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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. Where did Stalin have his prison camps?

3. Why was the Party so against the publication of Solzhenitsyn's books and his return to the Soviet Union?

4. What was the first major monument to victims of the regime?

5. Who from the United States warned Foreign Minister Aleksandr Bessmertnykh of a military coup?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the Baltic strategy to achieve independence?

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

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

4. Why did the publishers of the Novy Mir not know what to expect when Gorbachev suggested that the Soviet Writers' Union decide whether Solzhenitsyn should be published in the Soviet Union?

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

6. In 1991, why were the Kremlin hard-liners terrified of the strikes?

7. What was "The Charity Society"?

8. What were three omens that occurred in September 1990?

9. Who was Edward Lee Howard?

10. How did one of Parkomenko's investigative reports cause a terrific scandal?

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 the book, Remnick states that "Chernobyl...was a kind of run of the Soviet system, a horrible metaphor for the era that began with the Revolution in 1917 and was now ending." Using examples from the book, explain Chernobyl's metaphor for the Soviet system.

(see the answer keys)

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