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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. Why was Likhachev sentenced to a five-year term in a labor camp?

2. Who was one of the key plotters in the August coup?

3. Where did Stalin study?

4. When was Sakharov allowed to return to Moscow?

5. What piece of Tretetsky's equipment was sabotaged?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did filmmaker Tofik Shakhverdiyev say it meant in 1988 to be a Stalinist?

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

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

4. Who is Lydia Chukovskaya?

5. What happened in the 1940s in the woods outside Kalinin?

6. Why is Misha Litvinov a reserved person?

7. Why was Andropov important to Gorbachev?

8. How did Mukhamed Valsapar in Turkmenia stir up the Party?

9. Why did Sakharov become a dissident?

10. How did the revolution from below begin in July of 1989?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout the book, Remnick provides examples of times the Party attempted to block the words of various writers. At the beginning of Chapter 24 is a quote: "What is written with a pen cannot be hacked away even by an ax." Using examples from the book, argue that words can or cannot be forever destroyed by violence.

Essay Topic 2

In Lenin's Tomb, Remnick states that the Communist Party apparatus was the world's largest mafia. Using examples from the book, argue that the Soviet Union was or was not the world's largest mafia.

Essay Topic 3

As the true history of Stalin's era is revealed in 1991, the Russian people must learn to deal with the truth and rise above it or be consumed by the truth. Explain how Colonel Aleksandr Tretetsky and Vladimir Tokaryev deal with the truth and show examples that indicate that they represent the two ways that the Russian people deal with the truth.

(see the answer keys)

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