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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did the people at Spasskaya get their food?

2. In 1989 when the people were to vote for the new Congress of People's Deputies, who wanted sovereignty?

3. Where did perestroika spin out of control in 1989?

4. Where was Yakovlev when the letter in the Sovetskaya Rossiya was published on March 13?

5. What happened to some of those who executed the Polish officers?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was the most flamboyant mafia figure in the Soviet Union?

2. What central fact of Gorbachev's early life did he keep to himself until 1990?

3. Was the corruption in the Party a secret to the Soviet people?

4. Why did the salmon catch rot on Sakhalin Island?

5. Why did Natasha Rapoport not emigrate to Israel?

6. Why did no one believe that a new "epoch of human progress" began in October 1917?

7. Why is life in the mines not fit for human beings?

8. How did Stalin gain absolute control over history?

9. Why did Sakharov become a dissident?

10. Why is Misha Litvinov a reserved person?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Some have said that the under socialism in the Soviet Union everyone was equal, equally poor. Argue that socialism caused the extreme poverty that the Soviet People endured using specific examples from the book to support your opinions.

Essay Topic 2

Gorbachev and the Party had illusions about the future of the Soviet Union. Discuss these illusions and how events shattered Gorbachev's and the Party's illusions.

Essay Topic 3

When people's convictions are threatened, they either capitulate or stand up and defend their convictions. Using specific examples from the book, compare individuals who abandoned their convictions when threatened to individuals who stood up to attacks on their convictions at great personal risk or cost.

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