Chapter I: Key Dates in Lives of Communist “Big Four”

=KARL MARX=

1818 May 5: Born in Treves (Trier), in the Rhine province of Prussia
(Germany).
1842 Met Friedrich Engels for first time in Cologne, Germany.
1843 Married Jenny von Westphalen.
1844 Began lifelong friendship and collaboration with Engels.
1847 Marx, along with Engels, joined the Communist League.
1848 The _Communist Manifesto_ published.
1848-49 Editor-in-chief, _Neue Rheinische Zeitung_, in Cologne.
1849 Banished from Germany and went to Paris, from which he was also
banished.
1849-83 Lived in exile in London.
1852-61 Foreign correspondent for the New York _Tribune_.
1864 Helped in setting up International Workingmen’s Association
(First International) in London.
1867 Volume I of _Das Kapital (Capital)_ published in Hamburg,
Germany.
1872 Russian translation of _Das Kapital_, Volume I, published.
1883 March 14: Died in London.

=FRIEDRICH ENGELS=

1820 November 28: Born in Barmen in the Rhine province of Prussia
(Germany).
1842 Settled in Manchester, England.
1870 Moved to London to work with Marx.
1885 Volume II of Marx’s _Das Kapital_ published as edited by Engels.
1888 Visited United States and Canada.
1894 Volume III of Marx’s _Das Kapital_ published as edited by
Engels.
1895 August 5: Died in London.

=VLADIMIR I. LENIN=

1870 April 22: Born in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), Russia.
1887 May: Brother, Alexander, hanged for plotting to assassinate
Czar Alexander III.
1893 Joined underground Social Democratic circle called “Elders.”
1897 May: Exiled to Siberia following a prison term.
1900-05 Traveled, wrote, and conducted work of Russian Social Democratic
Labor Party (forerunner of Communist Party of Soviet Union) in
Germany, England, Switzerland, Belgium. Returned to Russia in
November, 1905.
1905 December: Lenin and Stalin met for first time at Bolshevik
Conference, Tammerfors (Tampere), Finland.
1907 Went abroad and did not return to live in Russia until 1917.
1917 April 16: Returned to Russia and arrived in capital, Petrograd
(now Leningrad) from Switzerland.
1917 November 7: Directed Bolshevik uprising.
1917-24 Dictator of Soviet Russia.
1924 January 21: Died.

=JOSEPH STALIN=

1879 December 21: Born in Gori, Georgia, the Caucasus (Russia).
1899 Expelled from theological seminary at Tiflis.
1905 December: Delegate to Bolshevik Conference in Finland and met
Lenin for first time.
1906 Participated in Fourth Congress of Russian Social Democratic
Labor Party in Stockholm, Sweden.
1902-17 Engaged in revolutionary activities in Russia; arrested and
exiled number of times.
1917 Participated in October Revolution of Bolsheviks.
1917-23 People’s Commissar for the Affairs of the Nationalities.
1922 Became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Russian Communist Party.
1922-29 Consolidation of personal power, leading in 1929 to expulsion
of Trotsky from Russia.
1929-53 Supreme dictator of Soviet Russia.
1953 March 5: Died in the Kremlin, Moscow.
1956 Denounced at Twentieth Congress of Communist Party of the
Soviet Union.