World History GS Paper I by Rashid Yasin

Model Answer

Question #1. Discuss various factors responsible for the emergence of WW-II. Also, comment on the most important impact of this World War that is “division of Europe”.

Approach

• The question focuses on 2 pillars of 1) factors responsible for the emergence of WW-II ,2) impacts of the Second World War as the “division of Europe”, eastern and western along with the other impacts of WW-II.
• The perspective of the question demands views of the aspirants on the impacts of WW-II .
• Discuss the factors responsible for the emergence of WW-II and impacts of the Second World War as the “division of Europe”, eastern and western along with the other impacts of WW-II.
• Introduction (Summary of key demand of the question, along with necessary facts).
• Conclusion by summing up the gist of the answer.

Hints:

World War II occurred just two decades after the end of World War I and was one of the most important events in all of world history.  Although the war broke out in September of 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the war had its beginnings in several key events, such as: the Treaty of Versailles, the failure of the League of Nations, the failed policy of appeasement and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler.

The various factors responsible for the emergence of the WW-II:

• Treaty of Versailles: An attempt was made at the Paris Peace conference in 1919 to establish just world order. But the treaty was drafted by victors and Germany was told to sign it. Germany raised many objections. But France had taken its revenge, Germany was deprived of all its overseas colonies. The treaty of Versailles had imposed humiliating conditions on the Central powers and sowed the seeds of the Second World War.
• Rise of dictatorship in Italy and Germany: The dictatorship of the Facist party, under the leadership of Mussolini, was established in Italy in 1922. The dictatorship of the Nazi party was established in Germany after Hitler came to power in 1933.
• Expansionist policy of the Axis Powers: Germany, Italy and Japan were the Axis Powers which had pursued the expansionist policy during the interwar period. Germany brought about the unification of the all-German speaking provinces by the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. Italy annexed Ethiopia in 1936 and Albania in 1939. Japan invaded China in 1937 and occupied three-fourths of its territory by the middle of 1939.
• Failure of Disarmament: The task of preparing a plan for reduction of armaments was entrusted to the League of Nation. No success could be achieved in this area. The temporary Mixed Commission appointed by the League in 1920 could not do any substantial work. In 1925 Preparatory Commission was constituted. It could not do any substantial work. Finally, a Disarmament Conference met in Geneva in February 1932 but could not reach any agreement. In 1935, Germany declared that she was no more bound by the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles.
• The Problem of National Minorities: The US President Wilson had advocated the concept of self-determination but his principle could not be implemented on various occasions. For instance, large German minorities were in company with non-Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia. There were Russian minorities in Poland and Rumania. This gave rise to feelings of insecurity among the minorities.
• Policy of Appeasement: England and France ignored the acts of aggression by Germany and Italy and succumbed to their pressure. Appeasement was started by Prime Minister Baldwin but pursued by Neville Chamberlain in 1938. The policy of appeasement emboldened the aggressive nations.
• The weakness of the League of Nations: The League of Nations was a helpless spectator when the Axis powers committed acts of aggression due to the fact that England and France followed the policy of appeasement towards the axis powers. It failed to maintain peace, to protect smaller nations against big powers. The US President Wilson was the principal architect of the league and promoter of disarmament. His own country could never become the member of the League. The League of Nations had several other shortcomings.

One of the most important impacts of the Second World War was the “division of Europe”, eastern and western:

• The aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era for all countries involved, defined by the decline of all European colonial empires and simultaneous rise of two superpowers; the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US).
• Allies during World War II, the US and the USSR became competitors on the world stage and engaged in the Cold War, so called because it never resulted in overt, declared total war between the two powers but was instead characterized by espionage, political subversion and proxy wars.
• Western Europe and Japan were rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan whereas Central and Eastern Europe fell under the Soviet sphere of influence and eventually behind an "Iron Curtain".
• Europe was divided into a US-led Western Bloc and a Soviet-led Eastern Bloc. Internationally, alliances with the two blocs gradually shifted, with some nations trying to stay out of the Cold War through the Non-Aligned Movement.
• The war also saw a nuclear arms race between the two superpowers; part of the reason that the Cold War never became a "hot" war was that the Soviet Union and the United States had nuclear deterrents against each other, leading to a mutually assured destruction standoff.

Important impacts of the Second World War:

• The End of the European Age: With the end of the Second World War, the European age had come to an end.
• The emergence of the Cold War: As soon as the enemy was defeated, East-West ideological conflict reemerged. Post-Second World War was different in regard to the level of tension.
• The beginning of the nuclear age: The Soviet Union developed its nuclear weapon in 1949. Earlier only the US had its monopoly over nuclear powers. Thus, the nuclear age had begun.
• The rise of nationalism and independence movements in Asia and Africa: At the end of the Second World War, there occurred a decline in the influence of colonial powers. The two superpowers followed an anti-colonial approach.
• A renewed effort to secure lasting peace through international organizations: The United Nations was set up in 1945 to replace the League of Nations as it had failed to maintain peace.

Conclusion:

The Second World War had finally come to an end in 1945. In 1945, the men of violence suffered a total defeat. Their reign of terror left an even greater chaos than had existed after World War I. It made clear that humanity could not survive another war. The new contest over the future of Europe had already begun. A cold war had begun between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. This conflict created a threat of nuclear holocaust.

Question #2. ‘The origin of the Cold War can be traced back to the Bolshevik Revolution’. Comment

Approach

• The question focuses on The origin of the Cold War
• The perspective of the question demand views of the aspirants on the origin of the Cold War and its genesis in the Bolshevik Revolution’
• Discuss how the origin of the Cold War can be traced back to the Bolshevik Revolution.
• Introduction (Summary of key demand of the question, along with necessary facts).
• Conclusion by summing up the gist of the answer.

Hints:

The Cold War originated in the breakdown of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, in the years 1945–1949

The origin of the Cold War started can be traced back to the Bolshevik Revolution:

• While most historians trace its origins to the period immediately following World War II, others argue that it began with the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 when the Bolsheviks took power.
• In 1919 Lenin stated that his new state was surrounded by a "hostile capitalist encirclement", and he viewed diplomacy as a weapon that should be used in order to keep the Soviet Union's enemies divided. He began with a new Communist International ("Comintern"), based in Moscow, which was designed to plan for revolutionary upheavals abroad. It was ineffective—Communist uprisings all failed in Germany, Hungary and elsewhere.
• Historian Max Beloff argues that the Soviets saw "no prospect of permanent peace", with the 1922 Soviet Constitution proclaiming:Since the time of the formation of the soviet republics, the states of the world have divided into two camps: the camp of capitalism and the camp of socialism. There - in the camp of capitalism - national enmity and inequality, colonial slavery, and chauvinism, national oppression and pogroms, imperialist brutalities and wars. Here - in the camp of socialism - mutual confidence and peace, national freedom and equality, a dwelling together in peace and the brotherly collaboration of peoples.
• According to British historian Christopher Sutton:In what some have called the First Cold War, from Britain's intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918 to its uneasy alliance with the Soviet Union against the Axis powers in 1941, British distrust of the revolutionary and regicidal Bolsheviks resulted in domestic, foreign, and colonial policies aimed at resisting the spread of communism. This conflict after 1945 took on new battlefields, new weapons, new players, and a greater intensity, but it was still fundamentally a conflict against Soviet imperialism (real and imagined).
• The idea of long-term continuity is a minority scholarly view that has been challenged. Frank Ninkovichwrites: As for the two cold wars thesis, the chief problem is that the two periods are incommensurable. To be sure, they were joined together by enduring ideological hostility, but in the post-World War I years Bolshevism was not a geopolitical menace. After World War II, in contrast, the Soviet Union was a superpower that combined ideological antagonism with the kind of geopolitical threat posed by Germany and Japan in the Second World War. Even with more amicable relations in the 1920s, it is conceivable that post-1945 relations would have turned out much the same.

Conclusion:

The origins derive from diplomatic (and occasional military) confrontations stretching back decades, followed by the issue of political boundaries in Central Europe and non-democratic control of the East by the Soviet Army. In the 1940s came economic issues (especially the Marshall Plan) and then the first major military confrontation, with a threat of a hot war, in the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949. By 1949, the lines were sharply drawn and the Cold War was largely in place in Europe. Outside Europe, the starting points vary, but the conflict centered on the US' development of an informal empire in Southeast Asia in the mid-1940s.