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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. What did Dinmukhamed Kunayev's wife want her husband to get for her?

2. Who was Bukharian's wife?

3. Who at the Central Committee's ideology office was behind the March 13 letter in Sovetskaya Rossiya?

4. What play did Yegor Ligachev and other Party ideologues object to?

5. What newspaper did Len Karpinsky work for and later edit?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why was the Communist Party doomed to failure after they lost control of history?

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

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

4. What is the dilemma that Mishal and Flora Litvinov faced with their children?

5. What did Gorbachev do about the letter published March 13 in the Sovetskaya Rossiya?

6. Why was Genrikh Joffe accused of being a "preacher of bourgeois ideology"?

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

8. How did Stalin gain absolute control over history?

9. What was Vremya?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

The first piece of writing to appear in the Soviet Union by Solzhenitsyn in three decades was a piece titled "How Can We Revitalize Russia." Explain how Solzhenitsyn wanted to solve the problems in the Soviet Union and why the Party felt so threatened by his views.

Essay Topic 3

In Boris Yeltsin's acceptance speech when he becomes president, he calls himself and the people citizens. Argue that during the reign of the Communist Party, the people of the Soviet Union may have been citizens (inhabitants), but they were not given the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Use examples from the novel to support your position.

(see the answer keys)

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