TMJC H1 Prelims

TAMPINES MERIDIAN JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION CANDIDATE NAME CIVICS GROUP H1 HISTORY The Cold War and the Modern World (1945-2000) 8821/01 Paper 1 18 September 2020 3 hours Additional materials: 12 Page Answer Booklet READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST An 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 A Answer Question 1. Section B Answer 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.

2 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2020 JC2 Preliminary Examination H1 History You must answer Question 1. THE END OF THE COLD WAR 1 Read the sources and answer the questions which follow: Source A In the summer of 1989 at a Warsaw Pact meeting, Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’ encouraged the communist regimes of eastern Europe to determine their own futures by means of political and political reforms. Poland took the lead and Solidarity became a political party and its leader Lech Walesa was elected president of Poland. Hungary followed by dismantling its barriers to the west. In East Germany, Erich Honaker and his regime were toppled and on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall was dismantled. The following month, in what Vaclav Havel referred to as the ‘velvet revolution’, communism was overthrown in Czechoslovakia. Only in Romania, where the ousted dictator Nicolai Ceausescu and his wife were executed, did revolutionary change result in bloodshed. From a British historian about European History, published in 1999 Source B The Nobel Committee has decided to award the 1990 Peace Prize to Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, for his leading role in the peace process. During the last few years, dramatic changes have taken place in the relationship between East and We st. Confrontation has been replaced by negotiations. Old European nations have been allowed to regain their freedom. The arms race is slowing down and we see a definite and active process in the direction of arms control and disarmament. These historic changes spring from several factors, but in 1990 the Nobel Committee wants to honour Mikhail Gorbachev. The greater openness he has brought about in Soviet society has also helped promote international trust. An extract from the citation of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in 1990

3 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2020 JC2 Preliminary Examination H1 History Source C The rapid-fire series of events that transpired between 1985 and 1990 stunned governmental decision-makers, foreign policy experts, and ordinary citizens alike across the world. Yet those epochal events, it is now evident, were preceded and conditioned by the new thinking about security, nuclear weapons, and domestic needs that animated all of Gorbachev’s dealings with the United States, Eastern Europe, and the world at large. Ronald Reagan, the most unequivocally anti-communist American leader of the entire Cold War era, suddenly found a Soviet leader saying yes to arms control faster than he could say no, moving to ‘de-ideologise’ Moscow’s foreign policy, offering unilateral concessions on conventional armed forces, and vowing to remove Soviet troops from Afghanistan. To his great credit, Reagan proved willing first to moderate, and then to abandon, deeply held personal convictions about the malignant nature of communism, thereby permitting a genuine rapprochement to occu r. The two men met five separate times between 1985 and 1988, developing a stronger rapport with each summit. After a get acquainted summit at Geneva in November 1985 that produced little of substance but markedly improved the atmospherics of the Soviet –American relationship, Gorbachev convinced Reagan to attend a hastily arranged meeting at Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986. There, the two leaders came remarkably close to a decision to eliminate all ballistic missiles. In the end, though, Reagan’s insistence on continuing with his SDI initiative led the Soviet leader to withdraw the breathtaking proposals he had placed on the table. Yet the setback at Reykjavik proved but temporary. Shortly thereafter, Gorbachev dropped his insistence that America’s abandonment of SDI must be a prerequisite for progress on all arms control matters, and moved to accept the ‘zero option’ first put forward by US negotiators back in 1981. From an American historian’s book on the Cold War, published in 2003 Source D I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to the Washington for firm leadership. Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow’s ‘evil empire’, but he realized that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors. So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation. From Former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher’s speech, 11 June 2004.

4 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2020 JC2 Preliminary Examination H1 History Source E From an American website, ‘Politically Correct – Conservative cartoons’, published on 30 May 2004, a few days before Reagan’s death on 5 June 2004. Now answer the following questions: (a) Compare and contrast the evidence provided from Sources C and D on Reagan’s attitude towards rapprochement with the Soviet Union. [10] (b) How far do Sources A to E support the assertion that the Cold War ended largely because of Gorbachev? [30]

5 Tampines Meridian Junior College 2020 JC2 Preliminary Examination H1 History SECTION B: ESSAY QUESTIONS You must answer two questions from this section. EITHER 2 “The improving relationship between the superpowers in the 1960s changed their relationship with China.” Assess the validity of this statement. [30] OR 3 “Security reasons accounted for the involvement of the external powers in the Second Indochina War from 1964 to 1975.” How far do you agree with this statement? [30] AND EITHER 4 Assess the view that the Security Council “regained its authority” as the United Nations body with prime responsibility for peace and security from 1960 onwards. [30] OR 5 How far do you agree that great power interference was a major impediment to UN peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo? [30]