POLI 419 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Estonians, Mikhail Gorbachev, Path Dependence

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 419
• Professor: Simeon Mitropolitski

Document Summary

Russian part is most of the population and more than half the territory. However, all the uprisings were done elsewhere than in the russian federation. 70-80% of demonstrations were in the other federations. Sumgait (88"); tbilisi (89"); baku (90"); riga (91"); vilnius (91") In azerbaijan, ethnic cleansing of armenians, ussr was surprised by the ght. Intervention resulted in separation of both communities (sumgait) Ussr decided that more repression was necessary in order to avoid this. Tbilisi is when opposition decided to challenge authority. Baltic way - latvia, lithuania and estonia- (august 23rd 1989) Popular front (opposition) decided to mobilise the entire population (2/6 million), human- chain covering approx 600km on the highway from talinn to riga. Commemorated/protest 40years since the infamous deal between stalin and hitler. A. yakovlev admits that there were secret protocols for dividing central and eastern europe on 18th aug in 89", but adds that that doesn"t explain why there are part of the soviet union.