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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 were the chiefs of the KGB and Interior Ministry police telling Gorbachev in 1991?

2. What baseball player was the hero of Vadim Kilakov, the Spooner's catcher at Mendeleyev?

3. What book did Solzhenitsyn want Novy Mir to publish first?

4. Why did the workers strike at Novocherkassk in June 1962?

5. When did Sakharov die?

Short Essay Questions

1. After watching the film "Wall Street" at the Moscow Higher Party School, how did Remnick know that Communist ideology was dead?

2. What did Sakharov try to tell Gorbachev one evening during the first Congress session?

3. What happened to General Matvei Shaposhnikov when he refused to fire on unarmed mine workers in Novocherkassk in 1962?

4. Why, for the young, was the West their dream?

5. How did Yeltsin win his first battle inside the "horror house" of the Soviet system?

6. What did Yuri Savenko, president of the Independent Psychiatric Association, think about the Ministry of Health's cooperation with Kashpirovsky's broadcasts?

7. When did healers, mystics, and "holy fools" usually come to prominence?

8. What happened when the tanks were sent to Lithuania in January 1991?

9. Describe Shcharansky's celebration of Hanukkah in Perm-35.

10. What did Volkogonov's team reveal in a draft of a history they were writing that appalled the hard-liners?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In 1988, threats against the Jews resurfaced. Using examples from Lenin's Tomb, discuss why there was such an anti-Semitic feeling off and on during the history of the Soviet Union and how events in the empire influenced the renewed hatred for the Jews.

Essay Topic 2

Remnick refers to September of 1990 as a Black September and mentions three omens that occur. Use examples from the book to explain the meaning of these three omens and why they indicated that something ominous was about to happen in the Soviet Union.

Essay Topic 3

The return of history is an important theme in the book. Explain how history was distorted and why the return of history led to a new order in Russia.

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This section contains 1,144 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample