2022 TMJC Prelims P1

TAMPINES MERIDIAN JUNIOR COLLEGEJC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONCANDIDATENAMECIVICS GROUPH2 HISTORYPaper 1 Shaping the International Order (1945-2000) 9752/0113 September 20223 hoursAdditional materials: 12 Page Answer BookletREAD THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRSTAn answer booklet will be provided with this question paper. You should follow the instructions on the front cover of the answer booklet. If you need additional answer paper, ask the invigilator for a continuation booklet. Section AAnswer Question 1.Section BAnswer two questions.The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question. ___________________________________________________________________This document consists of 5 printed pages and 1 blank page.

2 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2020 JC2 Preliminary Examination H2 History SECTION AYou must answer Question 1.Collapse of the Soviet Union1Read the sources and answer the questions which follow:Source A He won the Cold War - without firing a shot. When Reagan took office in 1980, the world had existed for decades under the threat of nuclear holocaust between communism and democracy. The two superpowers had steadily growing atomic arsenals of incredible destructive power. Early on in his presidency, Reagan moved to hone the nation's defenses to razor edge. That military buildup, together with spending billions on the so-called "Star Wars" defense program, forced the Soviets into a more heated effort to stay ahead of the United States in the arms race. Reagan's continuing military buildup sowed the seeds of the ultimate end of communism in the Soviet Union and also the Cold War. As it turned out, Russia lost, bankrupting itself in the process. The spending exposed the many cracks in the Soviet Union's monolithic tyranny and led ultimately to its total collapse. Was it worth it? Of course. It must be. Extract from a pro-Reagan newspaper in the USA, August 1992Source B There has been a prolonged crisis of the model of socialism which developed in Stalin’s time. That political system still suffers from a lack of legitimacy to this day and is incapable of giving an adequate response to the challenge of the scientific and technological revolution required of today. The constant comparison of the Socialist and Western worlds has entered our daily lives, and there is no way around it. Consequently, in a number of socialist countries, the process of rejecting the existing political institutions is already underway and moving towards a civil and political one. Yet, the authoritarian and direct pressure have clearly outlived themselves. Even in the case of a sharp deterioration of the situation in one of the countries, it is very unlikely that we would be able to employ the methods of 1956 and 1968, both as a matter of principle, but also because of its unacceptable consequences. A memorandum from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to Gorbachev, Feb 1989

3 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2020 JC2 Preliminary Examination H2 History Source C We had a lot of everything – land, oil and gas and other natural resources. There was also intellect and talent in abundance. This country was suffocating in the shackles of the bureaucratic command system. Doomed to cater to ideology and suffer and carry the heavy burden of the arms race, it found itself at the breaking point. All the half-hearted reforms, and there have been a lot of them, fell through, one after another. This country was going nowhere, and we couldn’t possibly live the way we did. We had to change everything radically. It is for this reason that I have never had any regrets. I did not use the capacity of General-Secretary just to reign in this country for several years. I was aware that to embark on reform of this caliber and in a society like ours was an extremely difficult and even risky undertaking. But even now, I am convinced that the democratic reform that we launched in the spring of 1985 was correct. An excerpt from Gorbachev’s resignation speech on Dec 25th 1991.Source D Why did the Soviet leaders acknowledge the impossibility of sustaining their economic and foreign policies only in the mid-1980s? Although the Soviet economy had deteriorated in the 1980s, it was not on the verge of an immediate breakdown. Moreover, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviets were, for the first time, on military parity with the United States. The repeated failures in the Afghan war changed the Soviet leadership’s perception of the cost of using force to keep non-Soviet nationalities within the Union, devastated the morale and legitimacy of the army, disrupted domestic cohesion, and accelerated glasnost and perestroika. It weakened the military and conservative anti-reform forces and more importantly, these failures demonstrated that the Soviet army was not invincible, thereby encouraging non-Russian republics to push for independence with little fear of a military backlash. Excerpt from an academic paper, entitled ‘The Afghanistan war and the Breakdown of the Soviet Union’, on Nov 8 1998.Source E It’s hardly surprising that this is the narrative that has taken hold. It’s a powerful one (as) it accords oppressed people to rise up and make their own fate. The crowds themselves were decisive. But the Soviet empire had been roiled by mass protests for decades and the communist governments, with Soviet aid, had only tightened their grip through brutal crackdowns. What it was that changed in the minds of the communist leaders - especially Mikhail Gorbachev, whose refusal to lend Soviet support to any crackdown forced the hand of those Eastern European governments more reluctant to change. In nearly every historian’s account, the central figure in the end of the Cold War is Gorbachev. Ronald Reagan may have disturbed the status quo with his bellicose rhetoric, and West Germany’s Helmut Kohl may have seized the initiative on uniting the two Germanys soon after the wall came down, but it was Gorbachev who bore the most responsibility, by steadfastly refusing to act as the dominos in communist Eastern Europe fell. He acceded to the political liberalization the Hungarian regime pursued in 1988 and 1989. In the summer of 1989, when Poland elected a non-communist government Gorbachev did not object. Most importantly, that fall, when Eastern European leaders like Erich Honecker in East Germany and Ceausescu in Romania pleaded with Gorbachev to use Soviet troops to suppress the

4 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2020 JC2 Preliminary Examination H2 History swelling crowds, he repeatedly rejected the notion. Without the threat of a Soviet crackdown, the crowds only grew.From Drake Bennett is the staff writer for Ideas. Globe Newspaper Company, 2009Source F The largest anti-war protest in American history took place in New York, where an estimated one million protestors marched from Central Park to the United Nations to demand an end to nuclear weapons, June 12, 1982.Now answer the following questions:(a)Compare and contrast the evidence provided in sources A and B on the impact of the Soviet economy by late 1980s. [10](b)How far do Sources A – F support the assertion that it was the Gorbachev’s policies that brought about the end of the Cold War? [30]

5 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2020 JC2 Preliminary Examination H2 History SECTION B: ESSAY QUESTIONS You must answer two questions from this section.EITHER 2How far do you agree that the Debt Crisis was what caused a drastic turn in global economic growth from the 1970s to the 1990s? [30]OR3‘It was culture that motivated the growth of the economies of South Korea and Taiwan from the 1970s to the 1990s’. How far do you agree? [30]AND EITHER4To what extent would you agree that the permanent 5 members was the most significant factor in impacting the effectiveness of the Security Council from 1945-2000?