to the Russian
aggression have passed. I’m grateful to @POTUS and the people
of Ukraine for leadership in supporting Ukraine. Today the Ukrainian
people are united and strong, and Ukraine-US friendship and partnership
are stronger than ever!” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
responded to Biden.

5) The United States has pledged more than $700 million in additional
direct and indirect military aid, including $300 million to allow Ukraine to
buy weapons. The US has sent some $4 billion in military aid since US
President Joe Biden's term began last year.

6) Ukraine has proposed fresh talks and invited Russia near Mariupol, a
devastated city largely under Moscow's control. The city is on the “brink
of collapse” with just a handful of Ukrainian soldiers defending the port
city with depleting weapons.

7) “Two months after Putin launched an unprovoked and unjustified

attack on Ukraine, Kyiv still stands. President Zelenskyy and his
democratically-elected government remain in power. We will continue to
support Ukrainians in their fight to defend their homeland,” Biden
tweeted.

8) European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is in India

where she will press leaders over the country's neutral stance on the
war. Russia is a long-standing ally of India and although the country has
called for the violence to end in Ukraine, it hasn’t imposed any sanctions
on Moscow.

9) More civilians have died in Russian airstrikes and Ukraine’s foreign

ministry has updated several gloomy details of the casualties of war. A

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new mother and her three-month old baby were killed in an air strike
after Moscow launched seven missiles in Odessa.

10) Ukraine says dozens of children are trapped inside bomb shelters of
Azovstal steelworks in besieged Mariupol amid heavy shelling. Many
have been hiding for two months deprived of basic rights, the
government said urging their expedited evacuation.

Ukraine can win the war against Russia if it has the “right equipment
and right support”, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said after a trip to Kyiv
with US State Secretary Antony Blinken.

But the US has categorically stayed away from the war with Biden
reiterating several times that US troops will not fight Russia on the
ground or the skies over Ukraine.

Russia from 2022- February 24:

Russia has been test firing powerful nuclear-capable missiles and Putin
has renewed his nuclear threat. Russia said on Saturday it plans to
deploy its newly tested Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, dubbed
“Satan 2”, capable of mounting nuclear strikes against the US, by
autumn.

"Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding," U.S. Secretary of State Antony

Blinken declared, a day after he and the U.S. secretary of defense made
a bold visit to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Blinken said Washington approved a $165 million sale of ammunition —

non-U.S. ammo, mainly if not entirely for Ukraine's Soviet-era weapons
— and will also provide more than $300 million in financing to buy more
supplies.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin took his comments further, saying
that while the U.S. wants to see Ukraine remain a sovereign, democratic
country, it also wants "to see Russia weakened to the point where it can't
do things like invade Ukraine."

Austin's remarks appeared to represent a shift in broader U.S. strategic

goals. Previously, the U.S. position had been that the goal of American
military aid was to help Ukraine win and to defend Ukraine's NATO
neighbours against Russian threats.

The port city of Mariupol, situated in southern Ukraine, has been at the
centre of a months-long siege since the beginning of the Russian invasion
of Ukraine. Kremlin forces had swarmed the city, trapping thousands of
civilians, cutting off their access to food, clean water and healthcare.
Though several attempts were made to reach an agreement with Moscow
for a ceasefire, the two sides have failed to reach an agreement, with both
sides blaming the other for violating the temporary truce.

As of now, the main focus is on the evacuation of the seaside city,

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Associated Press in
an interview.

Kuleba said that an estimated 1 lakh people are trapped in the besieged
city while a contingent of Ukrainian fighters hold out against Russian
forces in the Azovstal steel mill, one of the last remaining pockets of
Ukrainian resistance in the city, where hundreds of civilians also are taking
shelter.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is set to meet Russian President

Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday.[26-
4-22]

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Pressing Russia for an evacuation of the besieged port of Mariupol "is
really something that the UN is capable of doing. And if he demonstrates
political will, character, and integrity, I hope that will allow us to make one
step forward," Kuleba said.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, terming it as an exercise to

“demilitarise and de-Nazify” the country. Two months on, Russian troops
are yet to claim victory over any part of the country and had to retreat from
the initial plan to capture the capital city of Kyiv following fierce Ukrainian
resistance.

Jaishankar said India was willing to export more food grains, especially wheat,
to help tide over the global food shortage resulting from the war, but it could
only do so if the World Trade Organization (WTO) lifted its trading limits.

“India can make a difference today in terms of export of agricultural

commodities, especially wheat. We are trying to see how we can supply more
wheat to meet global shortfalls,” he said.

“There are, of course, some constraints here, which is that there are WTO
limits on trading in what we have in terms of public stocks. But this is a very
unusual situation, so we hope that the WTO would look at it in that manner,”
he said.

The Geneva-based WTO, which lays down global trading rules for countries,
stipulates those developing countries like India can only export 10 per cent of
the total value of their agricultural production, known as ‘de minimis levels’.

The war in Ukraine would also give rise to shortages in edible oil in India.

Ukraine was a very big provider of edible oil, sunflower oil to India. Those
supplies have been cut. Argentina has emerged as one of our biggest sources
of edible oil — soya oil, largely, in their case.

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The capture of the city would deprive Ukraine of a vital port and allow
Moscow to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it
seized from Ukraine in 2014.

The battle at Azovstal

The massive Azovstal steel mill has a 24-kilometre labyrinth of

underground tunnels and passages, which allowed its defenders to
manoeuvre freely to repel the Russian attacks.

Smoke rises above a plant of Azovstal Iron and Steel Works during
Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April
25, 2022. (Reuters)

Before the war, Ukrainian authorities prepared for the Russian offensive
by building up stockpiles of food and water at Azovstal. “The plant covers
a huge area, and the Ukrainians can move through underground tunnels
to quickly change location,” said Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov.

The Ukrainian army has fended off Russia longer than Putin expected and
is absorbing the advantages of Western weaponry and training.

Most countries that are a part of the NATO are supplying both military and
humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

They can win if they have the right equipment, the right support.

After meeting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, US Secretary of

State Antony Blinken said, "In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has
already failed and Ukraine has already succeeded."

Ukraine's prospects for mounting a successful defence have been bolstered by

its closeness to NATO which has increased after Russia invaded the country on
February 24.

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