Lenin persuades the Bolshevik central committee to vote for an armed insurrection

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

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

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

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

The Spartacus League transforms itself into the Communist party of Germany

A Communist uprising in the Ruhr is suppressed with difficulty by the German army

With massive force, and huge casualties, Lenin puts an end to a naval mutiny at Kronstadt

In a major economic U-turn, Lenin's New Economic Policy allows peasants to hold markets and sell the surplus of their product

Mao Zedong leads a delegation to the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai

Lenin creates a powerful new post for Joseph Stalin, as General Secretary of the Communist Party

Lenin has a stroke, removing him for five months from active control of party and state

Stalin devises the structure for a new federal state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

Lenin has a second stroke, putting him finally out of action in political terms

Lenin's third stroke prevents the publication of his Testament, which urges upon the party the removal of Stalin

Germany's communists organise uprisings in Saxony, Thuringia and Hamburg

The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) officially comes into being, with a newly written constitution

Lenin's death is followed by an intense power struggle in the Kremlin between Stalin, Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev

Communists seize power in Jiangxi province and establish the first soviet republic in China

Right-wing Chinese army officer Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) launches an anti-Communist coup in the Canton region

Stalin expels from the Communist party his main opponents, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky

A second anti-Communist coup enables Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) to set up a National Government in Nanjing