Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic along a waterway. After Stalin's death in March 1953, Stalinabad, was renamed to "Dushanbe" on 10 November 1961 as part of the De-Stalinization program. In February 1990, tensions between the Tajiks and Armenians squared off in the republic's capital Dushanbe. 26 people died and 565 more were injured and the Soviet troops put down the riots. Both Yaqub Salimov, the Interior Minister and the youth activists were convicted for the participation in the riots. Later on 24 August 1990, Tajik SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. By 1991, Tajikistan participated in a referendum in March as part of the
Soviet republic (system of government) Soviet republic (system of government) A soviet republic (from - "Sovetskaya respublika," , , , , , etc) is a republic in which the government is formed of soviets (workers' councils) and politics are based on soviet democracy. Although the term is usually associated with Soviet member-states, it was not initially used to represent the political organisation of the Soviet Union, but merely a form of democracy. There were several revolutionary workers' movements in various areas of Europe which declared independence under the name of a soviet republic in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The first Soviet