YIJC JC1 H1 History WA2 2025

©YIJC 2025 [Turn over YISHUN INNOVA JUNIOR COLLEGEJC 1 Weighted Assessment 2Higher 1CANDIDATENAME CG INDEX NO HISTORYPaper 1 Shaping the International Order (1945-2000)Additional Materials: N.A8838/0113 August 20251 hour READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRSTUse the access link and access code provided to enter the e-examination. You will need to log in with your SLS account and select ‘login for e-assessment.’Your answer is automatically saved by your device as you type. You can also select ‘save draft’ to manually save it at any point. At the end of the examination, press ‘submit quiz’ on your device to submit your answer. This document consists of 4 printed pages.

2 ©YIJC 2025 [Turn over Section AYou must answer Question 1.CUBA AND THE COLD WAR1Read the sources and answer the questions which follow.Source AWhen the Soviet comrades proposed to us to deploy the nuclear missiles in Cuba I did not like the idea, but not because of the military risk; because from the political point of view we would have been seen as a Soviet military base in Latin America. We were ready to accept the risk of an American military invasion of Cuba in order to avoid the political harm to the prestige of the Cuban revolution. But at the same time we understood that the Soviet Union needed that measure to ensure their own security. We knew that we had suffered big political damage at the very time when we were dreaming about a revolution in all Latin America, but we were ready to make sacrifices for the Soviet Union. I cannot take the credit for the resolution of the crisis. More likely, I believe, the major role belongs to Khrushchev who caused that crisis by his stubbornness, and then resolved it. I did not know what was the real correlation of forces at that time, how many missiles did Khrushchev have. Khrushchev told me that after the missiles have been deployed in Cuba, Kennedy would have to swallow it, and that later the Soviet leader was going to introduce the Fleet in the Baltic Sea. I thought that Khrushchev's actions were too risky. I believe that it was possible to achieve the same goals without deploying the missiles in Cuba. To defend Cuba it would have been sufficient to send six regiments of Soviet troops there, because the Americans would have never dared to open military activities against the Soviet troops. From Castro’s reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis, in a conversation with Soviet officials responsible for relations with Cuba, 5 November 1987. Source BWho gave the United States the right to assume the role of ruler of the destinies of other countries and peoples? Why must the Cubans conduct the internal affairs of their country not as they see fit but as the United States prefers? Cuba belongs to the Cuban people and only it can be the master of its fate. In this anxious hour the Soviet government considers itself duty-bound to seriously warn the government of the United States that in carrying out the measures announced by President Kennedy, it is recklessly playing with fire and taking a grave responsibility for the fate of the world. Who believes that Cuba can threaten the United States? If the size, resources and weapons of both countries are compared, no statesman in his right mind could see Cuba as a threat to the United States. The United States has stopped at nothing, not even the organisation of the armed attack on Cuba of April 1961, to deprive the Cuban people of the freedom and independence it had won, and to make Cuba an American puppet.From a statement issued by the Soviet government, 23 October 1962.

3 ©YIJC 2025 [Turn over Source C From a map published in an American newspaper in late October 1962.Source DThe failed Bay of Pigs invasion had far-reaching implications for Cuba-Soviet-U.S. relations, and specifically the developing Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cubans’ belief that the U.S. intended to invade the island and remove Castro was confirmed and allowed him to publicly embrace socialism and the Soviets as the only alternative to the aggression of the ‘imperialists’. Furthermore, the counterrevolutionaries’ invasion illustrated the necessity for a crackdown of dissidents and the creation of a surveillance state that some members of the PSP had been encouraging for some time. The Soviets also concluded that their aid would perhaps be necessary to prevent the overthrow of the young Cuban government… Cuban requests for military aid were quickly approved and fulfilled… The Castro regime was in fact, strengthened by the nationalism created by the attack of the U.S. colossus against the island of Cuba and the young revolution.*PSP = Popular Socialist Party, which later merged into the Communist Party of Cuba.From an academic article on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2006.

4 ©YIJC 2025 [Turn over Source EBut this secret, swift, and extraordinary buildup of Communist missiles--in an area well known to have a special and historical relationship to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere, in violation of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemispheric policy--this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil--is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe.Finally, I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba, to whom this speech is being directly carried by special radio facilities. I speak to you as a friend, as one who knows of your deep attachment to your fatherland, as one who shares your aspirations for liberty and justice for all. And I have watched and the American people have watched with deep sorrow how your nationalist revolution was betrayed-- and how your fatherland fell under foreign domination. Now your leaders are no longer Cuban leaders inspired by Cuban ideals. They are puppets and agents of an international conspiracy which has turned Cuba against your friends and neighbors in the Americas--and turned it into the first Latin American country to become a target for nuclear war--the first Latin American country to have these weapons on its soil.Adapted from a radio and television address by Kennedy to the American people, 22 October 1962.Now answer the following question:(b) How far do sources A to E support the assertion that the Soviet Union was merely using Cuba as a tool for their own Cold War interests? [30] - End of Paper -