The soldiers of the Petrograd garrison mutiny on being ordered to the front

The Peter and Paul fortress is taken, giving the Bolsheviks control of Petrograd

Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace in Petrograd and arrest the ministers of the Provisional Government

Lenin issues a Decree of Peace, inviting Russia's enemies to enter into immediate peace negotiations

Lenin's Decree on Land abolishes private ownership of large estates and promises the land to the peasants

The Bolsheviks attempt to stifle opposition in the run-up to the election for Russia's new Constituent Assembly

The Cheka (origin of the KGB) is established to suppress political dissent in Russia

In Alexander Blok's poem The Twelve, Christ leads his apostles in support of Russia's revolution

The Russian artist Kasimir Malevich begins a series of White on White paintings

Supporters of the old regime within the Russian army prepare to use force against the new Bolshevik regime

Lenin dissolves the elected assembly in Petrograd to establish a one-party Soviet state

Lavr Kornilov leads the heroic Ice March which boosts the morale of the White Russians

The Bolsheviks, now in power, change their name to the more resounding Russian Communist Party

At Brest-Litovsk Lenin signs a peace treaty with Germany and Austria, ceding vast territories and valuable resources

Lenin moves the capital of Russia from Petrograd back to Moscow

Trotsky, given the task of creating an army for the Bolsheviks, conscripts peasants from the villages

Russia's peasants, victims of White and Red Terror, suffer atrocities from both sides in the civil war

Civil war enables the Bolsheviks to impose a rigid system of state control on the Russian economy, through War Communism and Food Brigades

Tsar Nicholas II and his wife and children are murdered by the Bolsheviks at Ekaterinburg

The Soviet system of Gulag slave labour camps is introduced, under the control of the secret service, the Cheka

A White army, advancing on Moscow, is stopped about 250 miles from the city

A White army occupies hills overlooking Petrograd before being driven back by Trotsky

The phrase Abstract Expressionism is first used, describing the work of Wassily Kandinsky

Vladimir Tatlin's model for a gigantic Monument to the Third International becomes one of the most significant examples of Constructivism

The civil war ends as the last White army on Russian soil escapes from the Crimea