The Chronicles of Capitalism

Communism - Timeline of Events

1796

• Conspiracy of Equals - François-Noël Babeuf forms political organization aimed at replacing the French government with a more egalitarian form of leadership
  Babeuf argued for the abolition of private property and the redistribution of goods.
• May 10 - Babeuf and other leaders arrested

1797

• February 20 - May 26 - Trial of Babeuf and other leaders of the Conspiracy
• May 26 - Trial verdict - fifty-six of the sixty-five defenants acquitted
  seven sentenced to deportation
  Babeuf and another member of central Committee sentence to death
• May 27 - Babeuf guillotined

1818

• May 5 - Karl Heinrich Marx born in German city of Trier

1820

• November 28 - Friedrich Engels born in German city of Barmen, east of Cologne

1829

• American Thomas Skidmore publishes "The Rights of Man to Property" which advocates the confiscation of all existing property and its equal distribution through actions taken by state constitutional conventions
  property which individuals acquire during their lifetime is not to be passed to their heirs but reverts to the state for re-distribution

1830 - 1835

• Marx attends Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium in Trier

1830

• July - Oppositionists elected in French elections to the Chamber of Deputies
• July 25 - Charles X dissolves newly elected Chamber and censors the press
• July 27 - Police attempt to shut down four newspapers defying censorship order
  Police fire on a crowd gathered in Place du Palais Royal in the afternoon, killing several protesters
  Protesters erect barricades across Paris
• July 29 - Troops lodged at the Louvre flee when confronted by mob, allowing protesters to enter building
  King dismisses Prince de Polignac, as head of cabinet
• July 31 - Louis-Philippe of Orléans (Duc d'Orléans) becomes Lieutenant-General of France
• August 2 - Charles X abdicates
  Louis-Philippe becomes King

1832

• June 4 - Great Reform Bill becomes law after approval by British Parliament
  redistributes election districts to reflect population and expands suffrage

1834

• League of the Proscribed founded (Bund der Geaechteten)-
  German refugees living in Paris form labor organization

1835

• October - Marx begins legal studies at the University of Bonn
  Marx later becomes president of the Trier Tavern Club
  Will be arrested,and jailed, during the year for disturbing the peace
  Marx's father, Heinrich, decides studies should be continued elsewhere

1836

• October 22 - Marx registers as a law student at the University of Berlin
• League of the Just formed - More extreme, proletarian elements of the League of the Proscribed, secede to form the League of the Just
  part of program was the French communist advocacy of the abolition of private property as the surest way to change society at its foundation

1837

• June - Communist League (Kommunistenbund) formed
  League of the Just members, meeting at the group's first congress in London, change name to the Communist League
  Members agree to new slogan: "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!",
  replacing old slogan "All Men Are Brothers"

1838

• May - "People's Charter" published in England
  Beginning of Chartist movement
  program called for annual Parliaments, universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, the removal of property qualifications for membership in the House of Commons, the secret ballot, and payment of members of Parliament

1840

• Book "What Is Property?" by French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is published
  Proudhon's answer to his question - "Property is theft."
• French socialist Louis Blanc publishes "L'Organisation du Travail" (Organization of Work) advocating the replacement of the free market system of competition with a national economy - the government would take charge of the most important industries, with production being done in communal plants or national workshops instead of private factories

1844

• June 4 - Silesian weavers revolt - Group of weavers in the Prussian region of Silesia march on the home of a two Prussian industrialist brothers demanding higher pay, then attack house and destroy it
• June 5 - Crowd of as many as five thousand weavers returns and begins attacking homes and factories, destroying machines and looting and ransacking residences and offices
  Prussian military is called in, fires on the crowd and kills 35 protestors
• Summer - Marx begins writing for Paris-based German-language weekly Vowarts! (Forward!)
  Publication is rumored to be financed by Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm and an Austrian spy, Adalbert von Bornstedt, serves as an editorial assistant
• August 23 - Karl Marx meets Friedrich Engels for first time.

1845

• January - French interior minister issues expulsion order against Marx and members of Vowarts! staff, giving them twenty-four hours to leave Paris and additional time to leave France altogether
• February 5 - Marx arrives in Belgium after expulsion from France
• March - Violent political-religious clashes in Lucerne, Switzerland, leave some one hundred people dead
• Friedrich Engels publishes "The Condition of the Working Class in England"
• Engels, on a trip through the Rhineland promoting communism, attracts the attention of the police, who describe him in a report as a "rabid communist" who wanders about as a man of letters
• December - Marx renounces his Prussian citizenship

1846

• January - Marx, Engels, and Philippe Gigot, a Belgian librarian, begin organizing a Communist Correspondence Committee, to promote an international theme
• February - Peasants in Galician region of Poland revolt and kill hundreds of nobles
  revolt spreads to Cracow, where a Polish revolution is declared but the movement is suppressed after ten days
• Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's book "The Philosophy of Poverty" is published

1847

• February - Marx and Engels join the League of the Just
• June - The League of the Just, meeting in London, changes its name to the Communist League
• League adopts a new slogan: "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"
  replacing slogan: "All Men Are Brothers"
• Fall - Swiss government goes to war against seven Catholic regions that had chosen to secede rather the abide by a new liberal constituion
  after twenty-six days of fighting, liberals win
• Fall - "Reform banquets" held in Paris - meetings held in private venues to avoid violation of legal restrictions on public meetings - in which anti-government grievances and reform proposals aired
  one of reform proposals was for the expansion of the franchise
• December - Communist League congress, meeting again in London, adopts a new aim: "The overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgois society, which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."

1848

• January - Marx finishes the Communist Manifesto, and mails the twenty-three page document to London
• German printer, J.E. Burghard, running a print shop on Liverpool Street in London, prepares manuscript for printing
• January 12 - Sicilians in Palermo, Sicily, revolt against authorities - after a month of fighting, insurgents sack the Royal Palace and force government troops to withdraw
• John Stuart Mill publishes "Principles of Political Economy"
• January 29 - French police in Paris break into Friedrich Engels apartment and give him twenty-four hours to leave France or face extradition to Prussia
• February 22 - Planned reform banquet in Paris banned by government sparking street protests
• February 23 - Crowds gather again, some erecting barricades in the streets
  National Guard forces and police fire on crowds
  some 370 people are killed by the end of the day
• February 24 - Protesters manage to erect 1500 barricades across Paris during the night
  Military commander orders troops to cease fire in morning
  Louis-Philippe abdicates and flees to England
• Provisional Government formed and Second Republic proclaimed
• February 25 - new ministry proclaims belief in the right of all citizens to work and universal male suffrage
• February 27 - Demonstration in Brussels, partially in response to rising unemployment in the Belgian textile industry, turns violent when police attack protesters
• February 28 - Belgian police spy reports seeing Marx exchanging 2,100 francs in bank notes with two men, possibly part of an effort to buy weapons for the protection of the German refugees in Belgium, who were being blamed for the violence the day before
• February - Burghard completes printing of the 800 copies of the Manifesto at the end of February, enclosed in a dark green cover, with the title "Manifesto of the Communist Party" -
  while the Communist League had been created, there was, at the time, no Communist Party
• Manifesto dramatically opens with the line - "A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism"
  Marx goes on to declare that, Communist theory focuses on the "Abolition of private property."
• March 2 - King Leopold I signs order expelling Marx from Belgium and forbidding him from returning
• March 13 - Police open fire on demonstrators in Vienna, killing fifteen people - protests spread and by end of the day Prince Clemens Wnzel von Metternich, Austrian chancellor, resigns and flees to England
• March 14 - Pope Pius IX grants Papal states a constitution
• March 17-18 - Venice experiences two days of anti-Habsburg rioting
• March 18-19 - Protesters in Berlin erect barricades; Prussian troops fire on protesters but King withdraws troops to avoid further bloodshed
• March 18-23 - Anti-Hapsburg rioters in Milan receive support from peasants, who fire at troops
• March - June - National Workshops program established in France - public works program to provide jobs for the unemployed - by June, 120,000 Parisians employed in workshops
• Workshops prove popular with workers, who receive two francs a day while employed; one franc a day when not
• Workshops create resentment in rural France, since high cost of maintaining programs adds to national budget deficit, which is paid for by an increase in the land tax of 45 per cent and reinforces impression that Parisian idlers are living off government hand-outs
• May 18 - Frankfurt Parliament meets
• June 21 - Decree abolishing National Workshops is published, bringing protesters onto streets
  Government responds with force, creating twenty-four battalions of Mobile Guards -
  Some 1,500 protestors are killed in the immediate fighting, another 3,000 are killed in a series of reprisals
• October 18 - Fighting in Frankfurt between supporters of Franfurt Parliament and more radical opposition
• November 10 - Prussian Field Marshall Wrangel, with 40,000 troops, enters Berlin and disarms citizen's guard
• December 10 - Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, wins presidential election

1849

• February 9 - Roman Republic declared and Pope driven into exile
• May 3 - Street fighting breaks out in Dresden, Saxony - some 250 will be killed in the fighting
• May 9 - Prussian troops enter Dresden and suppress revolt
• July 3 - French troops, sent by Louis Napoleon Bonapart into Italy, occupy Rome, restoring the Pope and suppressing the Republic
• August 22 - Austrian troops re-capture Venice and suppress Venetian Republic

1851

• May - Arrest of the Communist League members in Cologne
• December 1-2 - Louis Napoleon overthrows the French government in a coup d'état
  troops are sent in to occupy Paris; police agents arrest seventy-eight opposition leaders
• December 4 - Troops fire on protesters in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine district of Paris, killing some two hundred people but ending resistance

1852

• October 4 - Start of the Cologne Communist Trial - Communist League members had been charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Prussian government
• November 4 - Verdict in Cologne Communist Trial - Seven of the eleven defendants found guilty; sentenced to three to six years imprisonment
  Marx, in a meeting in London, a week after the verdict, proposes that the Communist League be dissolved - members agree
• November - French vote to restore Empire
• December 2 - Louis Napoleon proclaimed emperor of France (Napoleon III)

1864

• September - Inaugural meeting of the International Working Men's Association (The International) (IWMA) held at St. Martin's Hall near Covent Garden in London
• October - Marx writes an "Address to the Working Classes" for the General Committee of the International, which addresses the general state of the working classes and labor movement since 1845

1867

• September - "Capital" (Das Kapital) Volume I is published

1870

• July 19 - France declares war on Prussia - marking the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War
• September 2 - Emperor Napoleon III and 100,000 French troops surrender to Prussian forces at Sedan
• September 4 - Léon Gambetta declares a French republic from a window ledge of the Hôtel de Ville
• September 19 - Prussian troops reach Paris and battle French army outside the walls of Paris
  French troops retreat into Paris and Prussian forces surrounding Paris begin a siege
• October 31 - General Bazaine surrenders French army of 200,000 at Metz
• November 29 - Great Sortie - French forces in Paris attack Prussian lines but fail to lift siege and call off attack after two days of fighting after suffering losses of some 5,000 men
• Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov (known after 1901 by his pseudonym - Lenin) born in Simbirsk on the Volga in Russia

1871

• January 5 - Prussians begin bombardment of Paris itself, while continuing to attack nearby French forts -
  by January 7 rate of bombardment will reach four hundred shells per day
• January 18 - Prussians hold ceremony at Versailles' Hall of Mirrors proclaiming Prussia's King Wilhelm Emperor of Germany
• January 18 - French forces make another attempt to break Prussian siege at Buzenval near Versailles but call off attack after losing possibly as many as 10,000 dead
• January 23 - Paris crowd attacks Mazas prison and frees Gustave Florens and other republican and radical leaders being held there
  when a crowd gathers outside the Hôtel de Ville in the afternoon, government troops open fire, killing five people and wounding eighteen
• January 27 - French government signs an armistice with Germany
• February 8 - French national elections - out of 750 National Assembly seats - 450 won by monarchists; 150 won by republicans; 20 by far-left
• February 26 - National Assembly ratifies peace treaty
• March 13 - National government, remaining in Bordeaux, issues decree that debts and rents, due since November, are to be paid, orders six newspapers closed, and condemns to death the men involved in the October takeover of the Hôtel de Ville
• March 18 - French government, beginning at three in the morning, sends 25,000 troops into Paris and takes possession of most of National Guard's heavy artillery
  Artillery at the National Guard munitions park on the Butte Montmarte has not been retrieved before morning
  Military units trying to retrieve guns are confronted by a mob and two generals, Claude Lecomte and Clément Thomas, are taken prisoner and then executed
• March 26 - Parisians vote to elect own government
• March 27 - Elected government proclaimed as the "Commune of Paris"
• April 2 - Government artillery begins bombardment of Paris - Cannonade will continue through May
• April 3 - Gustave Florens, one of the Commune leaders, is captured by government forces and killed
• May 21 - beginning of Bloody Week - After discovering an unguarded gate, French government forces manage to get 70,000 troops within the walls of Paris
  Government troops begin executing captured Parisian communards - forty-two men, three women, and four children are executed in just one instance in retribution for the March 18th killings of Generals Lecomte and Thomas
• May 24 - 25 - Paris consumed by flames as wooden buildings catch fire - the Tuileries, the Palais Royal, the Palais de Justice, and part of the Louvre impacted by flames
• May 25 - Archbishop of Paris and five priests are executed by National Guard units
• May 28 - Commander of French national forces, General Marshal MacMahon, declares delivery of Paris
• Estimated 40,000 taken prisoner during Bloody Week and period after; between 20,000 and 25,000 men, women, and children were killed; some 3,000 died in prison, adn 14,000 were jailed for life
• May - Treaty of Frankfurt
• May 30 - Marx completes thirty-five page pamphlet titled "The Civil War in France" for the International General Council in London -
  writing proves to be Marx's most successful writing to date, propels him into the international spotlight, and earns him notoriety as the "Red Terrorist Doctor"
• August - First of twenty-six courts martial of 40,000 prisoners begins near Versailles
  trials will continue until 1875 - twenty-three death sentences will be carried out; seventy-two death sentences will be commuted; 251 sentenced to forced labor for life; 1,160 sentenced to transportation to a fortified place; and 3,417 sentenced to simple transportation (most to New Caledonia in the South Pacific)

1872

• Over 20,000 Communard prisoners from the Paris uprising acquited

1879

• Joseph Vissarionovich Dzugashvily (Joseph Stalin) born near Tiflis, in the Russian state of Georgia

1880

• French National Assembly passes amnesty bill for the accused Paris Commune participants

1883

• March 14 - Karl Marx dies in London
• March 17 - Marx buried in Highgate Cemetary

1886

• February - May - Great Southwest Strike - Members of the Knights of Labor strike Jay Gould's Texas and Pacific rail line
• Great Upheaval - Great Southwest Strike leads to strikes across the US - 1,400 strikes against 11,562 businesses during 1886
• May 3 - Police fire into a crowd of workers striking at the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago, killing six
• May 4 - Knights of Labor call an end to the Great Southwest Strike
• May 4 - Haymarket Riot - Unkown bomber throws explosive device into midst of police in Chicago, killing seven policemen and wounding fifty others; police respond by firing into crowd, killing at least three civilians

1887

• Future Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek born to a salt-merchant family near foreign treaty port of Ningbo in Zhejiang province of China
• November 13 - "Bloody Sunday" - An estimated 100,000 demonstrators, gathered near London's Trafalgar Square, protesting unemployment and supporting the right to free assembly, are attacked by police - no one dies, but sixty are injured seriously enough to require hospitalization
• November - Four accused bombers in the Haymarket riot are hanged in Chicago; four of the eight accused had been acquited

1889

• July 14 - Second International Working Men's Association (Second International) opens in Paris

1893

• Mao Zedong born to a farming family in Hunan province

1895

• August 5 - Friedrich Engels dies at home

1901

• Eugene V. Debs, a lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana, forms American Socialist Party

1903

• Russian Social Democratic Labor Party second congress held in London -
  Vladimir Lenin's candidates for the editorial staff of "Iskra" (The Spark) win by a vote of 19 votes to 17
  Lenin's followers become known thereafter as "Bolsheviki" - the Russian word for 'majority'
  losing faction become known as "Mensheviki" - 'men of the minority'

1905

• January 9 - "Bloody Sunday" - Workers demonstrating outside the Czar's Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, are fired on by guards and charged by Cossack cavalry, leaving between 200 to 500 dead and some 800 injured
• Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W) (Wobblies) formed by William D. "Big Bill" Haywood
• Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg killed when house dynamited following mining strike

1911

• November - Jiang Kanghu founds first Chinese Socialist party

1912

• January 1 - New Republic of China proclaimed, with a provisional government established at Nanking, China - Dr. Sun Yat-sen declared President
• February 12 - Emperor Puyi abdicates
• March - Sun Yat-sen resigns presidency in favor of General Yuan Shi Kai
• July - Nicholas II and his family are murdered in Yekaterinburg

1916

• June 6 - General Yuan Shi Kai dies of uremia

1917

• February - Shortages of food and fuel in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) lead to street demonstrations
• February 26 - Troops open fire on demonstrators in Znamenskaya Square, killing some forty people
• Units of the Petrograd garrison mutiny and refuse orders to fire on demonstrators
• February 27 - Members of the Duma form a Provisional Government
• March 2 - Nicholas II abdicates
• April - Lenin returns to Petrograd after living in Switzerland
• October 24/25 - Bolshevik units take control of key positions in Petrograd
• October 25 - Lenin releases statement declaring the fall of the Provisional Government and assumption of power by the Soviets (local bodies or committees presumed to represent the popular will)
• October 26 - Opposition to the coup ends when troops defending the Winter Palace leave, allowing the Bolshviks to enter and arrest the Provisional Government cabinet members.

1918

• March - Treaty of Brest-Litovsk - Russia accepts German terms in return for an end to participation in World War I
• July - Nicholas II and his family are murdered in Yekaterinburg

1919

• March - socialists meeting in Moscow form the Third International (Communist International) (Comintern)
• June 2 - Newly appointed Attorney General of the United States A. Mitchell Palmer narrowly escapes death from a bomb attack which destroys his home in Washington, D.C.
• September 1 - American Communist Labor Party and Ameircan Communist Party formed in Chicago
• November 7 - Beginning of "Palmer Raids" - Federal agents and local police round up and arrest suspected communists in cities - New York, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago - across the US - many of arrested individuals are beaten and rooms are ransacked in searches, on the orders of Attorney General Palmer
• November 8 - New York Lusk Committee (Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities, chaired by New York state senator Clayton R. Lusk) conducts operation in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, detains nearly 1,000 individuals in raids - all but thirty-seven are released for lack of evidence to support detention
• December 20 - 249 immigrant detainees from raids, including Emma Goldman, sail from New York on the "Buford," dubbed the "Soviet Ark" under deportation orders, for Russia.

1920

• January 1 - Chicago police detectives and squads of police, at the direction of Cook County state's attorney, Maclay Hoyne, datain over two hundred suspects in raids of Communist Party offices around the city
• Friday, January 2 - Second of Palmer Raids - Federal agents and local police conduct raids in thirty-three cities and small towns across the U.S., making over 2,500 arrests, and detaining some 5,000 by the end of the weekend
• May 1 - Palmer warnings about a revolutionary plot to overthrow the U.S. government on May 1 (May Day), lead New York authorities to call out entire police force to defend city and Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Chicago officials to place extra guards around public buildings and homes of top figures
  lack of violence at any of gatherings leads to ridiculing of Palmer - New York Tribune runs headline "Red Plot Fell Flat"
• May - August - Communist Trial in Chicago - Clarence Darrow defends twenty Communist Labor Party charged under the Illinois Overthrow Act with sedition - all twenty found guilty
• June 28 - July 1 - A. Mitchell Palmer fails to win presidential nomination at Democratic Convention in San Francisco

1921

• July 1 - First plenary meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held in Shanghai

1924

• January - Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) created when new constitution adopted
• January - Lenin dies

1925

• Korean Communist Party organized in Seoul

1926

• Fidel Castro born - son of a Spanish immigrant who had become a wealthy farmer in Cuba

1927

• March 21 - General Labor Union in Shanghai launches general strike involving some 600,000 workers
• April 12 - Chiang Kai-shek engineers crackdown on Shanghai protesters - union headquarters are attacked, union members are killed and arrested
• April 13 - Guomindang (National People's party) troops fire on labor protesters with machine guns, killing almost 100
  over next several weeks union members will be arrested and executed and the General Labor Union organizations will be outlawed
• May - Fighting between anti-communist Nationalist forces and peasant forces leaves thousands dead
• September - "Autumn Harvest Uprisings" - Mao Zedong organizes small peasant force and launches attacks on small towns near Changsha but local military suppresses force
• December 11 - "Canton commune" - Communist troops and workers seize police stations, barracks, post and telegraph offices in Canton and announce a "Soviet of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies" authority in charge of the city
• Anti-Communist troops put down revolt after two days, executing Communists, some by loading onto boats and drowning in river

1928

• October - First Five-Year Plan goes into effect in the Soviet Union
• Comintern closes down Korean Communist Party

1929

• Mao sets up Jiangxi Soviet in town of Ruijin in the mountainous region of Jiangxi province

1931

• September 18 - "Mukden Incident" - Japanese forces set off explosives on stretch of railway line outside Mukden and capture city, leading to Japanese control of Manchuria

1932

• March - Japanese install former Chinese Emperor Puyi as "chief executive" of the state of Manchukuo, created from the occupied region of Manchuria

1934

• October 16 - "Long March" begins - Communist forces break out from Jiangxi province, escaping encircling forces of Chiang Kai-shek's Guomindang army
  Remnants of army - 8,000 to 9,000 of the original force of 80,000 - will reach Shaanxi province on October 20, 1935, after a trek of almost 6,000 miles

1936

• June - Kamenev and Zinoviev arrested - beginning of Stalin's Great Purge (Great Terror) - an estimated 700,000 executed between 1936 and 1939

1937

• July - Fighting between Chinese and Japanese troops around the "Marco Polo Bridge" (Lugouqiao) leads to Japanese attack on Wanping and first battle of World War II
• December 13 - Japanese troops enter city of Nanjing - over next seven weeks will engage in violent attacks, killing an estimated 12,000 civilians and 30,000 former soldiers, in addition to some 20,000 rape victims

1939

• All top Korean Communists living in Moscow arrested and shot, accused of being Japanese spies

1943

• Cairo Conference - Allies agree to restore Korean independence after the war

1945

• February - Yalta Conference - Big Three - the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union, represented by Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, meet at Yalta, in the Crimean, and agree to the postwar division of Eastern Europe
• March 9 - Japanese army units arrest French officials in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand following the fall of the Vichy government in France.
• March 11 - Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai abbrogates 1884 Franco-Annamese Treaty and proclaims Vietnam an independent state.
• April - Mao Zedong convenes seventh national congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at Yan'an
• July - Potsdam Conference - Allies agree to divide control of the Korean Peninsula - the Soviet Union would occupy the part of Korea north of the 38th parallel, the United States the area south of the 38th parallel
• August - Nationalist Sukarno proclaims the new sovereign state of Indonesia
• September 2 - Ho Chi Minh declares the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV).
• September 2 - Vietminh (League for the Independence of Vietnam), under Ho Chi Minh, proclaim a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)
  beginning of a guerilla war against French forces, determined to recover their former colony
• September 12 - British and French troops occupy Saigon.
• September 22 - French, with forces of the 11th Colonial Infantry Regiment, released from confinement by British troops in Saigon, take over major administrative facilities, re-establishing French colonial rule.
• November - French ships bombard Vietnamese section of Haiphong.
• December - Moscow Conference - US and the Soviet Union agree to form a joint commission on the formation of a provisional government for Korea
• November - Battle of Surabaya in Indonesia - Six hundred British soldiers, including their commander, Brigadier Aubertin Mallaby, die to maintain Dutch control of Indonesia; nine thousand Indonesians are killed in the battle.

1946

• Chinese Agricultural Association land reform conference in Shanghai - CCP representative discusses Communist program of land redistribution to peasants
• CCP reorganizes military forces as People's Liberation Army
• Summer - Nationalist forces retake counties held by Communists in Jiangsu province - returning landlords/landowners take revenge on peasants, jailing or executing those who had dispossessed them

1947

• Guomindang (Nationalist) troops reconquer CCP base of Yan'an region - returning landlords and government forces engage in executions and acts of retribution on peasants who had benefited from land reform

1948

• March - Communist forces retake Yan'an region
• April - City of Luoyang falls to Communist forces
• June 24 - Russians stop road and rail traffic to and from Berlin
• May - Syngman Rhee declares the "Republic of Korea" (ROK) in Seoul, following elections
• July - "Peking massacre" - Government forces in Peking fire on student demonstrators, displaced by fighting - killing fourteen and wounding over 100
• City of Jinan, in Shandong province, falls to Communists
• September - Kim Il Sung names new government in North Korea the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)
• Sukarno's forces in Indonesia defeat forces of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI)

1949

• January - City of Tianjin falls to Communist forces under Lin Biao
• January 21 - Chiang Kai-shek resigns as president
• January 31 - Communist troops enter Peking, after Nationalist general surrenders city
• April 23 - Nanjing falls to Communists
• August 29 - "First Lightning" - Soviet Union conducts a successful test of a nuclear bomb in northeast Kazakhstan
• October 1 - Mao Zedong, at a ceremony in Peking, announces the founding of the People's Republic of China
• Indonesia, under Sukarno, achieves independence from the Netherlands

1950

• February 9 - Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy delivers Lincoln Day address to local Republicans in Wheeling, West Virginia, including a declaration that "I have here in my hand a list of 205 members of the Communist Party still working and shaping policy in the State Department"
• June 25 - North Korean troops cross the thirty-eighth parallel and invade South Korea, starting the Korean War, which will last until a truce is signed in July 1953
• July 7 - UN Security Council passes resolution creating United Nations Command (UNC), under the authority of the US. General Douglas MacArthur is appointed its commander
• October 19 - North Korean capital, Pyongyang, falls to UN forces. Chinese force of two hundred thousand enters Korea

1951

• Ho Chi Minh sets up Vietnam Workers' Party (VWP) to act as a Communist core within the Viet Minh front

1952

• March 10 - Fulgencio Batista, former president, seizes power in Cuba in a military coup

1953

• March 5 - Joseph Stalin dies after suffering a stroke on March 2
• July 26 - Fidel Castro and a handful of supporters attack the Moncado barracks in Santiago, Cuba hoping to secure weapons - fighting between Castro supporters and troops leaves three rebels and nineteen soldiers dead
• Castro caught shortly after attack and sentenced to fifteen years in prison
• July 27 - Armistice in Korea signed at Panmunjom

1954

• May 6 - French garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrenders to Vietminh force
• July 21 - Geneva Truce Agreement following surrender divides Vietnam in two - Communist republic under Ho Chi Minh is established in the north, a French-backed government in the south is to be governed by Ngo Dinh Diem
• December 2 - US Senate votes, 67 to 22, to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy

1955

• Fidel Castro released from prison after an amnesty - travels to Mexico to raise a revolutionary army to topple Batista
  meets Ernesto "Che" Guevara

1956

• November 24 - Castro, Che Guevara and eighty-two men, leave Mexico on a small boat, the "Granma," for Cuba
• December 2 - Castro's party lands on a beach in Cuba's Oriente province
• December 5 - Government soldiers discover and attack Castro party - fighting results in death or capture of most of group - Castro and Che, with attack survivors, numbering less than twenty, escape into mountains
• Castro's cause attracts growing number of followers over the next three years

1957

• May 2 - Senator Joseph R. McCarthy dies at forty-eight years of age

1958

• May - Batista begins military offensive in the Sierra Maestra against Castro but rebel victories force withdrawal
• November - December - Castro's army begins move toward Havana, capturing towns as advance

1959

• January 1 - Batista leaves Cuba for Dominican Republic and Castro assumes power
• January - Vietnam Workers' Party (VWP) approves of a "people's war" against South Vietnam and begins infiltrating cadres into the south through Laos, along what would be known as the "Ho Chi Minh trail"
• February 7 - Castro declares Cuba a Socialist Republic
• April - Castro visits United States
• Cuban exiles begin flying bombing missions against Cuba, from Florida airports

1960

• February - Soviet deputy premier Anastas Mikoyan visits Cuba - promises financial aid and agrees that the USSR will supply Cuba with cheap oil in exchange for Cuban exports of sugar
  when US-owned refineries refuse to process Soviet oil, Castro nationalizes them
• March - CIA begins active covert operations against Cuba, providing military training to Cuban exiles, and using its agents in Cuba to sabotage arms shipments and industry
• October - US imposes total trade blockade on Cuba in retaliation for nationalization of US investments in Cuba

1961

• January - Eisenhower breaks off diplomatic relations with Cuba before leaving office
• April 17 - Bay of Pigs invasion - US lands force of 1,400 anti-Communist Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba - US failure to supply air support and strong Cuban response results in death or capture of invasion force

1962

• July - First Soviet military personnel arrive in Cuba after Nikita Khruschev decides to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba
• September - Soviet missiles begin arriving in Cuba
• October 22 - Cuban Missile Crisis - US President John F. Kennedy announces naval blockade of Cuba until Soviet nuclear missiles are withdrawn from Cuba
• October 28 - Missile crisis ends when Krushchev agrees to withdraw all missiles from Cuba in return for a US pledge not to invade Cuba and the eventual removal od American missiles in Turkey

1964

• October - China conducts a successful test of an atomic bomb

1965

• September 30 - Communist junior officers in Indonesia attempt coup by murdering six generals
• Surviving generals, under Suharto, take control of Jakarta, outlaw the Indonesian Communist Party, and organize reprisal attacks which result in the deaths of at least half a million people

1975

• April 17 - Communist Khmer Rouge overrun Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, toppling US sponsored leader Lon Nol
• April 30 - Last U.S helicopter evacuation flight leaves US Embassy roof in Saigon, as U.S. pulls out of Vietnam
• April 30 - South Vietnamese President Duong van Minh surrenders to provisional revolutionary government of the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong)

1989

• November 9 - Berlin Wall comes down - symbolizing the end of Soviet rule over East Germany

1991

• Three Baltic republics - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - declare themselves independent of the Soviet Union
• August - Units of the Russian army attempt to oust Mikhail Gorbachev in a coup - lacking support, coup collapses after three days
• Christmas Day - Mikhail Gorbachev resigns