SOVIET EMPIRE 1948-91(YUGOSLAVIA,HUNGARY,POLAND,BERLIN,GORBACHEV)

SOVIET EMPIRE 1948-91(YUGOSLAVIA,HUNGARY,POLAND,BERLIN,GORBACHEV)
Q1. Study the extract, and then answer the questions which follow.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support people who are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by any outside pressures.
I believe that we must help free peoples to work out their own destiny in their own
way.
President Truman of the USA speaking in March 1947.
He was introducing what became known as the ‘Truman Doctrine’.
(a) What was the ‘Cold War’? [5]
(b) Why did tension between the Soviet Union and the West increase after the Potsdam
Conference? [7]
(c) ‘The main reason for the escalation of the Cold War in the years 1947– 49 was the Berlin
Blockade.’ How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer. [8] (Nov’07)

Q2. Study the extract, and then answer the questions which follow.
My dear friends today we have started negotiations for the withdrawal of Soviet
troops from our country and for the cancellation of our obligations under the Warsaw
Pact. Long live Free Hungary!
From a speech by Imre Nagy, 31 October 1956.
(a) What was the Berlin Wall? [5]
(b) Why was there a rising in Hungary in 1956? [7]
(c) Which was the more serious threat to Soviet control of Eastern Europe; events in Czechoslovakia in 1968; the emergence of Solidarity in Poland?
Explain your answer. [8]

Q3. Study the cartoon and then answer the questions which follow.
A Western view of the plight of Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War.
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria carry the banner ‘Thank Our Liberators’ under the watchful eye of the USSR.
(a) What was agreed at the Yalta Conference in 1945? [5]
(b) Why were Western governments suspicious of the USSR in the period 1945 to February
1948 (the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia)? [7]
(c) ‘It was the attitudes of Truman and Churchill rather than that of Stalin which brought about the start of the Cold War.’ Do you agree? Explain your answer. (June 2002)

Q4.Study the extract, and then answer the questions which follow.
My dear friends today we have started negotiations for the withdrawal of Soviet
troops from our country and for the cancellation of our obligations under the Warsaw
Pact. Long live Free Hungary!

From a speech by Imre Nagy, 31 October 1956.
(a) What was the Berlin Wall? [5]
(b) Why was there a rising in Hungary in 1956? [7]
(c) Which was the more serious threat to Soviet control of Eastern Europe:
events in Czechoslovakia in 1968;the emergence of Solidarity in Poland?
Explain your answer. [8] (Nov’07)

Q.5. Study the extract, and then answer the questions which follow.
The Berlin Wall is an open attempt to remove the right to free movement throughout the city, in
direct opposition to the Four Power agreement reached in Paris on 20 June 1949.
Dean Rusk, US Secretary of State, speaking in August 1961.
(a) Describe how the Berlin Wall affected the people living in Berlin. [5]
(b) Why was the Berlin Wall built? [7]
(c) How far can the decline of Soviet power in Eastern Europe be blamed on the Solidarity
movement? Explain your answer. [8] (Nov’04)