In 1981, at age 18 he read Solzhenitsyn’s "The Gulag Archipelago", a copy of which he bought while abroad. Kasparov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1984, and in 1987 was elected to the Central Committee of Komsomol. However, in 1990, he left the party. After onset of pogroms against Armenians in Baku in January 1990, which left hundreds dead and injured and caused thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee Azerbaijan Kasparov together with his family fled from Baku to Moscow on a chartered plane. Later, Kasparov sold world champion's gold crown he won to support Armenian refugees from Baku. In May 1990, Kasparov took part in the creation of the Democratic Party of Russia, which at first was a liberal anti-communist party, later shifting to centrism. Kasparov left the party on 28 April 1991, after its conference. In 1991, Kasparov received the Keeper of the Flame award from the Center for Security Policy for "propagation of democracy and the respect for individual rights throughout the world". In his acceptance speech Kasparov lauded the defeat of communism while also urging the United States to give no financial assistance to central Soviet leaders. In June 1993, Kasparov was involved with the creation of the "Choice of Russia" bloc of parties and in 1996 took part in the election campaign of Boris Yeltsin. In 2001 he voiced his support for the Russian television channel NTV. After his retirement from chess in 2005, Kasparov turned to politics and created the United Civil Front, a social movement whose main goal is to "work to preserve electoral democracy in Russia". He has vowed to "restore democracy" to Russia by restoring the rule of law. Kasparov was instrumental in setting up The Other Russia, a coalition which opposes Putin's government. The Other Russia has been boycotted by the leaders of Russia's mainstream opposition parties, Yabloko and Union of Right Forces due to its inclusion of nationalist and radical groups. Kasparov has criticized these groups as being secretly under the auspices of the Kremlin. On 10 April 2005, Kasparov was in Moscow at a promotional event when he was struck over the head with a chessboard he had just signed. The assailant was reported to have said "I admired you as a chess player, but you gave that up for politics" immediately before the attack. Kasparov has been the subject of a number of other episodes since, including police brutality and alleged harassment from the Russian secret service.