The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets endorsed the new Soviet власти by adopting the Decree on Peace (calling for an immediate armistice and peace talks) and the Decree on Land (abolishing private landed property and validating peasant land seizures). These acts set early Bolshevik priorities: ending World War I participation and transforming land relations.
The Congress of Soviets established the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) as the new executive authority, with Lenin as chairman. This created the core governmental structure of the Bolshevik regime after the October Revolution.
The Sovnarkom created the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) under Felix Dzerzhinsky to combat counterrevolution and sabotage. It quickly became a central instrument of coercion and political policing during the civil-war period.
Russia’s elected Constituent Assembly met in Petrograd but refused to recognize Soviet authority; Bolsheviks and Left SRs walked out, and the next day Soviet forces dispersed delegates and the government dissolved the Assembly—marking a decisive break with parliamentary legitimacy in favor of Soviet one-party power.
The Soviet government decreed the creation of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, laying the institutional foundation for Bolshevik military power during the Russian Civil War and foreign interventions.
Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, exiting World War I at the cost of major territorial losses. The treaty delivered on the Bolsheviks’ peace promise but intensified internal conflict and opposition, including from former coalition partners.
The Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the 1918 Constitution of the RSFSR, formalizing the Soviet system and embedding the regime’s class-based political order in constitutional law.
After speaking at a Moscow factory, Lenin was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt attributed to Socialist Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan. The event escalated Bolshevik claims of existential threat and helped precipitate intensified repression.
The Soviet government issued the decree “On Red Terror,” formally sanctioning mass repression and expanding the role of the Cheka amid civil war and political violence. The policy institutionalized terror as a tool of governance during the early Soviet period.
Sailors and civilians at Kronstadt revolted, demanding political freedoms and changes often summarized as “soviets without Bolsheviks.” The uprising dramatized popular discontent after War Communism and influenced the leadership’s turn toward economic liberalization.
At the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the party endorsed the New Economic Policy (NEP) shift away from War Communism and adopted the resolution “On Party Unity,” which banned factions—strengthening central party discipline while recalibrating economic policy.
A key NEP measure replaced compulsory grain requisition (prodrazvyorstka) with a tax in kind (prodnalog), creating stronger incentives for peasant production and enabling limited market mechanisms under continued state control of “commanding heights.”
Leaders of several Soviet republics signed the Declaration and Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, providing the legal framework for a new federal union centered in Moscow (ratified the following day).
The First All-Union Congress of Soviets ratified the treaty establishing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), institutionalizing a new union-level state structure that emerged from the Bolsheviks’ civil-war coalition of Soviet republics.
Vladimir Lenin died at his estate in Gorki. His death closed the formative phase of Bolshevik government and accelerated struggles over succession and policy direction inside the Communist Party and Soviet state.
Lenin's Bolshevik Government (1917–1924)
