The

Foundation

of

the

City

The city is believed to have been founded in 1147 by Prince Yury Dolgoruky, who built a hunting lodge on the site, high on the hill above the confluence of the Moscow and Neglina Rivers. This lodge gradually developed into a small settlement and then a minor citadel when wooden fortifications and towers were added in 1156. As the small town of Moscow grew and developed, Russia was experiencing a dramatic and tumultuous period in its history. The early 12th century saw the collapse of the great medieval civilization of Kievan Rus and ensuing chaos as much of the Kievan population fled north to the Upper Volga region, where Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky established a new capital in the town of Vladimir. Just half a century later the Mongols invaded European Russia, surging across the vast Siberian steppes and laying waste to Moscow and hundreds of other Russian towns and villages. The Mongol leaders, the Tartar Khans, allowed the princes of Vladimir and other towns to rule but demanded enormous bounties from them in gold, furs and slaves to ensure their goodwill. The rise of Muscovy

Moscow was first recognized as a principality under Daniil (12631303), the youngest son of Grand Prince Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod. His grandson, Ivan Kalita (1325-41) found particular favor with the Khan for his tax-collecting abilities and not only married the Khan's daughter and became the Grand Prince of Vladimir, but saw the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church moved in 1326 from Vladimir to Moscow in his honor. The principality of Muscovy (as it was then named) grew increasingly powerful, profiting from its strategic location between two major rivers and on many of Russia's main trade routes. The 14th century saw the power of the vast Mongol-Tartar Golden Horde beginning to wane, as it suffered internal power struggles and a historic defeat at the hands of Dmitry Donskoy's massed Russian troops. During the 15th century Moscow saw an unprecedented flourishing of the ecclesiastical arts under the famous icon painters Theophanes the Greek, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Cherny and in 1453 the Byzantine capital of

Constantinople fell to the Turks, leaving Moscow as the only remaining bastion of the Orthodox faith. Ivan the Great

Grand Prince Ivan III (Ivan the Great (1462-1505)), empowered by a politically shrewd marriage to the Byzantine noble Sofia Paleologue, finally defeated the Mongol Tartars and reunited the feuding Russian principalities. He regained power over a vast area of Russian territory, pushed the ambitious Lithuanians back and even acquired the fiercely independent and wealthy principality of Novgorod. To celebrate Ivan ordered the reconstruction of the Kremlin on a vast scale and drafted in architects from Italy and all over Russia to supervise the building of brick ramparts and stone cathedrals. Although Moscow remained a predominantly wooden city until the 17th century, Ivan encouraged the building of stone parish churches throughout Bely Gorod, the district neighboring the Kremlin. The 16th century saw Moscow's population rise to some 100,000 people, making it one of the largest cities in Europe at that time. Under Vasily III's reign the city's famous Red Square was cleared as a place for public meetings but the ruler's untimely death left a 3-year old Ivan the Terrible too young to rule and prompted a 15-year long power struggle for control of the capital Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible assumed the throne in 1547 at the age of seventeen and immediately proclaimed himself Tsar, instead of Grand Duke. Ivan justly deserved his reputation as a tyrant and his reign was peppered with battles with foreign invaders. Kazan was finally wrestled from the grasp of the Tartars in 1552 and St. Basil's Cathedral was built on Red Square to celebrate the occasion. Ivan seized Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea two years later, and having repelled the Tartars completely, he looked west to the Duchy of Livonia, which he invaded despite protests from Poland and Sweden.

In 1560 the Tsar was devastated by the death of his beloved wife Anastasia and turned on his once favored courtiers and nobles, blaming them for her death. Although Ivan abdicated in 1564 in protest, he was urged back to power and began a rule of terror never before seen in Russian history. He divided the country into two clean-cut spheres, the one (the oprichnina) encompassing his personal domain, and the other (the zemshchina) representing the rest. Ivan broke the power of the Muscovite boyars, exiling thousands of them to Siberia, and created a new militia. These hand-picked oprichniki, as he named them, were devoted to his orders and were encouraged to rape, loot, burn, kill and torture in the Tsar's name. They spread terror throughout Russia, culminating in the atrocious massacre of Novgorod in 1569, when as many as 60,000 citizens were tortured to death for supposedly plotting to side with Poland. In 1571 the Tartars raided Moscow, burning much of the city and taking thousands of citizens away as slaves. Ivan fled to Yaroslavl, where he spent much of his remaining decade in power plotting to usurp the Polish throne. In 1581 a combined Polish and Swedish invasion prompted the Tsar to concede Livonia to the Poles and just two years later Ivan the Terrible died leaving two unpromising heirs to the throne. He had killed his eldest son, Tsarevich Ivan, the previous year by striking him with an iron rod during a fit of rage.

Boris

Godunov

Ivan's eldest living son, Fyodor, was reluctantly proclaimed Tsar, but most of his power was entrusted to Boris Godunov, the brother of Fyodor's wife, Irina. Godunov ordered the construction of stone walls around the Bely Gorod district of the city and Moscow continued to develop. Godunov was suspected of having arranged the mysterious death of Dmitry, Ivan the Terrible's youngest son, and deftly accomplished his own accession to the throne on Fyodor's death in 1598. Godunov's unpopular reign was punctuated with famine, plague, growing disorder and discontentment over taxation. Into this

feuding society appeared two characters, both claiming to be Dmitry, the murdered son of Ivan the Terrible and therefore the rightful heir to the throne. The first false Dmitry invaded Russia with a small ramshackle band of Cossacks and robbers to press his claim to the throne in 1605, the year that Boris Godunov died and the battle for the accession to the throne began. This Dmitry soon alienated the Muscovite population with his foreign ways and his new Polish wife, and was overthrown and killed by a mob led by the boyar Vasily Shyusky. The Shyusky clan then proceeded to take power for themselves before the appearance of the second false Dmitry in 1607. This claimant to the throne marched into Russia backed by a Polish-Lithuanian army but was rapidly dispatched by the Shyuskys. The Time of Troubles

As false parties vied for the throne, Russia was being ravaged by serf and Cossack revolts, feuding boyars and Swedish and Polish invasions, a period that has come to be known as the Time of Troubles. The final humiliation came in 1610 when Moscow fell to the Poles, at which point Russia used its legendary power of recovery and defeated the invaders with an army of volunteers led by Prince Pozharsky and the lowly butcher, Kozma Minin, from Nizhny Novgorod. Just over two centuries later a statue dedicated to the two heroes would be erected in the center of Red Square, and later moved by the Soviet authorities to a spot in front of St. Basil's Cathedral, where it remains today. The start of the Romanov dynasty

In 1613 Abbot Palitsyn proposed that Mikhail Romanov, the brother of Ivan the Terrible's first wife, become Tsar, marking the end of the Time of Troubles and the beginning of the Romanov dynasty that would rule Russia until the 1917 Revolution. Moscow enjoyed a fantastic regeneration under the early Romanovs and saw a spate of new stone churches built to symbolize the new closer co-operation between church and state. Mikhail's successor, Alexei II (1645-1676), continued his program of developing the Russian capital. His reign also saw an enormous schism in the Orthodox Church, precipitated

by the notorious Patriarch Nikon, who sought to reform the church's rituals and modernize its appeal to the masses. The Tsar's first wife, Maria Miloslavskaya, died in 1669 leaving two sickly potential heirs (Fyodor and Ivan), but his second wife, Natalya Naryshkina, gave birth to a healthy son and the future Peter the Great. Peter the Great

On Alexei's death his ailing son Fyodor took the throne and the young Peter and his family were driven from the Kremlin to Kolomenskoye, just outside the city. It was here that Peter spent his early childhood and developed his love of sailing, which would eventually lead him to found the Russian Navy and build his magnificent northern Venice, St. Petersburg, on the banks of the River Neva. In 1682 Fyodor died, leaving the throne to a 10-year old Peter and prompting a revolt during which several members of the child's closest family were butchered in front of his very eyes. As a result Peter's retarded sibling Ivan was named co-tsar and his plotting half-sister Sophia became acting Regent. Sophia took the reigns of power in the Kremlin while Peter indulged his boyish fancies and played war with his toy regiments at Preobrazhenskoe. In 1689 Sophia mobilized the streltsy, the Kremlin guards, and threatened to eliminate the young Tsar, but he fled to safety at the Trinity Monastery of St. Sergei in Sergiev Posad and by October Sophir's support had collapsed and she was confined to Moscow's Novodevichy Monastery by way of punishment. Although just as great a tyrant as either Ivan the Terrible or Stalin, Peter the Great is best remembered for his reforms and his determination in dragging Russia into the modern age. In 1696 the Tsar captured the Turkish fort of Azov, the first Russian victory in several decades, and aired his plans to build a Russian fleet and make the country a force to be reckoned with once more. This very modern Tsar then took a previously unheard of tour around Europe, talking to learned scholars all over the continent, conversing with fellow monarchs, and even travelling incognito to enable him to learn the craft of shipbuilding in the dockyards of Holland and England. In 1698 the streltsy rebelled again but this time Peter was ready and suppressed them with a new guard regiment trained by foreign officers, before having them brutally executed on Red Square.

Peter's

reforms

Peter the Great introduced reforms that affected every walk of Russian life and transformed the country forever. The country was no longer Muscovy but was changed to Russia, the Tsar insisted on more European dress and behavior, replaced the traditional Orthodox calendar with the Julian one, invited foreigners to settle down there and considerably curtailed the power of the church. Peter also strengthened his control mechanisms and invented the internal passport system, still extant in Russia today and ploughed money into the army and navy. The creation of St. Petersburg

In 1700 the Swedish King Charles XII attacked the Russians at Narva and began the 21-year long Northern War. A brief lull in the war in 1703 enabled Peter to realize his dream of creating a northern seaport and a navy for Russia and the city of St. Petersburg was born. Founded on wretched marshland and built by thousands of forced laborers, who worked in the most appalling conditions imaginable, St. Petersburg was to be Russia's window onto Europe and was officially declared the capital in 1712. Noble Muscovite families were encouraged to build their own homes and resettle in St. Petersburg and building in stone was prohibited everywhere else in Russia in an attempt to ensure the rapid development of the Tsar's new city. Peter's successors

Peter the Great oversaw the torture and death of his own son Alexei and so on his own deathbed found the throne without a male heir. Various relatives vied for power after his death, including his wife Catherine I, who ruled alongside Peter's favorite Prince Menshikov for a short time, Peter's grandson, his cruel German-born niece Empress Anna and his great-nephew Ivan VI. Finally Peter the Great's daughter, Empress Elizabeth, seized power in a coup, backed by the famous Preobrazhensky Guards. Empress Elizabeth

Empress Elizabeth was as devoted to Russia as her father but lacked his European tastes and education. Her reign of power was a decadent affair involving endless shopping trips, palaces, hunting expeditions and an enormous national budget deficit. Despite her lack of literacy and sophistication, Elizabeth was shrewd enough to retain the very educated Count Shuvalov as an adviser, who encouraged her to found Moscow University in 1755 under the direction of the great Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. Although the Empress was liberal enough to abolish the death penalty, she showed excessive cruelty in torturing those suspected of crimes against herself and she plunged Russia into two wars with Prussia, the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War. On Elizabeth's death in 1761 her nephew Peter III took to the throne and started a rather disastrous six-month reign. Not only did he adopt a distinctly pro-Prussian military policy, dressing the army in Prussian uniforms, but he offended much of the clergy by adhering to the Lutheran faith rather than the Orthodox Church. Peter's marriage to the sophisticated and intelligent Sophia was to be his downfall. This charming German lady found favor with the Russian population by joining the Orthodox Church, changing her name to Catherine and eventually overthrowing the Tsar in 1762 with the aid of her court favorite, Grigory Orlov, who later murdered Tsar Peter. Catherine the Great

Catherine, Russia's most learned and sophisticated Empress, ruled the country for 34 years and transformed her from a relatively backward society into a great European power. The Empress was a great patron of literature and the arts and not only introduced the French language and the ideas of the Enlightenment to the Russian court, but corresponded with some of the most important literary figures of the day, including Voltaire and Diderot. Catherine was also known for her lively private life and it was one of her many lovers, Prince Potemkin, that achieved the annexation of the Crimea in 1783, securing the Black Sea Coast for Russia. Although Catherine gave Lomonosov the task of standardizing the Russian language, further significant reforms, especially the increasingly pressing question of serf emancipation, were not forthcoming during her reign. Any hint of liberalism was swiftly quashed by the 1773 Pugachev Uprising, when

a force of serfs demanding their freedom fought a guerilla war against the army for almost two years throughout European Russia. Catherine was succeeded by her son Paul, who not only detested his mother but went a long way to reverse many of her more progressive policies. Obsessed with the military, just as his father had been, Paul put the army back in those much hated Prussian uniforms and alienated much of the nobility by curtailing the privileges they enjoyed under Catherine. So unpopular was the monarch that he was murdered in 1801 with the tacit approval of his very own son Alexander I. Alexander I and the Napoleonic Wars

The new Tsar's reign was dominated by foreign affairs and more specifically the Napoleonic Wars with France, which happened despite his new protective alliance with Austria and Prussia. The French commander invaded Russia in June 1812 with an army more than twice the size of Alexander's. Marshal Kutuzov was given the thankless task of defending Moscow from Napoleon's onslaught at the mighty Battle of Borodino, which ended in more than 70,000 dead on both sides and the Russians retreating to the city. Muscovites fled the old capital in droves and as the French entered the city the Tsar's agents started fires throughout Kitay Gorod. With the Kremlin engulfed in flames Napoleon was forced to retreat beyond the limits of the town, which carried on burning for a further six days, completely destroying three-quarters of its buildings. The French beat a slow retreat, tormented by bands of Cossacks along the way, driven by the cruel northern winter, and pursued by the Russians all the way back to Paris, which they occupied in 1814. The Reconstruction of Moscow

Alexander swiftly launched the Russian capital into an enormous rebuilding and regeneration process. Within five years almost all the city's residential quarters had been replaced with wooden houses, numerous buildings had been constructed in patriotic Russian Empire style by the popular architect Bove, and Moscow had acquired new squares and gathering places. Despite these positive developments

the war had given Russians from all walks of life the opportunity to see how the West lived and discontentment, underground political agitation and propaganda grew forebodingly during Alexander's reign. The Tsar died in 1825 leaving no male heir and prompting yet another accession crisis. The Decembrists, a group of political agitators from the St. Petersburg nobility, saw the perfect opportunity and launched a revolt against Alexander's younger brother and the future Tsar Nicholas I, ending in a crushing defeat on Senate Square. The Decembrists were either shot or exiled permanently to Siberia with their families. Nicholas I

Nicholas I's thirty-year reign was centered round the three traditional pillars of Russian leadership Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality. His reign saw a considerable increase in police surveillance, unrest amongst the peasantry over the issue of emancipation and political dissent amongst the gentry. During the 1840s the writer Dostoevsky was amongst those involved in the clandestine Petrashevsky Circle, whose Socialist ideas were fuelled by successful revolutions in Poland and Hungary. In 1854 the Crimean War broke out and Russia found itself floundering in a war with Britain, France and Turkey, highlighting its complete military inadequacy as a major European power. The Allies captured strategic Sevastopol in 1855 and the new Tsar Alexander II had little choice but to opt for peace. Alexander II

Known as the Tsar Liberator, Alexander significantly relaxed many of the restrictions imposed by his predecessor and in 1861 finally signed the order decreeing the emancipation of the serfs. Nowhere near as liberal as it seemed, the order in reality bound the serfs to a crushing economic debt to their former land lords which was to be paid over a period of forty nine years. Alexander was more progressive with other reforms and accomplished the introduction of trial by jury and a basic system of

local government and reduced compulsory military service from twenty five to six years. However, the new Tsar's reforms came short of a move from autocracy and peasant unrest and political agitation continued to grow. A new political Populist movement, headed by Nicholas Chernyshevsky, emerged in the 1860s and aimed to create a Socialist society based on the peasant commune. Intellectuals went into the countryside in an attempt to convert the peasantry, who remained largely loyal to the Tsar and mass arrests were made as Alexander became increasingly worried about the country's political climate. By 1875 a new revolutionary organization called Land and Liberty had emerged, which later split into the agrarian Black Partition group and the notorious People's Will, whose terrorist tactics finally led to the assassination of the Tsar in 1881. Alexander III and Industrialization

Alexander III launched into his thirteen-year reign with an iron fist and tightened police surveillance further, shelved any planned constitutional reforms and attacked Russia's Jewish population in an attempt to find and stamp out the seeds of political agitation. Meanwhile Russia was experiencing an industrial revolution with foreign investment levels at an all time high, factories and slums springing up all over Moscow, and a new rapidly growing urban working class beginning to form in her cities. A new rich industrial class emerged, wealthy from their own labors and those of their ancestors, and chose to plough their money back into society in ventures like Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery and the Moscow Art Theater.

Nicholas

II

On Alexander III's death in 1894 the throne passed to his son Nicholas II and the new Tsar began his reign with the disastrous Khodynka Field incident, where hundreds of Muscovites were crushed to death during a stampede to grab commemorative souvenirs from his coronation. The political spectrum was still very

much in flux in Russia and although both the Populist movement and the relatively new Socialist Revolutionary Party had failed to ignite a peasant revolution, the intelligentsia was becoming increasingly interested in the works of Karl Marx and the notion of the proletarian revolution. The father of Russian Marxism Georgy Plekhanov, first got involved in Marxist groups in the early 1880s and by 1898 had teamed up with Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (later known as Lenin) to form the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. The party soon split and Lenin claimed the name Bolsheviks (meaning majority) for his faction. Meanwhile the rather less democratic bourgeoisie backed the modest demands of the Constitutional Democratic Party or Kadets. The 1905 Revolution

Economic growth slumped at the turn of the 20th century and Russia found herself not only coping with thousands of unemployed urban workers but a disastrous war with Japan, which further highlighted the country's military inadequacies. In January 1905 strikes broke out in factories all over St. Petersburg and culminated in a peaceful demonstration involving some 150,000 people marching to the Winter Palace to present the Tsar with a petition. Nicholas hotheaded Imperial Guards opened fire on the peaceful crowds and brutally killed thousands of workers, coining the name Bloody Sunday. The Tsar's unpopularity grew on a daily basis and rather than his hoped for victory against the Japanese, the Russian navy was destroyed in Tsushima Bay and a mutiny occurred on the battleship Potemkin. With little other choice Nicholas signed a treaty of peace with Japan and conceded the creation of a consultative assembly or Duma and later in the October Manifesto, basic civil liberties. A people's Soviet sprang up in St. Petersburg, criticizing the powers of the Duma, but was quickly suppressed and in Moscow local Bolsheviks misjudged the political tension and attempted to seize power, barricading themselves into the Presnya district of the city and finally being brutally crushed by government troops. The Duma and the fall of Tsarism

Russia grappled with her first ever nationwide elections and the establishment of the First Duma in St. Petersburg's Tauride Palace, which was rapidly dissolved by the Tsar when the issue of land distribution was raised, as the Second Duma was just a short time later. Despite the political climate Moscow and St. Petersburg experienced an incredibly creative period in the arts, seen in Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the plays of Chekhov which premiered at the Moscow Art Theater and the shocking Futurist poems of Vladimir Mayakovsky and his radical circle. To avoid the fluctuating political atmosphere in the capital the Imperial family abandoned St. Petersburg for the safety of their suburban palaces, their concern for the Tsar's haemophiliac son growing and the influence of the notorious Rasputin increasing on a daily basis. World War I broke out in August 1914 and Russia suffered enormous casualties from its very onset. St. Petersburg's name was deemed too Germanic and was changed to Petrograd, but nothing could stem the widespread discontent among Russians at the path of the war, nor their expectation of an imminent revolution. The February 1917 Revolution

On February 22nd workers were locked out of St. Petersburg's Putilov factory, prompting thousands more to fill the streets demanding the downfall of the Tsar. Prisons were stormed, the Duma was surrounded by demonstrators and Nicholas, and the next day his brother, were forced to abdicate. Two vying political groups rose up in the ensuing chaos, the revolutionary Petrograd Soviet with a majority of Trotsky's Menshikovs and a Provisional Government led by the more liberal Count Lvov. Alexander Kerensky became Minister of War and toured the front in an attempt to turn the tide of the battle against the Germans and to stem growing discontent in Petrograd. Support for the Bolsheviks grew rapidly throughout the country and its new Soviets, despite an attempt to crush it by the army commander-in-chief General Kornilov. By September Russia was in political and social turmoil and Lenin convinced the Bolsheviks that the country was ripe for revolution. The October revolution began on the 25th as Bolshevik supporters took hold of key locations in Petrograd, proclaiming the arrest and overthrow of Kerensky's

Provisional Government. While power peacefully and bloodlessly change hands in the northern capital, Moscow experienced a week of fierce battles between the Bolshevik Red Guards and loyalist troops. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was held and a Bolshevik majority elected, and an all-Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars was established and issued various basic reforms. Living conditions in Moscow and Petrograd worsened rapidly and Lenin created the notorious Cheka anti-sabotage force under Felix Dzerzhinsky to quell growing disillusionment with the Bolsheviks. The first Constituent Assembly met in January 1918 but when the Bolsheviks failed to achieve a majority they surrounded the premises and closed the elections. Civil War 1918-1920

The course of the war was disastrous for Russia and on March 1918 Trotsky was compelled to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and concede Poland, Finland, Belarus, the Baltics and Russia's precious Ukraine to the Germans. The capital was moved back to Moscow where Lenin stayed at the National Hotel before moving into the Kremlin. The Bolsheviks were renamed the Communist Party and numerous attacks were made on it by rival political groups, prompting a spate of Bolshevik violence and retaliation that has come to be known as the Red Terror. Civil War raged throughout Russia and the Western Allies sent troops into the country to fight alongside the disparate White forces against the Reds and stem the spread of Bolshevism. The Imperial family was executed in Ekaterinburg in July. While thousands died in the Civil War and the Soviet economy plunged into chaos, the Bolsheviks championed War Communism and Red Guards were forced into the countryside to try and stimulate revolutionary sentiments amongst the peasantry. The Kronstadt revolt and the NEP

By 1921 Soviet Russia was at an all time economic low and there was widespread worker unrest in Petrograd, which followed the revolt of hundreds of previously loyal sailors from the city's Kronstadt Naval

base. The revolt was brutally crushed and the culprits deemed traitors by the Communist Party and executed or exiled. In response the Communists tightened ideological controls at their Tenth Party Congress by banning any form of democratic debate and replacing it with a decision-making Secretariat headed by the young Joseph Stalin. At the Congress Lenin introduced his New Economic Policy, which aimed to bring some elements of a free market economy to the country, giving the peasantry greater incentives to increase productivity. Stalin's rise to power

Stalin gradually and subtly tightened his control over the party beaurocracy. On Lenin's death in January 1924 he actively participated in the deification of the deceased party leader and the creation of the Cult of Lenin, organizing his funeral and ensuring that the city of Petrograd changed its name to Leningrad. His popularity soared at his apparent devotion to the Communist hero and over the next few years he carefully disposed of his more popular rivals for the party leadership, most notably Trotsky and Bukharin. After assuming power Stalin immediately implemented a new economic policy, his First Five Year Plan, which forced the collectivization of agriculture to disastrous results. Not only were the peasantry openly hostile to this policy, but production was slow and by 1932 Russia was suffering from widespread famine. Back in Moscow great plans were being made for the development of the city. Soviet apartment blocks sprang up all over the city, full of communal flats for the workers, enormous boulevards were created, and in 1931 underground construction began on the Metro system. The Purges

On December 1st 1934 the head of the party in Leningrad, Sergei Kirov, was mysteriously assassinated and Stalin began a storm of cruelty and suppression that has come to be known as the Great Terror. Over the next three years millions of people were arrested on suspicion of being involved in anti-party activities or conspiracies. From 1936 a paranoid Stalin ordered hundreds of show trials in which

veteran Bolsheviks, military personnel, intellectuals and even members of the notorious secret police were forced to confess to political crimes they had not committed and were either sent to Siberian labor camps or sentenced to death. Meanwhile political tension was once again rising in Europe. Nazi Germany invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia and in 1939 Stalin's Foreign Minister Molotov signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Hitler, binding both parties to non-aggression and ensuring that Russia would supply Nazi Germany with food and raw materials. The Great Patriotic War (World War II)

To Stalin's utter disbelief Hitler broke the pact and invaded Russia in June 1941. The party leader failed to mount any real defense against the Germans and the Russian military suffered enormous personnel and material losses during the first few months of the invasion. By mid-October Hitler had reached Moscow but Stalin just managed to defend the city and by the end of the war the Germans had not only been defeated but Russia had guaranteed its influence over a vast section of Eastern Europe. Moscow during the postwar years

The postwar years saw a frenzy of building throughout the capital, mainly using the forced labor of German prisoners of war and Soviet convicts. The city's vast circular Garden Ring road was widened, many of its largest prospects were mapped out and construction began on Stalin's seven enormous gothic skyscrapers. Despite Russia's military victory over Germany, Stalin remained paranoid and maniacal and began a fresh wave of arrests, show trials and death sentences. On his death in 1953 the viciously cruel party leader was mourned throughout the country and despite the crimes committed during his reign of power, many Russians could not imagine a future without his leadership. Krushchev and the Thaw

Following Stalin's death a fierce power struggle ensued during which his favorite henchmen Molotov, Beria and Malenkov were all either

executed or forced to resign. It was Nikita Krushchev that quickly rose to power and first denounced Stalin's name and linked him to the murder of Kirov. Krushchev allowed a certain relaxation in censorship but political control remained firmly in his hands. He emptied the labor camps of most of those convicted and exiled by Stalin, only to replace them with others. Abroad Russia once more played the aggressor, firing on the crowds in Budapest in 1956, overseeing the building of the Berlin Wall in 1962 and almost prompting a nuclear world war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Krushchev not only alienated the international community during his spell as Soviet leader, but managed to cause discontentment throughout the party and the rest of Soviet society. In October 1964 a coup was mounted in Moscow and Krushchev was handed his resignation. The Brezhnev Era

Krushchev was succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev, who showed just as much totalitarian mettle as his Soviet predecessors. Military expenditure was increased and political agitation kept under strict control by the KGB. However, Soviet society stabilized to a much greater extent than had been seen in decades and foodstuffs were available in regular supply and at reasonable cost. However the aging party leadership and their inflexible Soviet policies ensured that by 1970 Russian industrial and agricultural output was in rapid decline. Gorbachev's reforms

Brezhnev died in 1982 and power passed briefly to the former KGB boss Yury Andropov and then to Konstantin Chernenko and finally to Mikhail Gorbachev. The new party leader coined the terms glasnost (openness) and perestroika (rebuilding), although he failed to meet up to the former by trying to hide the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986 and denying the existence of political prisoners in Soviet Russia. While a young Boris Yeltsin battled with corruption amongst the ranks of the party, Gorbachev realigned himself with the radicals but failed

to prevent Estonia from breaking away from the Soviet Union and declaring independence in November 1988. The end of Soviet Communism

By the March 1989 Congress of People's Deputies there was increasing talk of ending one-party rule and it was this alongside widespread miners strikes in July of the same year and the momentous tumbling of the Berlin Wall that spelled the final death throes of Soviet Communism. Throughout 1990 Moscow and the rest of the country were plagued with some of the biggest demonstrations since the 1917 Revolution, while the southern republics campaigned for independence and Yeltsin became the chairman of the Russian parliament and rejected his party membership. Economic crisis, astronomical crime rates and chronic food shortages fueled Gorbachev's unpopularity and unrest throughout Russia and the Baltic States continued into 1991. In the Presidential election in June that year Yeltsin won an overwhelming majority of the votes and by August Gorbachev had resigned as leader of the party for reasons of health. A coup, organized by many of Gorbachev's colleagues, swiftly surrounded the Russian Parliament building and tanks rolled into Moscow. Yeltsin tried to urge the soldiers involved not be drawn into the putsch and other loyal political figures tried to arrange the defense of the building. A few days later the putsch had been quelled, Gorbachev publicly embarrassed on national television and Yeltsin had declared the Russian Communist Party illegal. In December Ukraine voted for independence, the USSR was replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent States which the Central Asian Republics planned to join, and at midnight on December 25th the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin and replace by the Russian tricolor. The New Russia

The new Russia immediately spiraled into economic crisis and runaway inflation when Yeltsin attempted to introduce more rightwing policies and stimulate the development of capitalism. The crisis was brought somewhat under control the following year when Viktor

Chernomyrdin increased some industry subsidies, which helped to support the country's main food production industries. 1993 saw a constant war of words between the government and parliament as motions were made for a new constitution and new electoral laws. This stalemate continued into September of that year when Yeltsin dissolved Congress and almost two hundred deputies occupied the White House for over three weeks. The streets of Moscow were filled with demonstrators and blazing cars as parliamentary supporters rallied, stormed the mayoralty and attempted to take control of the Ostankino television tower. Yeltsin called for democrats everywhere to help crush the rebellion and after a ten-hour tank bombardment those in the White House surrendered and were taken off to jail. Yeltsin in power

Yeltsin remained in power as the Russian President, but the December 1993 elections produced a surprising majority not for Yeltsin's Russia's Choice party, but for the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party under the shady Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Zhirinovsky, much to Yeltsin's relief, backed the President's government and supported the new Russian Constitution. Crime and corruption increased dramatically in Moscow and Russia proved hostile in international affairs, warning NATO from expanding into Eastern Europe and the Baltics and arguing with the Ukraine over possession of the Crimea. In 1994 Yeltsin embarked on a disastrous war with Chechnya, which not only proved deeply unpopular with the Russian public but was devastating for the Chechens. Despite the war the country's budget deficit remained low and with International Monetary Fund loans and new foreign investment Moscow began to enjoy a stable ruble rate and with it an unexpected economic boom. The war dragged on into 1995 and despite his rapidly deteriorating health Yeltsin managed to cunningly survive the June 1996 Presidential elections and remain in power. Political and corporate scandals abounded in 1997 and in the spring of 1998 Yeltsin appointed the young Sergei Kirienko Prime Minister, to considerable opposition from the Duma Deputies. The August 1998 crisis

Russian slid rapidly into economic crisis once more, miners striked over months of unpaid wages and the country's foreign debt rose to over $100 billion. In August the government made the inevitable but fateful decision to devaluate the ruble, which led to massive deflation, the collapse of numerous banks (leaving their account-holders with nothing), and an economic crisis from whose affects the country is still recovering today. The Russian economy virtually collapsed, foreign companies pulled out of the country, firing employees and taking their investment with them, and the importation of foreign goods came to a complete standstill. The economic situation worsened throughout 1998 and 1999 despite the appointment of the young Yevgeny Primakov as Prime Minister. Stepashin quickly replaced Primakov and after just 82 days in office Stepashin was replaced by the ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin. The Rise of the Nationalists

With the economy in tatters and standards of living lower than during Soviet times, there was a distinct and unsurprising increase in support for various nationalist groups in Russia, including the Communist Party. This nationalist fervor was further boosted when NATO forces, led by the US, began bombing Yugoslavia over the Kosovo crisis. Russians have always regarded the Serbs as fellow Slavs and brothers and hundreds of them attacked the US Embassy in Moscow in protest against NATO's actions. In September 1999 Moscow was plagued by a series of terrorist attacks which left more than two hundred people dead, heightening feelings of xenophobia and hostility towards ethnic minorities from the southern republics, especially Chechens. Seizing upon public opinion the government launched a brutal new attack on Grozny, the Chechen capital, which it bombarded for weeks and months. On New Year's Eve 1999 Yeltsin surprised the world by announcing his resignation and entrusting his duties to Prime Minister Putin, whose candidacy he fully endorsed for the upcoming March 2000 Presidential Elections.