February 5–14
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (VChK) is reorganized into the State Political Administration (GPU) under the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) of the Russian SFSR.
February
6
The Federal Union of Socialist Soviet Republics of the Transcaucasus consisting of the Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijan Socialist Soviet Republics is established.
March
12
The international Conference in Genoa (Italy) on economic and financial issues of the post-war settlement in Europe. The conference discussed the issue of recognition of the debts and financial obligations of the former Russian regimes (including Tsarist Russia) by Soviet Russia. No decisions were made. However, the very fact of participation in the conference was of great importance for the Russian SFSR, which was not de jure recognized by the Western powers at that time.
The Rapallo treaty between the Russian SFSR and Germany on the restoration of diplomatic relations and the settlement of military and economic controversial issues. The treaty was signed in Rapallo (Italy) during the Genoa Conference. Both sides agreed on a mutual waiver of reimbursement of military expenses and losses. The recognition of the Russian SFSR by Germany marked a breakthrough in the diplomatic isolation of Soviet Russia.
The Main Directorate for Literature and Publishing (Glavlit), which takes over the functions of censorship is established in the Russian SFSR.
The Trial of members of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionaries Party (SRP) in Moscow. At the show trial, the Socialist Revolutionary leadership was accused of organizing terrorist attacks against the Bolshevik leaders in 1918 (the assassinations of Moisei Uritsky and V. Volodarsky, the assassination attempt on Vladimir Lenin). 12 people, including 8 members of the SRP Central Committee, were sentenced by the Supreme Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) to the death penalty to probation (the sentence was to be carried out if SRs resumed the armed struggle against Soviet power).
The plenum of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), RCP(b) elects Joseph Stalin as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the party.
The All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) adopted a decree “On Administrative Expulsion”, which empowered the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) to expel representatives of intelligentsia abroad or to exile them inland.
The International Financial and Economic Conference in the Hague (Netherlands). It was held by the decision of the Genoa Conference. Representatives of the Western powers demanded that the Russian SFSR return the previously nationalized property of foreign capitalists to the former owners and recognize the debts of the tsarist and the Provisional governments. The Soviet delegation rejected these demands.
The Priamurye Zemstvo Sobor [Assembly] is held in Vladivostok. The Sobor proclaimed the restoration of the supreme power of the Romanov dynasty. The Provisional Priamurye Government headed by Spiridon Merkulov is abolished, and General Mikhail Diterikhs is elected as temporary dictator (August 5). By his decree No. 1 of August 8, Diterikhs renamed the Priamurye state into the Priamursky Zemsky Krai, the army into the Priamurye Zemstvo Host (Diterikhs himself led it, becoming the Zemstvo voivode [commander]).
The White forces led by Anatoly Pepelyaev land in Okhotsk and Ayan (“Siberian volunteer squad”). These forces fought for several months in Yakutia (the landing site was the only area of the Russian territory controlled by the Whites at the time of the formation of the USSR). They were defeated and taken prisoner by the Red detachments led by Ivan Strod and Stepan Vostretsov in the first half of 1923.
The offensive of the Zemtvo Host of the Priamursky Zemsky Krai, led by General Mikhail Diterikhs, against the forces of the Far Eastern Republic.
The expulsion of the “counter-revolutionary” intelligentsia from the Russian SFSR begins. On September 23, a group of “dissidents” including Aleksey Peshekhonov, Pitirim Sorokin, and others were sent out by train from Moscow to Riga. September 29 – departure from Petrograd of the steamer "Oberbürgermeister Haken" with philosophers Nikolay Berdyaev, Semyon Frank, Ivan Ilyin, Sergei Trubetskoy, historian Aleksander A. Kiesewetter, etc.) on board.
After its self-dismissal, the Far Eastern Republic (DVR) became part of the Russian SFSR as the Far Eastern region.
Self-dismissal of the Jewish Communist Party Poale Zion in the Soviet republics, the members of which join the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), RCP(b).
The Federative Union of Socialist Soviet Republics of Transcaucasia is transformed into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. The member republics preserve their independence.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established. The treaty on the establishment of the USSR, signed the day before in Moscow by representatives of the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR, and the Transcaucasian SFSR was approved by the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviets.
In most of the former Russian Empire’s territory, Soviet power won in the course of a long and bloody conflict.
April
3
April 10
–
May 20
April
16
June
6
June 8
–
August 7
August
10
June 15
–
July 19
July 23
–
August 10
Early September
September
End of September
October
4–25
November
15
December
December
13
December
30
