A.3+Paper+3+Guide

__**Paper 3**__

Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes Weighting: 35%

Each Option has a separate examination paper. Students must study **three** syllabus sections from their chosen option.

Questions that refer to specific countries, events or people are restricted to those listed in the syllabus descriptions. Where a case study approach has been taken students may illustrate their answers with reference to any country within the region.

**The examination paper will consist of 24 questions.** Two extended-response questions will be set on each syllabus section.

For this unit we study:

**Option 5: Aspects of the History of Europe and the Middle East.**
**5. Imperial Russia, revolutions, emergence of Soviet State 1853-1924** This section deals with the decline of imperial power in Tsarist Russia and the emergence of the Soviet State. It requires examination and consideration of the social, economic and political factors that inaugurated and accelerated the process of decline. Attempts at domestic reform and the extent to which these hastened or hindered decline should be studied, together with the impact of war and foreign entanglements. • Alexander II (1855-81): emancipation of the serfs; military, legal, educational, local govt reforms; later reaction • Policies of Alexander III (1881-94) and Nicholas II (1895 0 1917): backwardness and attempts at modernisation; nature of tsardom; growth of opposition movements • Significance of the Russo-Japanese War; 1905 Revolution; Stolypin and the Duma; the impact of the First World War (1914 - 1918) on Russia • 1917 Revolutions: February/March Revolution; Provisional Government and Dual Power (Soviets); October/November Bolshevik Revolution; Lenin and Trotsky • Lenin’s Russia (1917-24): consolidation of new Soviet State; Civil War; War Communism; NEP; terror and coercion; foreign relations

**8. Interwar years: conflict and cooperation 1919 - 39**
This section deals with the period between the two World Wars and the attempts to promote international cooperation and collective security. Obstacles to cooperation, such as post-war revisionism, economic crises and challenges to democracy and political legitimacy in Italy, Germany and Spain respectively, all require examination and consideration. The policies of the right-wing regimes and the responses of democratic states are also the focus of this section. • Germany 1919 - 33: political, constitutional, economic, financial and social problems • Italy 1919-39: Mussolini's domestic and foreign policies • The impact of the Great Depression (case study of its effect on **one** country in Europe) • Spanish Civil War: background to the outbreak of the Civil War; causes and consequences; foreign involvement; reasons for Nationalist victory • Hitler’s domestic and foreign policy (1933-39) • Search for collective security; appeasement in the interwar years; the failure of international diplomacy; the outbreak of war in 1939

**9. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 1924-2000**
This section deals with the consolidation of the Soviet state from 1924 and the methods applied to ensure its survival, growth and expansion inside and outside the borders of the Soviet Union. The rise and nature of the rule of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and the policies and practice of Sovietization (post‑1945) in Central and Eastern Europe are areas for examination. East–West relations post‑1945 in relation to Soviet aims and leadership should also be considered. • Stalin (1924-53): power struggle; collectivization and industrialisation; Five Year Plans; constitution; cult of personality; purges; impact on society; foreign relations to 1941 • The Great Patriotic War: breakdown of wartime alliance; Cold War; policies towards Germany: Berlin; Eastern European satellite states; Warsaw Pact • Khrushchev (1955-64): struggle for power after Stalin's death; destalinisation; peaceful coexistence; domestic policies: economic and agricultural; foreign relations: Hungary, Berlin, Cuba, China • Brezhnev: domestic and foreign policies• Case study of one Sovietized / satellite state; establishment of Soviet control; the nature of the single party state; domestic policies; opposition and dissent (suitable examples could be East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland but all relevant states are valid) • Transformation of Soviet Union: political developments and change (1982-2000)

Students must select **three** questions. The maximum mark for this paper is 60. The paper is marked using generic markbands and a paper-specific analytic markscheme.