Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union

qas: question: On what date did the Soviet Union dissolve?
answers: text: December 26, 1991

question: What entity was created in place of the Soviet Union?
answers: text: Commonwealth of Independent States

question: Who was president of the Soviet Union when it came to an end?
answers: text: Mikhail Gorbachev,

question: Who became president of Russia after Gorbachev left office?
answers: text: Boris Yeltsin

question: Which flag replaced the Soviet flag at the Kremlin?
answers: text: pre-revolutionary Russian flag.
context: The dissolution of the Soviet Union was formally enacted on December 26, 1991, as a result of the declaration no. 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although five of the signatories ratified it much later or not at all. On the previous day, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers – including control of the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes – to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7:32 p.m., the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag.

qas: question: Who was General Secretary prior to Mikhail Gorbachev?
answers: text: Konstantin Chernenko

question: What caused Chernenko to leave office?
answers: text: death

question: How old was Gorbachev when he was elected as the General Secretary? 
answers: text: 54

question: What entity was responsible for Gorbachev's being elected?
answers: text: Politburo

question: To which two people did Gorbachev grant membership into the Politburo for his own reasons? 
answers: text: Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov,
context: Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on March 11, 1985, three hours after predecessor Konstantin Chernenko's death at age 73. Gorbachev, aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo. His initial goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy, and he realized that doing so would require reforming underlying political and social structures. The reforms began with personnel changes of senior Brezhnev-era officials who would impede political and economic change. On April 23, 1985, Gorbachev brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, into the Politburo as full members. He kept the "power" ministries happy by promoting KGB Head Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member and appointing Minister of Defence Marshal Sergei Sokolov as a Politburo candidate.

qas: question: What were some of the downsides of the more liberal Soviet Union?
answers: text: nationalist movements and ethnic disputes

question: In which country did Warsaw Pact regime remain in place?
answers: text: Romania

question: What party did Gorbachev belong to?
answers: text: Communist Party

question: What was the name of the legislative body that was brought into existance in 1989?
answers: text: Congress of People's Deputies

question: When were opposition parties first allowed in the Soviet Union?
answers: text: 1990
context: This liberalization, however, fostered nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Soviet Union. It also led indirectly to the revolutions of 1989, in which Soviet-imposed communist regimes of the Warsaw Pact were peacefully toppled (Romania excepted), which in turn increased pressure on Gorbachev to introduce greater democracy and autonomy for the Soviet Union's constituent republics. Under Gorbachev's leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature, the Congress of People's Deputies (although the ban on other political parties was not lifted until 1990).

qas: question: When was Gorbachev's speech addressing alcohol abuse?
answers: text: May 1985

question: Other than increasing pricing what was another measure that was introduced to decrease alcohol consumption?
answers: text: rationing

question: What was censored?
answers: text: drinking scenes from old movies

question: Whose anti-alcohol program did Gorbachev's remind people of?
answers: text: Tsar Nicholas II

question: When did Tsar Nicholas II ban alcohol?
answers: text: during World War I,
context: In May 1985, Gorbachev delivered a speech in Leningrad advocating reforms and an anti-alcohol campaign to tackle widespread alcoholism. Prices on vodka, wine, and beer were raised in order to make these drinks more expensive and a disincentive to consumers, and the introduction of rationing. Unlike most forms of rationing intended to conserve scarce goods, this was done to restrict sales with the overt goal of curtailing drunkenness. Gorbachev's plan also included billboards promoting sobriety, increased penalties for public drunkenness, and to censor drinking scenes from old movies. Although this program was not a direct copycat of Tsar Nicholas II's outright prohibition during World War I, Gorbachev faced the same adverse economic reaction as did the last Tsar. The disincentivization of alcohol consumption was a serious blow to the state budget according to Alexander Yakovlev, who noted annual collections of alcohol taxes decreased by 100 billion rubles. Alcohol production migrated to the black market, or through moonshining as some made "bathtub vodka" with homegrown potatoes. Poorer, less educated Russians resorted to drinking unhealthy substitutes such as nail polish, rubbing alcohol or men's cologne, which only served to be an additional burden on Russia's healthcare sector due to the subsequent poisoning cases. The purpose of these reforms, however, was to prop up the existing centrally planned economy, unlike later reforms, which tended toward market socialism.

qas: question: When did Eduard Shevardnadze gain full membership in the Politburo?
answers: text: July 1, 1985

question: Who was responsible for Shevardnadze's membership?
answers: text: Gorbachev

question: Who was minister of foreign affairs prior to Shevardnadze?
answers: text: Andrei Gromyko

question: What was Gromyko's western nickname?
answers: text: "Mr Nyet"

question: Which person did Gorbachev kick out of the Politburo on the first of July?
answers: text: Grigory Romanov
context: On July 1, 1985, Gorbachev promoted Eduard Shevardnadze, First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, to full member of the Politburo, and the following day appointed him minister of foreign affairs, replacing longtime Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. The latter, disparaged as "Mr Nyet" in the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Gromyko was relegated to the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (officially Soviet Head of State), as he was considered an "old thinker." Also on July 1, Gorbachev took the opportunity to dispose of his main rival by removing Grigory Romanov from the Politburo, and brought Boris Yeltsin and Lev Zaikov into the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat.

qas: question: Who became Chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1985?
answers: text: Nikolai Ryzhkov

question: Who was Chairman of the Council of Ministers prior to Ryzhkov?
answers: text: Nikolai Tikhonov

question: How old was Tikhonov when he stopped being Chairman?
answers: text: 79-year-old

question: What is an analogous office to Chairman of the Council of Ministers?
answers: text: chairman of the State Planning Committee

question: Who was the new chairman of the State Planning Committee in 1985?
answers: text: Nikolai Talyzin
context: In the fall of 1985, Gorbachev continued to bring younger and more energetic men into government. On September 27, Nikolai Ryzhkov replaced 79-year-old Nikolai Tikhonov as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, effectively the Soviet prime minister, and on October 14, Nikolai Talyzin replaced Nikolai Baibakov as chairman of the State Planning Committee (GOSPLAN). At the next Central Committee meeting on October 15, Tikhonov retired from the Politburo and Talyzin became a candidate. Finally, on December 23, 1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party replacing Viktor Grishin.

qas: question: Who created the CTAG?
answers: text: Linards Grantiņš, Raimonds Bitenieks, and Mārtiņš Bariss.

question: What group was the first to oppose the Soviet government publicly?
answers: text: Helsinki-86

question: What party was Helsinki-86 in disagreement with?
answers: text: Communist
context: The CTAG (Latvian: Cilvēktiesību aizstāvības grupa, Human Rights Defense Group) Helsinki-86 was founded in July 1986 in the Latvian port town of Liepāja by three workers: Linards Grantiņš, Raimonds Bitenieks, and Mārtiņš Bariss. Its name refers to the human-rights statements of the Helsinki Accords. Helsinki-86 was the first openly anti-Communist organization in the U.S.S.R., and the first openly organized opposition to the Soviet regime, setting an example for other ethnic minorities' pro-independence movements.[citation needed]

qas: question: What is the English translation of the word Jeltoqsan?
answers: text: December

question: Who was fired by Gorbachev causing riots?
answers: text: Dinmukhamed Konayev

question: What position did Konayev hold in Kazakhstan prior to his removal?
answers: text: First Secretary of the Communist Party

question: Who took the place of Konayev?
answers: text: Gennady Kolbin

question: When were the first demonstrations in Kazakhstan to protest the removal and replacement of Konayev?
answers: text: December 17, 1986
context: The "Jeltoqsan" (Kazakh for "December") of 1986 were riots in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, sparked by Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Konayev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh, who was replaced with Gennady Kolbin, an outsider from the Russian SFSR. Demonstrations started in the morning of December 17, 1986, with 200 to 300 students in front of the Central Committee building on Brezhnev Square protesting Konayev's dismissal and replacement by a Russian. Protesters swelled to 1,000 to 5,000 as other students joined the crowd. The CPK Central Committee ordered troops from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, druzhiniki (volunteers), cadets, policemen, and the KGB to cordon the square and videotape the participants. The situation escalated around 5 p.m., as troops were ordered to disperse the protesters. Clashes between the security forces and the demonstrators continued throughout the night in Almaty.

qas: question: Who was demonstrating?
answers: text: Kazakh students

question: How many people were estimated by authorities to have attended the riots?
answers: text: 3,000

question: What were the attendance estimates from non governmental groups?
answers: text: 30,000 to 40,000

question: How did the Kazakh SSR government say the two protesters were killed?
answers: text: blows to the head

question: Who wrote about the KGB officer's testimony?
answers: text: Mukhtar Shakhanov
context: On the next day, December 18, protests turned into civil unrest as clashes between troops, volunteers, militia units, and Kazakh students turned into a wide-scale confrontation. The clashes could only be controlled on the third day. The Almaty events were followed by smaller protests and demonstrations in Shymkent, Pavlodar, Karaganda, and Taldykorgan. Reports from Kazakh SSR authorities estimated that the riots drew 3,000 people. Other estimates are of at least 30,000 to 40,000 protestors with 5,000 arrested and jailed, and an unknown number of casualties. Jeltoqsan leaders say over 60,000 Kazakhs participated in the protests. According to the Kazakh SSR government, there were two deaths during the riots, including a volunteer police worker and a student. Both of them had died due to blows to the head. About 100 others were detained and several others were sentenced to terms in labor camps. Sources cited by the Library of Congress claimed that at least 200 people died or were summarily executed soon thereafter; some accounts estimate casualties at more than 1,000. The writer Mukhtar Shakhanov claimed that a KGB officer testified that 168 protesters were killed, but that figure remains unconfirmed.

qas: question: Whose support did Gorbachev seek in order to increase liberties?
answers: text: the people's

question: What party was Gorbachev in charge of?
answers: text: Communist

question: What group wanted to stop reforms?
answers: text: "conservatives."
context: Gorbachev also radically expanded the scope of Glasnost, stating that no subject was off-limits for open discussion in the media. Even so, the cautious Soviet intelligentsia took almost a year to begin pushing the boundaries to see if he meant what he said. For the first time, the Communist Party leader had appealed over the heads of Central Committee members for the people's support in exchange for expansion of liberties. The tactic proved successful: Within two years political reform could no longer be sidetracked by Party "conservatives." An unintended consequence was that having saved reform, Gorbachev's move ultimately killed the very system it was designed to save.

qas: question: When were the prisoners set free?
answers: text: February 7, 1987,

question: What sort of prisoners were released?
answers: text: political

question: Who demonstrated close to the Kremlin in July of 1978?
answers: text: Crimean Tatars

question: Prior to 1987 when was the last large release of prisoners?
answers: text: mid-1950s.

question: Who released the prisoners in the 1950s?
answers: text: Khrushchev's
context: On February 7, 1987, dozens of political prisoners were freed in the first group release since Khrushchev's "thaw" in the mid-1950s. On May 6, 1987, Pamyat, a Russian nationalist group, held an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow. The authorities did not break up the demonstration and even kept traffic out of the demonstrators' way while they marched to an impromptu meeting with Boris Yeltsin, head of the Moscow Communist Party and at the time one of Gorbachev's closest allies. On July 25, 1987, 300 Crimean Tatars staged a noisy demonstration near the Kremlin Wall for several hours, calling for the right to return to their homeland, from which they were deported in 1944; police and soldiers merely looked on.

qas: question: Who disagreed vocally about the demonstrations being permitted?
answers: text: Yegor Ligachev

question: Who resigned in September of 1987?
answers: text: Boris Yeltsin

question: What was Gorbachev's reaction to Yeltsin's resignation?
answers: text: stunned

question: What did Yeltsin dislike about the reforms?
answers: text: slow pace

question: Who took Yeltsin's side?
answers: text: No one
context: On September 10, 1987, after a lecture from hardliner Yegor Ligachev at the Politburo for allowing these two unsanctioned demonstrations in Moscow, Boris Yeltsin wrote a letter of resignation to Gorbachev, who had been holidaying on the Black Sea. Gorbachev was stunned – no one had ever voluntarily resigned from the Politburo. At the October 27, 1987, plenary meeting of the Central Committee, Yeltsin, frustrated that Gorbachev had not addressed any of the issues outlined in his resignation letter, criticized the slow pace of reform, servility to the general secretary, and opposition from Ligachev that had led to his (Yeltsin's) resignation. No one had ever addressed the Party leader so brazenly in front of the Central Committee since Leon Trotsky in the 1920s. In his reply, Gorbachev accused Yeltsin of "political immaturity" and "absolute irresponsibility." No one backed Yeltsin.

qas: question: Where did the demonstrators meet in June of 1987?
answers: text: Freedom Monument

question: Where is Freedom Monument?
answers: text: Riga

question: What did the protesters do?
answers: text: laid flowers

question: Who were the protesters remembering?
answers: text: Latvians

question: Where did further protests take place?
answers: text: Baltic States
context: On June 14, 1987, about 5,000 people gathered again at Freedom Monument in Riga, and laid flowers to commemorate the anniversary of Stalin's mass deportation of Latvians in 1941. This was the first large demonstration in the Baltic republics to commemorate the anniversary of an event contrary to official Soviet history. The authorities did not crack down on demonstrators, which encouraged more and larger demonstrations throughout the Baltic States. The next major anniversary after the August 23 Molotov Pact demonstration was on November 18, the date of Latvia’s independence in 1918. On November 18, 1987, hundreds of police and civilian militiamen cordoned off the central square to prevent any demonstration at Freedom Monument, but thousands lined the streets of Riga in silent protest regardless.

qas: question: What was being protested in Estonia?
answers: text: new phosphate mines

question: When did the phosphate mine protests begin?
answers: text: spring 1987

question: What group was started by ex-political prisoners?
answers: text: MRP-AEG group

question: Who was in charge of the MRP-AEG group?
answers: text: Tiit Madisson

question: What was requested for Estonia in the proposal printed by the Edasi newspaper in 1987?
answers: text: autonomy
context: In spring 1987, a protest movement arose against new phosphate mines in Estonia. Signatures were collected in Tartu, and students assembled in the university's main hall to express lack of confidence in the government. At a demonstration on May 1, 1987, young people showed up with banners and slogans despite an official ban. On August 15, 1987, former political prisoners formed the MRP-AEG group (Estonians for the Public Disclosure of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), which was headed by Tiit Madisson. In September 1987, the Edasi newspaper published a proposal by Edgar Savisaar, Siim Kallas, Tiit Made, and Mikk Titma calling for Estonia's transition to autonomy. Initially geared toward economic independence, then toward a certain amount of political autonomy, the project, Isemajandav Eesti ("A Self-Managing Estonia") became known according to its Estonian acronym, IME, which means "miracle". On October 21, a demonstration dedicated to those who gave their lives in the 1918–1920 Estonian War of Independence took place in Võru, which culminated in a conflict with the militia. For the first time in years, the blue, black, and white national tricolor was publicly displayed.

qas: question: When was the Yerevan demonstration?
answers: text: October 17, 1987

question: How many people demonstrated?
answers: text: about 3,000

question: What was the demonstrators' nationality?
answers: text: Armenians

question: The protesters were unhappy with the pollution in what body of water?
answers: text: Lake Sevan

question: Where did the protest march start?
answers: text: Opera Plaza
context: On October 17, 1987, about 3,000 Armenians demonstrated in Yerevan complaining about the condition of Lake Sevan, the Nairit chemicals plant, and the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant, and air pollution in Yerevan. Police tried to prevent the protest but took no action to stop it once the march was underway. The demonstration was led by Armenian writers such as Silva Kaputikian, Zori Balayan, and Maro Margarian and leaders from the National Survival organization. The march originated at the Opera Plaza after speakers, mainly intellectuals, addressed the crowd.

qas: question: What ws the final day of the 19th Party Conference?
answers: text: July 1, 1988

question: What did Gorbachev hope to create?
answers: text: new supreme legislative body

question: What was Gorbachev trying to separate?
answers: text: party and state

question: What was the proposed legislative body called?
answers: text: Congress of People's Deputies

question: What was the ideology of Gorbachev's opponents?
answers: text: conservative
context: On July 1, 1988, the fourth and last day of a bruising 19th Party Conference, Gorbachev won the backing of the tired delegates for his last-minute proposal to create a new supreme legislative body called the Congress of People's Deputies. Frustrated by the old guard's resistance, Gorbachev embarked on a set of constitutional changes to try to separate party and state, and thereby isolate his conservative Party opponents. Detailed proposals for the new Congress of People's Deputies were published on October 2, 1988, and to enable the creation of the new legislature the Supreme Soviet, during its November 29–December 1, 1988, session, implemented amendments to the 1977 Soviet Constitution, enacted a law on electoral reform, and set the date of the election for March 26, 1989.

qas: question: Whose laws would take precedence according to the declaration of national sovereignty?
answers: text: Estonian

question: Who claimed Estonia's national resources?
answers: text: Estonia's parliament

question: What was the name of the group that made its platform known on October 2?
answers: text: the Popular Front
context: On October 2, the Popular Front formally launched its political platform at a two-day congress. Väljas attended, gambling that the front could help Estonia become a model of economic and political revival, while moderating separatist and other radical tendencies. On November 16, 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR adopted a declaration of national sovereignty under which Estonian laws would take precedence over those of the Soviet Union. Estonia's parliament also laid claim to the republic's natural resources including land, inland waters, forests, mineral deposits, and to the means of industrial production, agriculture, construction, state banks, transportation, and municipal services within the territory of Estonia's borders.

qas: question: How many Azerbaijanis died in the Askeran clash?
answers: text: two

question: When was the Askeran clash?
answers: text: February 22, 1988

question: Who killed the two Azerbaijanis?
answers: text: Karabakh police.

question: What was triggered by the radio broadcast of the deaths?
answers: text: Sumgait Pogrom

question: How many were killed in the ensuing riots?
answers: text: 32
context: In February 20, 1988, after a week of growing demonstrations in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (the Armenian majority area within Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic), the Regional Soviet voted to secede and join with the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia. This local vote in a small, remote part of the Soviet Union made headlines around the world; it was an unprecedented defiance of republic and national authorities. On February 22, 1988, in what became known as the "Askeran clash", two Azerbaijanis were killed by Karabakh police. These deaths, announced on state radio, led to the Sumgait Pogrom. Between February 26 and March 1, the city of Sumgait (Azerbaijan) saw violent anti-Armenian rioting during which 32 people were killed. The authorities totally lost control and occupied the city with paratroopers and tanks; nearly all of the 14,000 Armenian residents of Sumgait fled.

qas: question: Who did Gorbachev make First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party in 1988?
answers: text: Abdulrahman Vezirov

question: Who was First Secretary prior to Vezirov?
answers: text: Kamran Baghirov

question: How many soldiers died on September 17?
answers: text: two

question: People of what ethnicity were thrown out of Shusha?
answers: text: Armenian

question: How long did the Lenin Square protest last?
answers: text: 18 days
context: Gorbachev refused to make any changes to the status of Nagorno Karabakh, which remained part of Azerbaijan. He instead sacked the Communist Party Leaders in both Republics – on May 21, 1988, Kamran Baghirov was replaced by Abdulrahman Vezirov as First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party. From July 23 to September 1988, a group of Azerbaijani intellectuals began working for a new organization called the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, loosely based on the Estonian Popular Front. On September 17, when gun battles broke out between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis near Stepanakert, two soldiers were killed and more than two dozen injured. This led to almost tit-for-tat ethnic polarization in Nagorno-Karabakh's two main towns: The Azerbaijani minority was expelled from Stepanakert, and the Armenian minority was expelled from Shusha. On November 17, 1988, in response to the exodus of tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, a series of mass demonstrations began in Baku's Lenin Square, lasting 18 days and attracting half a million demonstrators. On December 5, 1988, the Soviet militia finally moved in, cleared the square by force, and imposed a curfew that lasted ten months.

qas: question: Where were the first demonstrations in Armenia?
answers: text: Yerevan

question: What is the capitol of Armenia?
answers: text: Yerevan

question: How many people protested on February 23?
answers: text: 300,000,

question: What sort of strike was called?
answers: text: transport

question: What percentage of Armenia's total population protested on February 25?
answers: text: about a quarter
context: The rebellion of fellow Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh had an immediate effect in Armenia itself. Daily demonstrations, which began in the Armenian capital Yerevan on February 18, initially attracted few people, but each day the Nagorno-Karabakh issue became increasingly prominent and numbers swelled. On February 20, a 30,000-strong crowd demonstrated in Theater Square, by February 22, there were 100,000, the next day 300,000, and a transport strike was declared, by February 25, there were close to 1 million demonstrators – about a quarter of Armenia's population. This was the first of the large, peaceful public demonstrations that would become a feature of communism's overthrow in Prague, Berlin, and, ultimately, Moscow. Leading Armenian intellectuals and nationalists, including future first President of independent Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian, formed the eleven-member Karabakh Committee to lead and organize the new movement.

qas: question: How many protesters died in the airport violence?
answers: text: one

question: Who banned the Azerbaijani people from Armenia?
answers: text: Nationalists

question: Who had been previously removed from Azerbaijan?
answers: text: Armenians

question: Who took charge of Yerevan in November of 1988?
answers: text: a military commandant
context: Gorbachev again refused to make any changes to the status of Nagorno Karabakh, which remained part of Azerbaijan. Instead he sacked both Republics' Communist Party Leaders: On May 21, 1988, Karen Demirchian was replaced by Suren Harutyunyan as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia. However, Harutyunyan quickly decided to run before the nationalist wind and on May 28, allowed Armenians to unfurl the red-blue-gold First Armenian Republic flag for the first time in almost 70 years. On June 15, 1988, the Armenian Supreme Soviet adopted a resolution formally approving the idea of Nagorno Karabakh joining Armenia. Armenia, formerly one of the most loyal Republics, had suddenly turned into the leading rebel republic. On July 5, 1988, when a contingent of troops was sent in to remove demonstrators by force from Yerevan's Zvartnots International Airport, shots were fired and one student protester was killed. In September, further large demonstrations in Yerevan led to the deployment of armored vehicles. In the autumn of 1988 almost all the 200,000 Azerbaijani minority in Armenia was expelled by Armenian Nationalists, with over 100 killed in the process – this, after the Sumgait pogrom earlier that year carried out by Azerbaijanis against ethnic Armenians and subsequent expulsion of all Armenians from Azerbaijan. On November 25, 1988, a military commandant took control of Yerevan as the Soviet government moved to prevent further ethnic violence.

qas: question: When did the Democratic Movement of Moldova start operating?
answers: text: February 1988

question: Which monument was a popular meeting place?
answers: text: Stephen the Great Monument

question: Where was the Stephen the Great Monument located?
answers: text: Chişinău

question: What did the movement seek to make the official language of Moldova?
answers: text: Romanian

question: What was Moldova's previous name?
answers: text: Moldavia
context: Beginning in February 1988, the Democratic Movement of Moldova (formerly Moldavia) organized public meetings, demonstrations, and song festivals, which gradually grew in size and intensity. In the streets, the center of public manifestations was the Stephen the Great Monument in Chişinău, and the adjacent park harboring Aleea Clasicilor (The "Alee of the Classics [of the Literature]"). On January 15, 1988, in a tribute to Mihai Eminescu at his bust on the Aleea Clasicilor, Anatol Şalaru submitted a proposal to continue the meetings. In the public discourse, the movement called for national awakening, freedom of speech, revival of Moldavian traditions, and for attainment of official status for the Romanian language and return to the Latin alphabet. The transition from "movement" (an informal association) to "front" (a formal association) was seen as a natural "upgrade" once a movement gained momentum with the public, and the Soviet authorities no longer dared to crack down on it.

qas: question: What group was responsible for the April 25, 1988 protest?
answers: text: Ukrainian Cultural Club

question: Where did the march happen?
answers: text: Kiev's Khreschatyk Street

question: What did the marchers wish to commemorate? 
answers: text: Chernobyl nuclear disaster,

question: Which group held secret Milleneum of Christianity celebrations?
answers: text: Ukrainian Catholics

question: In what city did the Ukrainian Cultural Club have its Millennium celebration?
answers: text: Kiev
context: On April 26, 1988, about 500 people participated in a march organized by the Ukrainian Cultural Club on Kiev's Khreschatyk Street to mark the second anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, carrying placards with slogans like "Openness and Democracy to the End." Between May and June 1988, Ukrainian Catholics in western Ukraine celebrated the Millennium of Christianity in Kievan Rus' in secret by holding services in the forests of Buniv, Kalush, Hoshiv, and Zarvanytsia. On June 5, 1988, as the official celebrations of the Millennium were held in Moscow, the Ukrainian Cultural Club hosted its own observances in Kiev at the monument to St. Volodymyr the Great, the grand prince of Kievan Rus'.

qas: question: How many people attended the Lviv rally?
answers: text: 50,000

question: Where was the dispersal attempt made?
answers: text: in front of Druzhba Stadium

question: Who tried to stop the rally?
answers: text: Authorities

question: Who led the Millennium celebration in Zarvanytsia?
answers: text: Pavlo Vasylyk

question: Who wanted to break up the celebration?
answers: text: militia
context: On June 16, 1988, 6,000 to 8,000 people gathered in Lviv to hear speakers declare no confidence in the local list of delegates to the 19th Communist Party conference, to begin on June 29. On June 21, a rally in Lviv attracted 50,000 people who had heard about a revised delegate list. Authorities attempted to disperse the rally in front of Druzhba Stadium. On July 7, 10,000 to 20,000 people witnessed the launch of the Democratic Front to Promote Perestroika. On July 17, a group of 10,000 gathered in the village Zarvanytsia for Millennium services celebrated by Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk. The militia tried to disperse attendees, but it turned out to be the largest gathering of Ukrainian Catholics since Stalin outlawed the Church in 1946. On August 4, which came to be known as "Bloody Thursday," local authorities violently suppressed a demonstration organized by the Democratic Front to Promote Perestroika. Forty-one people were detained, fined, or sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. On September 1, local authorities violently displaced 5,000 students at a public meeting lacking official permission at Ivan Franko State University.

qas: question: What is the English translation of Zelenyi Svit?
answers: text: Green World

question: What sort of issues were Zenlenyi Svit and Noosfera concerned with?
answers: text: ecological

question: What sort of organization is Spadschnyna? 
answers: text: cultural heritage

question: What did people gather to observe on December 10th?
answers: text: International Human Rights Day
context: On November 13, 1988, approximately 10,000 people attended an officially sanctioned meeting organized by the cultural heritage organization Spadschyna, the Kyiv University student club Hromada, and the environmental groups Zelenyi Svit ("Green World") and Noosfera, to focus on ecological issues. From November 14–18, 15 Ukrainian activists were among the 100 human-, national- and religious-rights advocates invited to discuss human rights with Soviet officials and a visiting delegation of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (also known as the Helsinki Commission). On December 10, hundreds gathered in Kiev to observe International Human Rights Day at a rally organized by the Democratic Union. The unauthorized gathering resulted in the detention of local activists.

qas: question: When did The Partyja BDF start?
answers: text: 1988

question: Who found mass graves?
answers: text: Zianon Pazniak

question: What is Pazniak's occupation?
answers: text: historian

question: Where were the graves found?
answers: text: Kurapaty

question: In addition to the police who did the BDF often have conflicts with?
answers: text: KGB
context: The Partyja BPF (Belarusian Popular Front) was established in 1988 as a political party and cultural movement for democracy and independence, à la the Baltic republics’ popular fronts. The discovery of mass graves in Kurapaty outside Minsk by historian Zianon Pazniak, the Belarusian Popular Front’s first leader, gave additional momentum to the pro-democracy and pro-independence movement in Belarus. It claimed that the NKVD performed secret killings in Kurapaty. Initially the Front had significant visibility because its numerous public actions almost always ended in clashes with the police and the KGB.

qas: question: What was elected in 1989?
answers: text: new Congress of People's Deputies

question: Who was questioned on live TV?
answers: text: Communist leadership

question: Where was the Communist government overthrown first?
answers: text: Warsaw

question: When did the Berlin Wall get torn down?
answers: text: 1989

question: What did Eastern European people want to do with communism?
answers: text: abandon it
context: Spring 1989 saw the people of the Soviet Union exercising a democratic choice, albeit limited, for the first time since 1917, when they elected the new Congress of People's Deputies. Just as important was the uncensored live TV coverage of the legislature's deliberations, where people witnessed the previously feared Communist leadership being questioned and held accountable. This example fueled a limited experiment with democracy in Poland, which quickly led to the toppling of the Communist government in Warsaw that summer – which in turn sparked uprisings that overthrew communism in the other five Warsaw Pact countries before the end of 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. These events showed that the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union did not support Gorbachev's drive to modernize Communism; rather, they preferred to abandon it altogether.

qas: question: What percentage of people voted on March 26?
answers: text: 89.8%

question: How many constituencies had run-off elections?
answers: text: 76

question: How many CPSU endorsement having candidates lost to independents?
answers: text: more than 300
context: In the March 26 general elections, voter participation was an impressive 89.8%, and 1,958 (including 1,225 district seats) of the 2,250 CPD seats were filled. In district races, run-off elections were held in 76 constituencies on April 2 and 9 and fresh elections were organized on April 20 and 14 to May 23, in the 199 remaining constituencies where the required absolute majority was not attained. While most CPSU-endorsed candidates were elected, more than 300 lost to independent candidates such as Yeltsin, physicist Andrei Sakharov and lawyer Anatoly Sobchak.

qas: question: Who used the legislative session to debate and criticize?
answers: text: reformers

question: Who made up the Inter-Regional Deputies Group?
answers: text: Russian nationalists and liberals.

question: When did Yeltsin acquire a seat on the Supreme Soviet?
answers: text: May 29
context: In the first session of the new Congress of People's Deputies, from May 25 to June 9, hardliners retained control but reformers used the legislature as a platform for debate and criticism – which was broadcast live and uncensored. This transfixed the population; nothing like this freewheeling debate had ever been witnessed in the U.S.S.R. On May 29, Yeltsin managed to secure a seat on the Supreme Soviet, and in the summer he formed the first opposition, the Inter-Regional Deputies Group, composed of Russian nationalists and liberals. Composing the final legislative group in the Soviet Union, those elected in 1989 played a vital part in reforms and the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union during the next two years.

qas: question: What did the Communist Party lose on October 25, 1989 with regards to elections?
answers: text: special seats

question: Who voted to get rid of the special seats?
answers: text: the Supreme Soviet

question: When did congress meet to ratify the amendment to remove special election seats?
answers: text: December 12–25
context: On October 25, 1989, the Supreme Soviet voted to eliminate special seats for the Communist Party and other official organizations in national and local elections, responding to sharp popular criticism that such reserved slots were undemocratic. After vigorous debate, the 542-member Supreme Soviet passed the measure 254-85 (with 36 abstentions). The decision required a constitutional amendment, ratified by the full congress, which met December 12–25. It also passed measures that would allow direct elections for presidents of each of the 15 constituent republics. Gorbachev strongly opposed such a move during debate but was defeated.

qas: question: What year did the Prague Spring take place?
answers: text: 1968

question: What happened to Prague and Hungary's attempts at independence?
answers: text: suppressed by military force

question: Under what doctrine was the Soviet Union required to intervene in the Warsaw Pact states?
answers: text: Brezhnev Doctrine

question: Other than being expensive what was wrong with the Brezhnev Doctrine?
answers: text: oppressive

question: What is the nickname for Gorbachev's new doctrine?
answers: text: Sinatra Doctrine
context: The six Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe, while nominally independent, were widely recognized in the international community as the Soviet satellite states. All had been occupied by the Soviet Red Army in 1945, had Soviet-style socialist states imposed upon them, and had very restricted freedom of action in either domestic or international affairs. Any moves towards real independence were suppressed by military force – in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968. Gorbachev abandoned the oppressive and expensive Brezhnev Doctrine, which mandated intervention in the Warsaw Pact states, in favor of non-intervention in the internal affairs of allies – jokingly termed the Sinatra Doctrine in a reference to the Frank Sinatra song "My Way".

qas: question: How many people were involved in the Baltic Chain?
answers: text: estimated 2 million

question: How long was the chain?
answers: text: 600 kilometres

question: What states did the chain extend over?
answers: text: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

question: What anniversary did the chain take place on?
answers: text: 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

question: What part of Europe was split up by the pact?
answers: text: Eastern
context: The Baltic Way or Baltic Chain (also Chain of Freedom Estonian: Balti kett, Latvian: Baltijas ceļš, Lithuanian: Baltijos kelias, Russian: Балтийский путь) was a peaceful political demonstration on August 23, 1989. An estimated 2 million people joined hands to form a human chain extending 600 kilometres (370 mi) across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which had been forcibly reincorporated into the Soviet Union in 1944. The colossal demonstration marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact that divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence and led to the occupation of the Baltic states in 1940.

qas: question: Who was in charge of Lithuania's Communist Party in 1989
answers: text: Algirdas Brazauskas

question: What party did  Lithuania's Communist Party break apart from?
answers: text: Communist Party of the Soviet Union

question: Who was in charge of the loyalist faction?
answers: text: Mykolas Burokevičius,

question: What place's control was the Communist Party of Lithuania out from under after the split?
answers: text: Moscow's

question: Who visited with the hope of bringing back the Communist Party of Lithuania to the Soviet Party?
answers: text: Gorbachev
context: On December 7, 1989, the Communist Party of Lithuania under the leadership of Algirdas Brazauskas, split from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and abandoned its claim to have a constitutional "leading role" in politics. A smaller loyalist faction of the Communist Party, headed by hardliner Mykolas Burokevičius, was established and remained affiliated with the CPSU. However, Lithuania’s governing Communist Party was formally independent from Moscow's control – a first for Soviet Republics and a political earthquake that prompted Gorbachev to arrange a visit to Lithuania the following month in a futile attempt to bring the local party back under control.

qas: question: When was Abulfaz Elchibey elected to Chairman of the Popular Front?
answers: text: July 16, 1989

question: How many protesters filled Lenin Square on August 19th?
answers: text: 600,000

question: What did the protesters want?
answers: text: release of political prisoners
context: On July 16, 1989, the Popular Front of Azerbaijan held its first congress and elected Abulfaz Elchibey, who would become President, as its Chairman. On August 19, 600,000 protesters jammed Baku’s Lenin Square (now Azadliq Square) to demand the release of political prisoners. In the second half of 1989, weapons were handed out in Nagorno-Karabakh. When Karabakhis got hold of small arms to replace hunting rifles and crossbows, casualties began to mount; bridges were blown up, roads were blockaded, and hostages were taken.

qas: question: What did the Popular Front do to Armenian railways?
answers: text: blockade

question: What shortages were caused by the blockade?
answers: text: petrol and food

question: How much freight into Armenia originated in Azerbaijan? 
answers: text: 85 percent

question: When was the sovereignty law passed?
answers: text: September 25

question: What in Jalilibad was taken over by the Popular Front?
answers: text: local party offices
context: In a new and effective tactic, the Popular Front launched a rail blockade of Armenia, which caused petrol and food shortages because 85 percent of Armenia's freight came from Azerbaijan. Under pressure from the Popular Front the Communist authorities in Azerbaijan started making concessions. On September 25, they passed a sovereignty law that gave precedence to Azerbaijani law, and on October 4, the Popular Front was permitted to register as a legal organization as long as it lifted the blockade. Transport communications between Azerbaijan and Armenia never fully recovered. Tensions continued to escalate and on December 29, Popular Front activists seized local party offices in Jalilabad, wounding dozens.

qas: question: What did the protesters want Georgia to leave?
answers: text: Soviet Union

question: What did the protesters hope to see become a part of Georgia?
answers: text: Abkhazia

question: How many people died in the April 9 attack?
answers: text: 20

question: What happened to Georgian politics as a result of the attack?
answers: text: radicalized
context: On April 7, 1989, Soviet troops and armored personnel carriers were sent to Tbilisi after more than 100,000 people protested in front of Communist Party headquarters with banners calling for Georgia to secede from the Soviet Union and for Abkhazia to be fully integrated into Georgia. On April 9, 1989, troops attacked the demonstrators; some 20 people were killed and more than 200 wounded. This event radicalized Georgian politics, prompting many to conclude that independence was preferable to continued Soviet rule. On April 14, Gorbachev removed Jumber Patiashvili as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party and replaced him with former Georgian KGB chief Givi Gumbaridze.

qas: question: What is commemorated on January 22 in Ukraine?
answers: text: Ukrainian Independence Day

question: What is a moleben?
answers: text: religious service

question: Where was the moleben held?
answers: text: in front of St. George's Cathedral.
context: In Ukraine, Lviv and Kiev celebrated Ukrainian Independence Day on January 22, 1989. Thousands gathered in Lviv for an unauthorized moleben (religious service) in front of St. George's Cathedral. In Kiev, 60 activists met in a Kiev apartment to commemorate the proclamation of the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918. On February 11–12, 1989, the Ukrainian Language Society held its founding congress. On February 15, 1989, the formation of the Initiative Committee for the Renewal of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was announced. The program and statutes of the movement were proposed by the Writers Association of Ukraine and were published in the journal Literaturna Ukraina on February 16, 1989. The organization heralded Ukrainian dissidents such as Vyacheslav Chornovil.

qas: question: What were people protesting in Kiev during the last part of February?
answers: text: election laws

question: Who did the protesters want to resign? 
answers: text: Volodymyr Scherbytsky

question: What was Scherbytsky's nickname?
answers: text: the mastodon of stagnation

question: Who visited the Ukraine while the protests were taking place?
answers: text: Gorbachev

question: How many people attended the service in Lviv?
answers: text: between 20,000 and 30,000
context: In late February, large public rallies took place in Kiev to protest the election laws, on the eve of the March 26 elections to the USSR Congress of People's Deputies, and to call for the resignation of the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Volodymyr Scherbytsky, lampooned as "the mastodon of stagnation." The demonstrations coincided with a visit to Ukraine by Soviet President Gorbachev. On February 26, 1989, between 20,000 and 30,000 people participated in an unsanctioned ecumenical memorial service in Lviv, marking the anniversary of the death of 19th Century Ukrainian artist and nationalist Taras Shevchenko.

qas: question: What ideology's victims were being honored by the Memorial Society?
answers: text: Stalinism

question: How many people from the pre-election meeting in Lviv were detained?
answers: text: nearly 300

question: Members of what ideology were more heavily elected to the union Congress of People's Deputies?
answers: text: conservatives

question: How many deputies were elected?
answers: text: 225
context: On March 4, 1989, the Memorial Society, committed to honoring the victims of Stalinism and cleansing society of Soviet practices, was founded in Kiev. A public rally was held the next day. On March 12, A pre-election meeting organized in Lviv by the Ukrainian Helsinki Union and the Marian Society Myloserdia (Compassion) was violently dispersed, and nearly 300 people were detained. On March 26, elections were held to the union Congress of People's Deputies; by-elections were held on April 9, May 14, and May 21. Among the 225 Ukrainian deputies, most were conservatives, though a handful of progressives made the cut.

qas: question: How many people attended the Lviv pre-election meetings?
answers: text: 25,000

question: How long did the warning strike last?
answers: text: one-hour

question: Where did the strike take place?
answers: text: eight local factories and institutions

question: Prior to the warning strike when was the last labor strike in Lviv?
answers: text: 1944

question: At what sight was the Bykivnia meeting held?
answers: text: mass grave
context: From April 20–23, 1989, pre-election meetings were held in Lviv for four consecutive days, drawing crowds of up to 25,000. The action included an one-hour warning strike at eight local factories and institutions. It was the first labor strike in Lviv since 1944. On May 3, a pre-election rally attracted 30,000 in Lviv. On May 7, The Memorial Society organized a mass meeting at Bykivnia, site of a mass grave of Ukrainian and Polish victims of Stalinist terror. After a march from Kiev to the site, a memorial service was staged.

qas: question: What were the hunger strikers hoping to draw attention to?
answers: text: plight of their Church.

question: When did the Lviv regional Memorial Society have its first conference?
answers: text: May 27, 1989

question: How many people attended the services in western Ukraine?
answers: text: an estimated 100,000
context: From mid-May to September 1989, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic hunger strikers staged protests on Moscow's Arbat to call attention to the plight of their Church. They were especially active during the July session of the World Council of Churches held in Moscow. The protest ended with the arrests of the group on September 18. On May 27, 1989, the founding conference of the Lviv regional Memorial Society was held. On June 18, 1989, an estimated 100,000 faithful participated in public religious services in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, responding to Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky's call for an international day of prayer.

qas: question: What were the protesters on September 2 demonstrating against?
answers: text: draft election law

question: How many protesters were there in Lviv?
answers: text: 50,000

question: Who was put in charge of the People's Movement of Ukraine?
answers: text: Ivan Drach

question: Where did the People's Movement hold its founding congress?
answers: text: Kiev
context: On August 19, 1989, the Russian Orthodox Parish of Saints Peter and Paul announced it would be switching to the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. On September 2, 1989, tens of thousands across Ukraine protested a draft election law that reserved special seats for the Communist Party and for other official organizations: 50,000 in Lviv, 40,000 in Kiev, 10,000 in Zhytomyr, 5,000 each in Dniprodzerzhynsk and Chervonohrad, and 2,000 in Kharkiv. From September 8–10, 1989, writer Ivan Drach was elected to head Rukh, the People's Movement of Ukraine, at its founding congress in Kiev. On September 17, between 150,000 and 200,000 people marched in Lviv, demanding the legalization of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. On September 21, 1989, exhumation of a mass grave begins in Demianiv Laz, a nature preserve south of Ivano-Frankivsk. On September 28, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukraine Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, a holdover from the Brezhnev era, was replaced by Vladimir Ivashko.

qas: question: How many people demonstrated on October 1?
answers: text: 10,000 to 15,000

question: Who attacked the protest?
answers: text: militia

question: Where did the attack occur?
answers: text: in front of Lviv's Druzhba Stadium

question: What was happening in the stadium at the time?
answers: text: concert

question: Prior to the October 20 synod, when was the last one held in Lviv?
answers: text: 1930s
context: On October 1, 1989, a peaceful demonstration of 10,000 to 15,000 people was violently dispersed by the militia in front of Lviv's Druzhba Stadium, where a concert celebrating the Soviet "reunification" of Ukrainian lands was being held. On October 10, Ivano-Frankivsk was the site of a pre-election protest attended by 30,000 people. On October 15, several thousand people gathered in Chervonohrad, Chernivtsi, Rivne, and Zhytomyr; 500 in Dnipropetrovsk; and 30,000 in Lviv to protest the election law. On October 20, faithful and clergy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church participated in a synod in Lviv, the first since its forced liquidation in the 1930s.

qas: question: How many factories had strikes on October 26?
answers: text: twenty

question: Where were the strikes?
answers: text: Lviv

question: What were the strikes in protest against?
answers: text: police brutality
context: On October 24, the union Supreme Soviet passed a law eliminating special seats for Communist Party and other official organizations' representatives. On October 26, twenty factories in Lviv held strikes and meetings to protest the police brutality of October 1 and the authorities' unwillingness to prosecute those responsible. From October 26–28, the Zelenyi Svit (Friends of the Earth – Ukraine) environmental association held its founding congress, and on October 27 the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet passed a law eliminating the special status of party and other official organizations.

qas: question: What was made Ukraine's official language in 1990?
answers: text: Ukrainian

question: Who decided Ukraine's official language?
answers: text: Ukrainian Supreme Soviet

question: For what reason would the Russian be spoken?
answers: text: communication between ethnic groups

question: Where was the January 2 memorial service?
answers: text: Demianiv Laz
context: On October 28, 1989, the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet decreed that effective January 1, 1990, Ukrainian would be the official language of Ukraine, while Russian would be used for communication between ethnic groups. On the same day The Congregation of the Church of the Transfiguration in Lviv left the Russian Orthodox Church and proclaimed itself the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The following day, thousands attended a memorial service at Demianiv Laz, and a temporary marker was placed to indicate that a monument to the "victims of the repressions of 1939–1941" soon would be erected.

qas: question: When was The Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society made official?
answers: text: mid-November

question: The three human rights activists reburied November 19th were prisoners where?
answers: text: Gulag Camp No. 36

question: Where was Gulag Camp No. 36 located?
answers: text: Perm in the Ural Mountains

question: Where were the activists reburied?
answers: text: Baikove Cemetery.

question: Who met with Gorbachev on November 22?
answers: text: Pope John Paul II
context: In mid-November The Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society was officially registered. On November 19, 1989, a public gathering in Kiev attracted thousands of mourners, friends and family to the reburial in Ukraine of three inmates of the infamous Gulag Camp No. 36 in Perm in the Ural Mountains: human-rights activists Vasyl Stus, Oleksiy Tykhy, and Yuriy Lytvyn. Their remains were reinterred in Baikove Cemetery. On November 26, 1989, a day of prayer and fasting was proclaimed by Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, thousands of faithful in western Ukraine participated in religious services on the eve of a meeting between Pope John Paul II and Soviet President Gorbachev. On November 28, 1989, the Ukrainian SSR's Council for Religious Affairs issued a decree allowing Ukrainian Catholic congregations to register as legal organizations. The decree was proclaimed on December 1, coinciding with a meeting at the Vatican between the pope and the Soviet president.

qas: question: What did the Belorussians wish to be cleaned up?
answers: text: Chernobyl disaster site

question: Where did the Chernobyl Disaster occur?
answers: text: Ukraine

question: When did the Chernobyl disaster happen?
answers: text: 1986

question: What symbol did the protesters wear on their arms?
answers: text: radioactivity symbols

question: How was the weather during the protest?
answers: text: torrential rain
context: On September 30, 1989, thousands of Belorussians, denouncing local leaders, marched through Minsk to demand additional cleanup of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster site in Ukraine. Up to 15,000 protesters wearing armbands bearing radioactivity symbols and carrying the banned red-and-white Belorussian national flag filed through torrential rain in defiance of a ban by local authorities. Later, they gathered in the city center near the government's headquarters, where speakers demanded resignation of Yefrem Sokolov, the republic's Communist Party leader, and called for the evacuation of half a million people from the contaminated zones.

qas: question: Who went to the Fergana Valley to restore order?
answers: text: Soviet troops

question: Where is the Fergana Valley located?
answers: text: southeast of the Uzbek capital

question: Who were targeted by the local Uzbeks?
answers: text: members of the Meskhetian minority

question: Who was fired from First Secretary position by Gorbachev? 
answers: text: Rafiq Nishonov

question: Who replaced Nishonov?
answers: text: Karimov
context: Thousands of Soviet troops were sent to the Fergana Valley, southeast of the Uzbek capital Tashkent, to re-establish order after clashes in which local Uzbeks hunted down members of the Meskhetian minority in several days of rioting between June 4–11, 1989; about 100 people were killed. On June 23, 1989, Gorbachev removed Rafiq Nishonov as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR and replaced him with Karimov, who went on to lead Uzbekistan as a Soviet Republic and subsequently as an independent state.

qas: question: Where was the fatal June 19th riots?
answers: text: Zhanaozen

question: Who were the rioters?
answers: text: young men

question: What did the rioters try to take over?
answers: text: police station and a water-supply station

question: How many towns had riots of their own following the initial riots?
answers: text: five

question: What was attacked in Mangishlak?
answers: text: police station
context: In Kazakhstan on June 19, 1989, young men carrying guns, firebombs, iron bars and stones rioted in Zhanaozen, causing a number of deaths. The youths tried to seize a police station and a water-supply station. They brought public transportation to a halt and shut down various shops and industries. By June 25, the rioting had spread to five other towns near the Caspian Sea. A mob of about 150 people armed with sticks, stones and metal rods attacked the police station in Mangishlak, about 90 miles from Zhanaozen, before they were dispersed by government troops flown in by helicopters. Mobs of young people also rampaged through Yeraliev, Shepke, Fort-Shevchenko and Kulsary, where they poured flammable liquid on trains housing temporary workers and set them on fire.

qas: question: Which two groups saw increasing ethnic conflicts in 1988?
answers: text: Armenians and Azerbaijanis

question: Who was killed in the January 9 riots?
answers: text: four Soviet soldiers

question: How many people died in the Soviet response to the clashes?
answers: text: more than 130

question: What were the January incidents called?
answers: text: Black January

question: How many Soviet troops occupied Baku?
answers: text: 26,000
context: Ethnic tensions had escalated between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis in spring and summer 1988. On January 9, 1990, after the Armenian parliament voted to include Nagorno-Karabakh within its budget, renewed fighting broke out, hostages were taken, and four Soviet soldiers were killed. On January 11, Popular Front radicals stormed party buildings and effectively overthrew the communist powers in the southern town of Lenkoran. Gorbachev resolved to regain control of Azerbaijan; the events that ensued are known as "Black January." Late on January 19, 1990, after blowing up the central television station and cutting the phone and radio lines, 26,000 Soviet troops entered the Azerbaijani capital Baku, smashing barricades, attacking protesters, and firing into crowds. On that night and during subsequent confrontations (which lasted until February), more than 130 people died – the majority of whom were civilians. More than 700 civilians were wounded, hundreds were detained, but only a few were actually tried for alleged criminal offenses.

qas: question: What party's candidates were murdered in the September 30 elections?
answers: text: Popular Front

question: How many members were from opposition parties?
answers: text: 45

question: How many total members were there?
answers: text: 350

question: Who was elected to be Chairman in May?
answers: text: Mutalibov
context: Following the hardliners' takeover, the September 30, 1990 elections (runoffs on October 14) were characterized by intimidation; several Popular Front candidates were jailed, two were murdered, and unabashed ballot stuffing took place even in the presence of Western observers. The election results reflected the threatening environment; out of the 350 members, 280 were Communists, with only 45 opposition candidates from the Popular Front and other non-communist groups, who together formed a Democratic Bloc ("Dembloc"). In May 1990 Mutalibov was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet unopposed.

qas: question: How many miles long was the human chain?
answers: text: 300

question: Who organized this chain?
answers: text: Rukh

question: What country's independence were the chain members celebrating?
answers: text: Ukrainian

question: When had the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church been broken up by the Soviets?
answers: text: 1946

question: In 1990 which party had most of the election victories?
answers: text: the Democratic Bloc
context: On January 21, 1990, Rukh organized a 300-mile (480 km) human chain between Kiev, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk. Hundreds of thousands joined hands to commemorate the proclamation of Ukrainian independence in 1918 and the reunification of Ukrainian lands one year later (1919 Unification Act). On January 23, 1990, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church held its first synod since its liquidation by the Soviets in 1946 (an act which the gathering declared invalid). On February 9, 1990, the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice officially registered Rukh. However, the registration came too late for Rukh to stand its own candidates for the parliamentary and local elections on March 4. At the 1990 elections of people's deputies to the Supreme Council (Verkhovna Rada), candidates from the Democratic Bloc won landslide victories in western Ukrainian oblasts. A majority of the seats had to hold run-off elections. On March 18, Democratic candidates scored further victories in the run-offs. The Democratic Bloc gained about 90 out of 450 seats in the new parliament.

qas: question: Who was voted to get their cathedral back in 1990?
answers: text: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

question: What party was formed from the dissolved Ukrainian Helsinki Union?
answers: text: Ukrainian Republican Party

question: What was the first day that the new parliament met?
answers: text: May 15

question: Who became the new patriarch of the UAOC in 1990?
answers: text: Metropolitan Mstyslav
context: On April 6, 1990, the Lviv City Council voted to return St. George Cathedral to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Russian Orthodox Church refused to yield. On April 29–30, 1990, the Ukrainian Helsinki Union disbanded to form the Ukrainian Republican Party. On May 15 the new parliament convened. The bloc of conservative communists held 239 seats; the Democratic Bloc, which had evolved into the National Council, had 125 deputies. On June 4, 1990, two candidates remained in the protracted race for parliament chair. The leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU), Volodymyr Ivashko, was elected with 60 percent of the vote as more than 100 opposition deputies boycotted the election. On June 5–6, 1990, Metropolitan Mstyslav of the U.S.-based Ukrainian Orthodox Church was elected patriarch of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) during that Church's first synod. The UAOC declared its full independence from the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, which in March had granted autonomy to the Ukrainian Orthodox church headed by Metropolitan Filaret.

qas: question: Who was elected to be the new deputy general secretary of the Communist Part of the Soviet Union in July?
answers: text: Volodymyr Ivashko

question: How long did it take Parliament to accept Ivashko's resignation?
answers: text: a week

question: How many Parliament members voted against the Declaration on State Sovereignty of Ukraine?
answers: text: four
context: On June 22, 1990, Volodymyr Ivashko withdrew his candidacy for leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine in view of his new position in parliament. Stanislav Hurenko was elected first secretary of the CPU. On July 11, Ivashko resigned from his post as chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament after he was elected deputy general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Parliament accepted the resignation a week later, on July 18. On July 16 Parliament overwhelmingly approved the Declaration on State Sovereignty of Ukraine - with a vote of 355 in favour and four against. The people's deputies voted 339 to 5 to proclaim July 16 a Ukrainian national holiday.

qas: question: Who would succeed Ivashko as the chairman of Parliament?
answers: text: Leonid Kravchuk

question: What did Parliament vote to shut down in August?
answers: text: Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

question: Where was the August 9 liturgy held?
answers: text: St. George Cathedral.

question: Prior to the September 8th rally when was the last Youth for Christ rally held?
answers: text: 1933

question: How many people attended the Youth for Christ rally?
answers: text: 40,000
context: On July 23, 1990, Leonid Kravchuk was elected to replace Ivashko as parliament chairman. On July 30, Parliament adopted a resolution on military service ordering Ukrainian soldiers "in regions of national conflict such as Armenia and Azerbaijan" to return to Ukrainian territory. On August 1, Parliament voted overwhelmingly to shut down the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. On August 3, it adopted a law on the economic sovereignty of the Ukrainian republic. On August 19, the first Ukrainian Catholic liturgy in 44 years was celebrated at St. George Cathedral. On September 5–7, the International Symposium on the Great Famine of 1932–1933 was held in Kiev. On September 8, The first "Youth for Christ" rally since 1933 took place held in Lviv, with 40,000 participants. In September 28–30, the Green Party of Ukraine held its founding congress. On September 30, nearly 100,000 people marched in Kiev to protest against the new union treaty proposed by Gorbachev.

qas: question: Where was the UAOC protest held?
answers: text: near St. Sophia’s Cathedral

question: Who were in the cathedral at the time of the protest?
answers: text: Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Aleksei and Metropolitan Filaret

question: What had Aleksei and Filaret been up to at the time of the protest?
answers: text: liturgy
context: On October 25–28, 1990, Rukh held its second congress and declared that its principal goal was the "renewal of independent statehood for Ukraine". On October 28 UAOC faithful, supported by Ukrainian Catholics, demonstrated near St. Sophia’s Cathedral as newly elected Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Aleksei and Metropolitan Filaret celebrated liturgy at the shrine. On November 1, the leaders of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, respectively, Metropolitan Volodymyr Sterniuk and Patriarch Mstyslav, met in Lviv during anniversary commemorations of the 1918 proclamation of the Western Ukrainian National Republic.

qas: question: What was attacked by Soviet troops on January 13?
answers: text: Vilnius TV Tower

question: Where was the TV Tower located?
answers: text: Lithuania

question: What were the Soviets hoping to stop?
answers: text: independence movement

question: How many civilians died in the attack?
answers: text: Fourteen

question: What was attacked by Russians on July 31?
answers: text: Lithuanian border post in Medininkai
context: On January 13, 1991, Soviet troops, along with the KGB Spetsnaz Alpha Group, stormed the Vilnius TV Tower in Lithuania to suppress the independence movement. Fourteen unarmed civilians were killed and hundreds more injured. On the night of July 31, 1991, Russian OMON from Riga, the Soviet military headquarters in the Baltics, assaulted the Lithuanian border post in Medininkai and killed seven Lithuanian servicemen. This event further weakened the Soviet Union's position internationally and domestically, and stiffened Lithuanian resistance.

qas: question: What was Gorbachev attempting to decentralize? 
answers: text: Soviet Union

question: What was supposed to be signed on August 20?
answers: text: New Union Treaty

question: Who supported the treaty?
answers: text: Central Asian republics,

question: What would have maintained power if the treaty was signed?
answers: text: Communist Party
context: Faced with growing separatism, Gorbachev sought to restructure the Soviet Union into a less centralized state. On August 20, 1991, the Russian SFSR was scheduled to sign a New Union Treaty that would have converted the Soviet Union into a federation of independent republics with a common president, foreign policy and military. It was strongly supported by the Central Asian republics, which needed the economic advantages of a common market to prosper. However, it would have meant some degree of continued Communist Party control over economic and social life.

qas: question: What did radicals want to change the economy to?
answers: text: market economy

question: What were they prepared to have happen to the Soviet Union in order to get a market economy?
answers: text: disintegration

question: What was Yeltsin president of?
answers: text: the Russian Federation,

question: Whose control were regional authorities hoping to do away with?
answers: text: Moscow’s
context: More radical reformists were increasingly convinced that a rapid transition to a market economy was required, even if the eventual outcome meant the disintegration of the Soviet Union into several independent states. Independence also accorded with Yeltsin's desires as president of the Russian Federation, as well as those of regional and local authorities to get rid of Moscow’s pervasive control. In contrast to the reformers' lukewarm response to the treaty, the conservatives, "patriots," and Russian nationalists of the USSR – still strong within the CPSU and the military – were opposed to weakening the Soviet state and its centralized power structure.

qas: question: Who arrived to protect the White House?
answers: text: Muscovites

question: Who did the organizers want to arrest?
answers: text: Yeltsin

question: Where was Yeltsin during the coup?
answers: text: atop a tank

question: What was Yeltsin doing on the tank?
answers: text: speech-making

question: What TV channel carried the broadcast of the coup?
answers: text: CNN
context: Thousands of Muscovites came out to defend the White House (the Russian Federation's parliament and Yeltsin's office), the symbolic seat of Russian sovereignty at the time. The organizers tried but ultimately failed to arrest Yeltsin, who rallied opposition to the coup with speech-making atop a tank. The special forces dispatched by the coup leaders took up positions near the White House, but members refused to storm the barricaded building. The coup leaders also neglected to jam foreign news broadcasts, so many Muscovites watched it unfold live on CNN. Even the isolated Gorbachev was able to stay abreast of developments by tuning into BBC World Service on a small transistor radio.

qas: question: Where was the secret meeting of the leaders?
answers: text: Belarus

question: What was signed at the secret meeting in Balarus?
answers: text: Belavezha Accords

question: When was the meeting held?
answers: text: December 8

question: What was formed to replace the Soviet Union?
answers: text: the Commonwealth of Independent States

question: What was coming to an end?
answers: text: the USSR
context: On December 8, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus secretly met in Belavezhskaya Pushcha, in western Belarus, and signed the Belavezha Accords, which proclaimed the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and announced formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a looser association to take its place. They also invited other republics to join the CIS. Gorbachev called it an unconstitutional coup. However, by this time there was no longer any reasonable doubt that, as the preamble of the Accords put it, "the USSR, as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality, is ceasing its existence."

qas: question: When were the Belavezha Accords ratified?
answers: text: December 12

question: Who ratified the Accords?
answers: text: the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR

question: Who was recalled?
answers: text: Russian deputies

question: Who showed signs that he was considering resigning his position?
answers: text: Gorbachev
context: On December 12, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR formally ratified the Belavezha Accords and renounced the 1922 Union Treaty. The Russian deputies were also recalled from the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The legality of this action was questionable, since Soviet law did not allow a republic to unilaterally recall its deputies. However, no one in either Russia or the Kremlin objected. Any objections from the latter would have likely had no effect, since the Soviet government had effectively been rendered impotent long before December. In effect, the largest and most powerful republic had seceded from the Union. Later that day, Gorbachev hinted for the first time that he was considering stepping down.

qas: question: Which republic did not sign the Alma-Ata Protocol?
answers: text: Georgia

question: How many of the former republics had representatives sign the Protocol?
answers: text: 11

question: What did the Protocol establish?
answers: text: CIS

question: What was dissolved by the Protocol?
answers: text: Union

question: Which news organization did Gorbachev talk to about his resignation plans? 
answers: text: CBS
context: Doubts remained over the authority of the Belavezha Accords to disband the Soviet Union, since they were signed by only three republics. However, on December 21, 1991, representatives of 11 of the 12 former republics – all except Georgia – signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which confirmed the dissolution of the Union and formally established the CIS. They also "accepted" Gorbachev's resignation. While Gorbachev hadn't made any formal plans to leave the scene yet, he did tell CBS News that he would resign as soon as he saw that the CIS was indeed a reality.

qas: question: When did Gorbachev resign?
answers: text: December 25, 1991

question: Who was given control after Gorbachev left?
answers: text: Yeltsin

question: What was Russia's new legal name?
answers: text: Russian Federation

question: What was the Russian Federations previous legal name?
answers: text: Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
context: In a nationally televised speech early in the morning of December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR – or, as he put it, "I hereby discontinue my activities at the post of President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." He declared the office extinct, and all of its powers (such as control of the nuclear arsenal) were ceded to Yeltsin. A week earlier, Gorbachev had met with Yeltsin and accepted the fait accompli of the Soviet Union's dissolution. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR adopted a statute to change Russia's legal name from "Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic" to "Russian Federation," showing that it was now a sovereign state.

qas: question: What went down after Gorbachev departed from the Kremlin?
answers: text: Soviet flag

question: What replaced the Soviet flag?
answers: text: Russian tricolor

question: When did Gorbachev make his final Kremlin exit?
answers: text: December 25, 1991, at 7:32 p.m. Moscow time

question: What was declared as having ceased to exist?
answers: text: the Soviet Union

question: What body also stopped existing following a vote by itself to end itself?
answers: text: upper chamber of the Union's Supreme Soviet,
context: On the night of December 25, 1991, at 7:32 p.m. Moscow time, after Gorbachev left the Kremlin, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, and the Russian tricolor was raised in its place, symbolically marking the end of the Soviet Union. The next day, December 26, 1991, the Council of Republics, the upper chamber of the Union's Supreme Soviet, issued a formal Declaration recognizing that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a state and subject of international law, and voted both itself and the Soviet Union out of existence (the other chamber of the Supreme Soviet, the Council of the Union, had been unable to work since December 12, 1991, when the recall of the Russian deputies left it without a quorum). The following day Yeltsin moved into Gorbachev's former office, though the Russian authorities had taken over the suite two days earlier. By December 31, 1991, the few remaining Soviet institutions that had not been taken over by Russia ceased operation, and individual republics assumed the central government's role.

qas: question: Which country took over the Soviet Union's UN membership?
answers: text: Russia

question: What made Russia the successor state to the USSR?
answers: text: Alma-Ata Protocol

question: Who wrote the letter to the UN secretary general informing them that Russia would be replacing the USSR?
answers: text: Yeltsin

question: What was the date on the Yeltsin letter?
answers: text: December 24, 1991

question: When did the UN accept the statement?
answers: text: December 31, 1991
context: The Alma-Ata Protocol also addressed other issues, including UN membership. Notably, Russia was authorized to assume the Soviet Union's UN membership, including its permanent seat on the Security Council. The Soviet Ambassador to the UN delivered a letter signed by Russian President Yeltsin to the UN Secretary-General dated December 24, 1991, informing him that by virtue of the Alma-Ata Protocol, Russia was the successor state to the USSR. After being circulated among the other UN member states, with no objection raised, the statement was declared accepted on the last day of the year, December 31, 1991.

qas: question: Who was set up as Patriarch of Kiev and all Ukraine on the 18th of November?
answers: text: Mstyslav

question: Who gave Mstyslav this title?
answers: text: Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church

question: Who was the Canadian consul-general to Kiev?
answers: text: Nestor Gayowsky

question: What country made John Stepanchuk its consul-general to Kiev?
answers: text: United States

question: How long lasting was the pact between Kravchuk and Yeltsin?
answers: text: 10-year
context: On November 18, 1990, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church enthroned Mstyslav as Patriarch of Kiev and all Ukraine during ceremonies at Saint Sophia's Cathedral. Also on November 18, Canada announced that its consul-general to Kiev would be Ukrainian-Canadian Nestor Gayowsky. On November 19, the United States announced that its consul to Kiev would be Ukrainian-American John Stepanchuk. On November 19, the chairmen of the Ukrainian and Russian parliaments, respectively, Kravchuk and Yeltsin, signed a 10-year bilateral pact. In early December 1990 the Party of Democratic Rebirth of Ukraine was founded; on December 15, the Democratic Party of Ukraine was founded.