CHRONOLOGY - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 425

(June) Marshal Tukhachevsky secretly tried and
executed together with half of the Red Army
officer corps.
(August) Major purge of Ukrainian leaders
begins.
Completion of collectivization.

(July) Soviet Union annexes Baltic states, as well
as Bessarabia and Bukovina (from Romania).
(November) Molotov's visit to Berlin.
Trotsky assassinated in Mexico.

1941
(April) Germany invades Yugoslavia.
Soviet Neutrality Treaty with Japan.
(June 22) Germany invades USSR.
Stalin names himself head of government.
(September) Kiev falls; 900-day siege of Lenin-
grad begins.
Mass evacuation of Volga Germans.
(October) Moscow is threatened; some of the
city is evacuated.
(December) Battle of Moscow; United States
enters World War II after Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor.
Beginning of deportations of Germans, Kalmyks,
Crimean Tatars, and several Caucasian ethnic
groups to Soviet Central Asia; continues until
1944.

1938
Publication of Stalin's History of the All-Russian
Communist Party: Short Course.
Study of Russian made compulsory throughout
Soviet Union.
Soviet and Japanese border clashes in Far East.
(March) Third Moscow show trial: Bukharin,
Rykov, and Yagoda tried and executed.
(September) Munich conference opens door to
dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.
(December) Yezhov succeeded by Beria as head
of NKVD.
Eisenstein's film Alexander Nevsky completed.

1938-1941
Third Five-Year Plan; completion interrupted by
World War II.

1941-1945
Soviet Great Patriotic War against Germany.

1939
(summer) Soviet-Japanese troops clash along
Mongolian frontier with Soviets victorious.
(August) Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact
signed by Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov
and German counterpart Ribbentrop.
(September) World War II in Europe begins with
German invasion of Poland; Russia takes over
eastern Polish territory; occupies Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania; armistice with Japan.
Eighteenth Party Congress (first since 1934).

1942
(July) Germans capture the Crimea.
Churchill visits Moscow.
Lend-Lease in full operation.

1942-1943
Battle of Stalingrad, considered turning point of
World War II. Battle begins in August 1942, Sovi-
ets counterattack in November 1942, and Ger-
man Sixth Army surrenders in February 1943.

1939-1940
Russo-Finnish “Winter War” (November-March).

1943
(May) Comintern is abolished.
(July) Battle of Kursk, USSR victorious; Allied
invasion of Sicily.
(September) Patriarchate is reestablished with
Metropolitan Sergei as patriarch.
Moscow Conference.
(November-December) Tehran Conference.

1940
Mikhail Bulgakov completes Master and Mar-
garita .
Mikhail Sholokhov completes Quiet Flows the
Don.
(June) Germany defeats France.