The violence in Sumgait was unexpected and was widely covered in the Western press. It was greeted with general astonishment in Armenia and the rest of the Soviet Union since ethnic feuds in the country had been largely suppressed by the government, which had promoted policies such as proletarian internationalism, fraternity of peoples, and socialist patriotism to avert such conflicts. The massacre, together with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, presented a major challenge to the reforms being implemented by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev was later criticized for his perceived slowness in reacting to the crisis.