Ethnic Conflict & Gorbachev’s Reforms

The disturbances in Kazakhstan in December 1986, the demonstrations by the Crimean Tartars in Moscow and those in the Baltic states in 1987-88, the incidents in Yakutia and Uzbekistan, the increased activity of the Russian “patriotic” association, Pamyat (“Memory”), the continuing emigration of Jews and ethnic Germans, and, finally, the current clash between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh—all these events attest unequivocally to ethni...