1800 Socialism attempted on Clyde
Welsh industrialist Robert Owen takes charge of a mill at New Lanark and develops it as an experiment in paternalistic socialism

1804 Harmony Society in Pennsylvania
George Rapp and his followers establish a utopian community in Pennsylvania and call it Harmony

1825 Robert Owen takes on New Harmony
The English socialist Robert Owen purchases New Harmony from the Rappists, to test his utopian theories in a new context

1842 Engels in charge of Manchester mill
The young Friedrich Engels is sent from Germany to manage the family cotton-spinning factory in Manchester

1844 Marx and Engels meet
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels meet in Paris and become life-long friends

1845 Engels describes working class life in Manchester
Friedrich Engels, after running a textile factory in Manchester, publishes The Condition of the Working Class in England

1847 Communist League founded in London
At a congress in London Engels persuades a group of radical Germans to adopt the name Communist League

1848 Communist Manifesto published in Paris
The Communist Manifesto, by Marx and Engels, is published in Paris with the ringing slogan: 'Workers of the world, unite!'

1848 Oneida Community
A utopian community dedicated to the sharing of both property and sexual favours is established by John Humphrey Noyes near Oneida, New York

1849 Marx settles in London
Expelled from Germany after the year of revolutions, Marx makes his home in tolerant London

1864 Marx leads First International
The First International is established in London, with Karl Marx soon emerging as the association's leader

1867 Kapital hits bookstalls
The first volume of Das Kapital is completed by Marx in London and is published in Hamburg

1887 Lenin's brother executed
Lenin's elder brother Alexander, while still a student, is executed for his part in a plot to assassinate the tsar, Alexander III

1889 Second International in Paris
The Second International is established by the Socialist parties of ten nations, meeting at a congress in Paris

1895 Lenin arrested and imprisoned
Lenin is arrested in St Petersburg, along with other members of the Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class

1900 Lenin edits Iskra
Lenin and comrades launch in Munich a radical newspaper, Iskra ('the spark')

1902 Lenin asks What is to be done?
In his pamphlet What is to be done? Lenin argues for early action to promote revolution

1903 More Bolsheviks than Mensheviks
Lenin's supporters become known as the Bolsheviks ('majority') as opposed to the Mensheviks ('minority') after a split at the party's Second Congress

1905 First Communist soviet
The first soviet ("council") of workers is set up in St Petersburg, introducing a word of great significance in Russian Communist history

1912 Bolsheviks become separate party
At a conference in Prague Lenin forms the Bolsheviks into a separate political party with himself as leader

1917  April Lenin returns to Russia with German help
The German authorities allow Lenin to travel home from Switzerland through Germany, hoping for Communist disruption of the Russian war effort

1917  April Lenin's April Theses
Lenin expounds in Petrograd the new theory of his April Theses, predicting the possibility of imminent revolution

1917 July 17 Armed rebels in Petrograd
An armed uprising in Petrograd disperses after Lenin declines to give support

1917 July Trotsky imprisoned, Lenin flees
Trotsky is imprisoned and Lenin flees to Finland as Russia's Provisional Government cracks down on the Bolsheviks

1917 October Lenin back in Petrograd
Lenin, in disguise, returns from Finland to Petrograd, where he hides in the flat of a party worker

1917 October 23 Bolsheviks plan insurrection
Lenin persuades the Bolshevik central committee to vote for an armed insurrection

1917 November 8 Lenin's Decree of Peace
Lenin issues a Decree of Peace, inviting Russia's enemies to enter into immediate peace negotiations

1917 November 8 Lenin confiscates Russian estates
Lenin's Decree on Land abolishes private ownership of large estates and promises the land to the peasants

1918  January I9 One-party state in Russia
Lenin dissolves the elected assembly in Petrograd to establish a one-party Soviet state

1918  March Russian Communist Party
The Bolsheviks, now in power, change their name to the more resounding Russian Communist Party

1918  March 3 Russia accepts Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
At Brest-Litovsk Lenin signs a peace treaty with Germany and Austria, ceding vast territories and valuable resources

1918  March 10 Moscow now Russia's capital
Lenin moves the capital of Russia from Petrograd back to Moscow

1918 War Communism and Food Brigades
Civil war enables the Bolsheviks to impose a rigid system of state control on the Russian economy, through War Communism and Food Brigades

1919  January I German Communist party
The Spartacus League transforms itself into the Communist party of Germany

1920 Communist uprising in Ruhr
A Communist uprising in the Ruhr is suppressed with difficulty by the German army

1921 Lenin smashes Kronstadt mutiny
With massive force, and huge casualties, Lenin puts an end to a naval mutiny at Kronstadt

1921 Lenin's New Economic Policy
In a major economic U-turn, Lenin's New Economic Policy allows peasants to hold markets and sell the surplus of their product

1921 Mao Zedong begins political career
Mao Zedong leads a delegation to the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai

1922 Lenin boosts Stalin's career
Lenin creates a powerful new post for Joseph Stalin, as General Secretary of the Communist Party

1922 Lenin temporarily incapacitated by stroke
Lenin has a stroke, removing him for five months from active control of party and state

1922 USSR has Stalin as midwife
Stalin devises the structure for a new federal state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

1922 Lenin has a second stroke
Lenin has a second stroke, putting him finally out of action in political terms

1923 Lenin fails to remove Stalin from power
Lenin's third stroke prevents the publication of his Testament, which urges upon the party the removal of Stalin

1923 Communist uprisings in German cities
Germany's communists organise uprisings in Saxony, Thuringia and Hamburg

1923 USSR formally established
The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) officially comes into being, with a newly written constitution

1924 Lenin dies and leaves power vacuum
Lenin's death is followed by an intense power struggle in the Kremlin between Stalin, Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev

1927 Communists established in Jiangxi
Communists seize power in Jiangxi province and establish the first soviet republic in China

1927 Jiang Jieshi launches coup
Right-wing Chinese army officer Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) launches an anti-Communist coup in the Canton region

1927 Stalin expels opponents
Stalin expels from the Communist party his main opponents, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky

1928 Jiang Jieshi establishes Guomindang regime
A second anti-Communist coup enables Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) to set up a National Government in Nanjing

1928 Stalin wins absolute power
Stalin achieves complete personal control in the USSR after removing all his rivals from the Politburo

1929 Stalin exiles Trotsky
Stalin concludes his long-standing rivalry with Trotsky, expelling him from the USSR three years after removing him from the Politburo

1931 Russia's peasants forced into factories
25 million peasants are moved from the land to provide cheap labour in Stalin's new factories

1934 Long March begins in Jiangxi
To escape the Kuomintang forces, the Chinese Communist army begins the Long March from Jiangxi province to Shaanxi

1934 Kirov assassinated
Sergei Kirov, head of the party in Leningrad, is assassinated in his office, giving Stalin the pretext for his first massive purge

1934 Josip Broz becomes Tito
Josip Broz, a leading member of the banned Communist Party of Yugoslavia, adopts the name Tito

1935 Mao builds power base
Mao Zedong wins control over the Chinese Communists during the Long March

1935 Kirov commemorated in company name
Leningrad's opera and ballet company is renamed the Kirov, in memory of the city's recently assassinated commissar

1935 Kim Il Sung leads guerrilla war
Kim Il Sung leads a Communist guerrilla campaign against the Japanese occupation of Korea

1936 Moscow show trials
Stalin stages the first of the Moscow show trials, designed to eliminate any surviving high-level opponents

1936 Shostakovich denounced
On Stalin's orders Dmitry Shostakovich is attacked in Pravda for providing 'chaos instead of music'

1937 Sweeping purges in Russia
At the same time as the Moscow show trials, millions are purged from the Russian Communist party nation-wide

1938 Beria is head of secret police
Lavrenty Beria is appointed head of Stalin's state security organization, the NKVD

1940 Trotsky assassinated
An assassin sent by Stalin kills the exiled Trotsky in his home in Mexico City

1940 To the Finland Station
In To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson discusses the development of socialism and revolution, culminating in Lenin and Trotsky

1940  from April 4 Massacre at Katyń
More than 4000 Polish officers are massacred at Katyń on Stalin's orders

1940 October 23 Tito heads Yugoslav Communists
Moscow appoints Tito to head the Communist Party of Yugoslavia

1941&nbIsp; May Hitler sets up murder squads
In preparation for the invasion of Russia, Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler set up Special Task Commandos (Einsatzkommando) to exterminate Communists and Jews

1943  March 20 Mao leads Chinese Communist Party
Mao Zedong becomes official leader of the Chinese Communist Party, as the elected Chairman of the Central Committee and the Politburo

1944 September 8 Bulgaria changes sides
Bulgaria changes to the Allied side and Communists take control in Sofia

1944 November Belgrade is liberated
Tito and his partisans, with Soviet assistance, liberate Belgrade

1944 December 21 Soviets set up government for Hungary
With Budapest still in German hands, the Soviets set up a provisional Hungarian government, at Debrecen

1944 December 26 Soviets encircle Budapest
The Soviet army surrounds the Hungarian capital, Budapest

1945 Solzhenitsyn sentenced for criticizing Stalin
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is sentenced to eight years in a Soviet labour camp for critizing Stalin in a private correspondence

1945  February 4 Summit at Yalta
Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill meet at Yalta to discuss Allied post-war plans

1945  February 11 Stalin promises free elections
Stalin, at Yalta, promises free elections in post-war eastern Europe

1945  March 6 Soviet-sponsored government in Romania
The Soviets instal a puppet government in Romania while the fight continues against Germany

1945  March 7 Tito in power in Yugoslavia
Tito becomes head of a provisional government in newly liberated Yugoslavia

1945 August 19 Vietminh take Hanoi
With the surrender of the Japanese, Vietminh guerrillas seize the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi

1945 September 2 Ho Chi Minh declares independence from France
Ho Chi Minh proclaims the democratic republic of Vietnam, independent of the colonial power, France

1946 Communists do well in Czech election
The Communists become the largest party in Czechoslovakia, winning 38% of the vote in a free election

1946 Hoxha takes power in Albania
Communist leader Enver Hoxha begins nearly 40 years as dictator of Albania

1947 Communists take control in Poland
An election campaign in Poland, marked by violence and the use of terror, brings a Communist landslide

1947 Truman Doctrine
President Truman defines postwar US policy by pledging support for any nation defending itself against Communism

1948 Communists seize Czechoslovakia
An armed coup, led by Klement Gottwald, imposes single-party Communist rule in Czechoslovakia

1948 Kim Il Sung governs North Korea
Kim Il Sung becomes prime minister of North Korea on the withdrawal of the Soviet occupying force

1948 June 24 USSR blockades Berlin
The Soviet Union imposes a blockade on Berlin by denying the other powers access through the land corridor to the city

1949 Jiang Jieshi resigns in China
Defeated by the Communists, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) resigns before the final collapse of his regime

1949 People's Republic of China
Mao Zedong, standing on the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing, proclaims the new People's Republic of China

1949  May 30 Independence for east Germany
The USSR grants nominal independence to east Germany as the newly established German Democratic Republic

1950 McCarthy in pursuit of Communists
A witch hunt begins when Senator Joseph McCarthy says he knows the names of 205 Communists in the US State Department

1953 Stalin dies
Joseph Stalin dies, four days after suffering a stroke

1953 Imre Nagy is Hungary's premier
Imre Nagy becomes prime minister of Hungary, but is driven out of office two years later by hard-line Communists because of his relative liberalism

1953 USSR tests hydrogen bomb
The first Soviet hydrogen bomb is successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan

1954 McCarthy hearings on US television
Senator McCarthy's Communist witch-hunt is broadcast live for several weeks on US television

1954 Oppenheimer subjected to security hearings
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb', is investigated for Communist sympathies and his security clearance is withdrawn

1954 Domino Theory
The term Domino Theory is coined to reflect President Eisenhower's view of how states might fall to Communism

1955 Russia and allies in Warsaw Pact
Russia forms the Warsaw Treaty Organization (or Warsaw Pact) with her east European allies, as a counterbalance to NATO

1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin
Nikita Khrushchev denounces Stalin, dead now for three years, at a party congress in the USSR

1956 Student protests in Hungary
Students are fired on in Budapest when protesting against repressive Communist policies

1956 Imre Nagy reinstated as prime minister
Confronted by a popular uprising, Communist leaders in Hungary bring back the reformist prime minister Imre Nagy

1956 Hungarian uprising crushed by Soviet tanks
Russian and Warsaw Pact troops invade Hungary to end the uprising and arrest Imre Nagy

1956 Kádár is Hungarian prime minister
The Kremlin imposes János Kádár on Hungary as head of a new government

1956 Castro launches guerrilla war in Cuba
Communist activist Fidel Castro returns from Mexico to Cuba to organize guerrilla warfare against the Batista regime

1957 Khrushchev survives plot
Nikita Khrushchev's position in the Soviet Communist party is secure after the failure of a plot to remove him

1958 Imre Nagy executed
The new hard-line Hungarian government headed by János Kádár tries and executes Imre Nagy

1958 Batista flees from Cuba
Dictator Fulgencio Batista flees from Cuba, leaving Havana open to Fidel Castro and his victorious guerrillas

1959 Castro rules Cuba
Fidel Castro begins more than four decades of authoritarian rule in Cuba

1959 Nixon in 'kitchen debate'
Vice-president Richard Nixon engages in a 'kitchen debate' with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev at a US exhibition in Moscow

1960 Vietcong is formed
The Vietcong, or NLF, is formed as a guerrilla force to liberate South Vietnam from the US-backed government

1961 Berlin Wall
The East German government erects the Berlin Wall to prevent an exodus of its citizens

1962 Frelimo fights for independent Mozambique
Frelimo emerges as a Marxist guerrilla group dedicated to winning independence for Mozambique

1962 Missile bases in Cuba ring alarm bells
US intelligence reveals nuclear missile bases under construction in Cuba, causing an international crisis

1962 US navy deployed round Cuba
President Kennedy sends the US navy to prevent delivery of Soviet missiles to Cuba

1962 Cuban missile crisis solved
A deal between President Kennedy and Soviet premier Khrushchev defuses the Cuban missile crisis

1963 Philby a Soviet spy
British diplomat Kim Philby defects to the USSR and is discovered to have been a Soviet spy

1963 Pol Pot heads Cambodian Communists
Saloth Sar, changing his name to Pol Pot, begins to build up the Cambodian Communist party and Khmer Rouge

1964 Khrushchev forced from office
Nikita Khrushchev is forced from office as Soviet leader by a conservative faction that includes Leonid Brezhnev

1964 Kosygin and Brezhnev share Soviet leadership
The USSR enters a brief period of coalition leadership by Alexei Kosygin as prime minister and Leonid Brezhnev as Party First Secretary

1966 Luna 10 orbits the moon
The Soviet spacecraft Luna 10 orbits the moon and broadcasts the Internationale to the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party

1966 Brezhnev emerges as sole leader
Leonid Brezhnev, taking the title General Secretary (last used by Stalin), makes it plain that he is the Soviet leader

1966 Liu and Deng denounced
Communist leaders Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping are attacked in China's Cultural Revolution as the biggest and worst 'capitalist roaders'

1966 Che Guevara in Bolivia
Che Guevara arrives in Bolivia in the hope of fomenting a left-wing revolution

1967 Che Guevara executed
Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara is captured and executed in Bolivia

1967 Ceauşescu is president
Nicolae Ceauşescu becomes president of the State Council of Romania

1968 Dubcek becomes Czech leader
Alexander Dubcek becomes first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist party, following pressure for reform from party intellectuals

1968 Prague Spring
New Czech leader Alexander Dubcek facilitates the Prague Spring, aiming in his words to provide 'socialism with a human face'

1968 Soviet tanks roll into Prague
Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring

1968 Dubcek arrested by Soviets
Reformist Czech leader Alexander Dubcek is arrested and flown to Moscow

1969 Husak becomes Czech leader
Moscow imposes Gustav Husak as first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, with the brief to reverse Dubcek's reforms

1970 Allende is president
Salvador Allende, heading a Socialist and Marxist coalition, is elected president in Chile

1971 Honecker replaces Ulbricht
With support from Moscow, Erich Honecker takes Walter Ulbricht's place as leader of East Germany

1973 Gulag Archipelago
The first volume of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, an exposé of Stalin's labour camps, is published in Paris

1975 Cubans and South Africans clash in Angola
Cuban troops, sent by Castro to Angola, clash with South African forces attempting to combat communism

1979 Jihad against communists in Afghanistan
Communist measures in Afghanistan provoke a Muslim jihad and the murder of more than 100 Russians in Herat

1979 Soviets invade Afghanistan
Soviet troops invade Afghanistan to suppress anti-communist anarchy

1980 Shipyard strike in Gdansk
Electrician Lech Walesa emerges as the leader of a strike in the Gdansk shipyard in Poland

1980 Solidarity established in Poland
A trade union, Solidarnośc (Solidarity), is formed by strikers in the Gdansk shipyard in Poland

1980 Walesa heads Solidarity
Lech Walesa is elected chairman of the newly formed Polish trade union movement Solidarnośc (Solidarity)

1981 Jaruzelski is Polish premier
The Kremlin appoints a general, Wojciech Jaruzelski, as prime minister of Poland

1981 Deng in control in China
Veteran Communist leader Deng Xiaoping secures his position as the real power in China's government

1981 Martial law in Poland
Polish prime minister Wojciech Jaruzelski imposes martial law and suspends Solidarnośc (Solidarity)

1982 Solidarity banned
The trade union movement Solidarnośc (Solidarity) is declared illegal by the Polish government

1982 Brezhnev dies in office
After 18 years as General Secretary of the Communist party in the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev dies in office

1985 Gorbachev calls for glasnost
New Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev brings glasnost ('openness') and perestroika ('reform') to the USSR

1988 Soviet withdrawal from Aghanistan
The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announces that Soviet troops will leave Afghanistan, handing victory to the mujaheddin

1989 Electoral success for Solidarity
Elections in Poland bring Solidarnośc nation-wide success, and the party is soon at the head of a coalition government

1989 Honecker resigns
Erich Honecker, leader of East Germany since 1971, is forced to resign after massive popular demonstrations

1989 Berlin Wall comes down
Citizens of East Berlin demolish the Berlin Wall, in what proves a symbolic end to the Cold War

1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
The Communist party relinquishes power without bloodshed in Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution

1989 Ceauşescu killed
Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife are captured and executed in a Romanian uprising

1989 Dubcek and Václav in Czech government
Alexander Dubcek is Speaker of Parliament and Václav Havel is President in the new democratic government of Czechoslovakia

1990 Yeltsin quits Communist party
Boris Yeltsin, impatient with the pace of reform under Gorbachev, resigns from the Communist party

1990 Walesa is president
Solidarnośc leader Lech Walesa wins Poland's first free presidential election

1991 Yeltsin elected Russian leader
Former Communist Boris Yeltsin is elected leader of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic

1991 Coup against Gorbachev fails
Boris Yeltsin foils a hard-line Communist coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, on holiday at the time in the Crimea

1991 Civil war in Somalia
Civil war in Somalia topples the Marxist dictator Mohamed Siad Barre

1991 Eight more members for CIS
Eight more Soviet Socialist republics vote to join the three founder members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

1991 Gorbachev resigns
Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the defunct USSR, handing power to Boris Yeltsin as president of the new Russian republic

1999 Guerrillas rule much of Colombia
Marxist guerrillas in Colombia, in partnership with drug cartels, control much of the south of the country

2013 May 27
The European Union lifts the ban on providing arms to the rebels in Syria