Years before the war

In 1902, exiled revolutionaries established the Tver committee of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP) that tried to head the workers' movement in the city. The first political anti-war demonstration took place in Tver in 1904. On the day of announcement of the Manifest of October 17, 1905, on granting of freedom of speech, press, meetings and unions in Tver the Black-Hundreders devastated the country council. Elections of the Tver council of workers' deputies were organized during the General October Political Strike of October 20-23 of 1905. Political strike of workers of the Morozovskaya manufactory took place between December 12 and 17 of 1905.

Terrorist acts on the part of various political parties grew more frequent in Tver: Governor P. A. Sleptsov was killed on March 25 of 1906, General A. A. Ignatyev (father of contemporary Lieutenant General, author of the book entitled "50 years in rank") was killed on December 9 of 1916, Governor Bunting was killed on March 2 of 1917, General Chekhovskikh was killed on March 16 of 1917.

World War I began on July 15 (28) of 1914. The Russian-Baltic railway carriage plant was evacuated to rearward Tver from Riga first and the aviation park was evacuated afterwards (since August of 1917, this was the First Tver aviation park that existed in the city until 1926). The Tver equipment works that produced military products was put into operation in December of 1915. The Tver radio station was mounted on the Zheltikovo field. Emperor Nicolas II arrived to Tver with an inspection on August 21 of 1915, two days before taking of the post of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. On March 2 (15) of 1917, Nicholas II abdicated and power in the country went to the Provisional Government. A demonstration took place in Tver on the same day, at the factory of Morozov armed workers and soldiers arrested director F. T. Markov, the Zavolzhskaya prison was destroyed, the provisional executive council of public organizations was elected and was accommodated in the Traveling Palace. Cherven-Vodali from the Constitutional Democratic Party was elected the commissar of the governorate. The revolutionary committee consisting of seven Bolsheviks and two leftist Social Revolutionaries was elected in Tver on October 28 (November 10). Commissars with detachments of the Red Guard and soldiers seized the railway station, telegraph and telephone stations and military radio station. The provisional executive committee was liquidated on December 2(14), the Duma of the city was disbanded, Tverskaya Mysl newspaper of the Constitutional Democratic Party was closed according to resolution of the Tver committee of RSDRP(b). Merger of the councils of workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies took place in the Traveling Palace on December 4(16) of 1917. A. P. Vagzhanov was elected the chair of the united council. A circular letter about organization of the soviet power on the local level was disseminated with his signature on December 31 of 1917 (January 13 of 1918).

Accelerated command courses were established in Tver in February of 1918 on the basis of the Tver cavalry school (a junker school until 1910). Soon, the courses were reorganized into a cavalry school named after L. D. Trotsky and in August of 1922 they were reorganized into the school named after the III International (Kalinin Cavalry School). The first group of red commanders was released already in December of 1918. During the civil war years the Teachers' Institute in Tver was renamed into the Pedagogical one (Kalinin Pedagogical Institute), the medical and agricultural technical schools were opened (1920), Proletkult (Proletarian Cultural Enlightenment Organization) was established and the society for studying of Tver Region was organized in autumn of 1920, Tver No. 1 theater of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic was established on March 21 of 1921. The first issue of Nashe Khozyaistvo magazine was published in Tver on April 15 of 1921. The following mass media were published in Tver during the restoration period: newspapers Tverskaya Pravda and Tverskaya Derevnya, magazines Vestnik Kommunizma, Sputnik Kommunizma, Nashe Khozyaistvo, Pakhar, Tverskhoy Kray and Ekho Tverskoy Kooperatsii. Simultaneously with this, in 1919 began mass renaming of streets, squares and embankments and organized struggle against the church and the church culture that constituted an indispensable part of the Russian national culture. Relics of St. Prince Mikhail Right-Believing that had been stored for 600 years and relics of St. Arseny Miracle-Worker that had been stored for 500 years were opened in May of 1919 for propaganda purposes. On May 20 of 1922, Tverskaya Pravda reported about confiscation of valuables from 35 churches and four monasteries of Tver (more than 205 puds (one pud equals 16 kilograms) of silver, more than five pounds of gold and 434 diamonds). Closing of monasteries and churches began. The railway carriage plant, Ursul and K. M. Meshchersky and Morozovskaya manufactory were nationalized in Tver in June of 1918.

During the civil war years Tver experienced economics difficulties. The railway carriage plant was stopped on January 1 of 1921, the Perevolotskaya, Rozhdestvenskaya and Morozovskaya manufactories etc were stopped later (they restarted their work only after the end of the civil war and the railway carriage plant restarted its work in 1926). The movement of udarniks (record setters) and subbotniks (voluntary Saturday work) grew widespread at the factories of Tver in the second half of the 20th century. In 1929, textile workers of Tver initiated signing of the "Agreement of thousands." In 1930, a new campaign of struggle against the church separated from the state began in Tver. Almost all belfries were demolished in Tver due to the will of the municipal authorities (1755, architect D. V. Ukhtomsky), as well as tens of churches being monuments of the Russian architecture of the 17th-19th centuries. The Savior Transfiguration Cathedral was blown up in the night of April 4 of 1935.

In 1929, Tver Governorate was liquidated and Tver became the center of an area first and the center of a district within Moscow Region afterwards. On November 20 of 1931, Tver was renamed into Kalinin in honor of M. I. Kalinin who signed the decree about the renaming. Kalinin Region with the center in Kalinin was established in 1935. The regional philharmonic society and a musical school (1936), the regional picture gallery (1937) were opened in the new regional center and a number of original buildings were built in the center of the city: academy on the Stepana Razina Embankment (1935), cinema theater Zvezda (1937), Riverboat Station. There began development of new Kalinina and Chaikovskogo prospekts and Vagzhanova Street.