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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How many defendants were a part of the first show trial in Russian history?
(a) 53.
(b) 47.
(c) 33.
(d) 12.

2. During the new era of executions, how many men were killed in the first 16 months?
(a) 1.6 million.
(b) 10,000.
(c) 6,000.
(d) 16,000.

3. How many compartments were in a typical passenger car headed out to exile?
(a) 17.
(b) 9.
(c) 13.
(d) 23.

4. How many days was a prisoner sent to punishment for if he were found guilty of unruliness?
(a) 10 days.
(b) 15 days.
(c) 5 days.
(d) 20 days.

5. Which of the following activities could get a person sent to the punishment camps in TON?
(a) Belching.
(b) Spitting.
(c) Coughing.
(d) Scratching.

6. How old was Solzhenitsyn when he used to listen to the "boring, pallid daily records" of the trials?
(a) 12.
(b) 32.
(c) 42.
(d) 22.

7. Which of the following facts about hunger strikes is NOT true?
(a) Hunger strikes claimed more lives than dysentery in the camps.
(b) The last hunger strike took place in 1937.
(c) Hunger strikes were made illegal in 1930.
(d) Stalin called hunger strikes counter-revolutionary.

8. What did it mean to be "politically illiterate"?
(a) Anti-Soviet.
(b) Unable to defend oneself in court.
(c) Revolutionary.
(d) Pro-torture.

9. Which of the following groups of men found themselves in the first show trial of the Shakhty?
(a) Coal miners.
(b) Goat farmers.
(c) Railroad workers.
(d) Police officers.

10. What is the only article of clothing prisoners in the punishment cells were allowed to wear?
(a) Shoes.
(b) Underwear.
(c) A shirt.
(d) Trousers.

11. What type of prisoner was housed in TONs?
(a) Political prisoners.
(b) Children.
(c) Sick prisoners.
(d) Violent prisoners.

12. What is another word for archipelago?
(a) Chain.
(b) Force.
(c) Camp.
(d) Terror.

13. In what year did the new era of executions start in the Gulag prison systems?
(a) 1946.
(b) 1935.
(c) 1922.
(d) 1918.

14. Which of the following terms did the Gulag soldier use to describe the prisoners who partook in hunger strikes?
(a) Dead men.
(b) Bums.
(c) Riffraff.
(d) Tramps.

15. What argument did Stalin give to have the abolishment of capital punishment overturned?
(a) Execution is a means of social defense.
(b) Execution is man's divine right.
(c) Execution is an opiate of the masses.
(d) Execution is legal terror.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who famously uttered the words, "Intelligentsia are not the nation's brains, but their excrement"?

2. How many prisons could a true son of Gulag name?

3. Which of the following adjectives does Solzhenitsyn use to describe the powers of execution?

4. What nationality of men were the last to attempt a hunger strike in the Gulag prisons?

5. How many days did the first hunger strike in Gulag last?

(see the answer keys)

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