Soviet Union On the Edge of Civil War

On the Edge of Civil War Visiting Armenia and Azerbaijan, a TIME reporter wonders how much longer the two republics can exist in the same country

Panah Huseynov, 32, a member of the directorate of the Azerbaijani Popular Front, is seated at a desk in the former schoolhouse that serves as the group's new headquarters. He is listening to an Azerbaijani refugee from Armenia describe how he and his family were expelled from their home last November. "I was thrown from my house, beaten," the man says. "I lived off weeds, anything I could find." As Huseynov shakes his head in anger, the refugee continued, "They want to cut us up like sheep. But we'll burn them first."

Later Huseynov pulls a stack of photographs from a...

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