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Minutes from a Meeting of the Presidium of the Citizens' Parliamentary Club

In June 1989, Poland held its first semi-free elections since the beginning of Communist Party rule following World War II, in which Communism was soundly defeated by Solidarity activists.

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Lithuanian Communist Party Declares Independence

In this proclamation, the political leaders of the Lithuanian national movement made a formal break with the Soviet Communist Party, and by implication with the Soviet government itself.

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Uzbek Minister on Restoring Order in Tashkent

This interview with V. Kamalov, minister of internal affairs of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, echoes a perception similar to that of S.A.

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Turkmen Party's Niazov Discusses Ethnic Issues

In this interview, published just days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Communist leader in Turkmenistan, S. A. Niyazov, offered a stiff defense of the existing structure of the Soviet Union.

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Latvian Group Wants Full Political Independence

This report describes the demands of the Latvian Popular Front, one of the coalition groups that emerged across the Soviet Union, but most aggressively in the Baltic states, during the last years of the Soviet regime.

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Communist Party's Role in Estonia's Fate Revealed

In this selection, a member of the Communist Party in Estonia articulates a new role for Communists as leaders of the movement for national self-determination within the existing structures of the Soviet Union.

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Gorbachev's TV Address on Interethnic Relations

This statement is an effort by Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to recognize, but also restrain and control, growing evidence of nationalist sentiments across the Soviet Union.

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Ukrainian Central Committee on Ethnic Issues

This statement by the Ukrainian Communist Party was an attempt to respond to growing expressions of nationalist sentiment within the Ukrainian population, while also seeking to maintain control over the expression of dissenting views and preventing inter-ethnic conflicts, especially between the m

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From the Conversation of Mikhail Gorbachev and Francois Mitterand

In the mid- to late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on a new path for the Soviet Union by introducing significant changes to his country’s domestic and foreign policies, which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the end of the Cold War.

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Warsaw Embassy Cable, Poland Looks to President Bush

President George H. W. Bush visited Poland and Hungary in July 1989, following a series of speeches he had made that defined the direction his administration would take in its relations with the Soviet Union.