Click any event to reveal its significance and Paper 2 application.
Deploy this knowledge across common question types.
Cascading failures — dynasty → republic → warlords — created desperation for order. Layer in foreign humiliation and peasant suffering.
Three pillars: military (Long March, PLA, civil war), ideological (Yan'an, mass line), propaganda (mythologizing the march, parables).
Coercion + legitimacy. Land reform gave peasants material gain while eliminating landlords. Nationalization centralized control.
Maoism = Marxism adapted for peasants, not workers. Gave meaning to suffering, justified violence, promised peasant-led China.
Peasant origins = credibility. Military leadership won the civil war. Charisma held army through Long March. Ideological innovation (Maoism).
Japanese invasion weakened Nationalists while Mao built strength during United Front. Post-WWII, CCP was fresh; Nationalists exhausted.
Comparison table for Paper 2 cross-leader essays.
| Dimension | Mao Zedong | Joseph Stalin |
|---|---|---|
| Path to Power | Military revolution — peasant army, civil war, seized power from outside | Bureaucratic maneuvering within existing Bolshevik Party after Lenin's death |
| Social Base | Peasants — rural China. Revolution from countryside inward | Urban workers / industrial proletariat. Revolution centered in cities |
| Ideology | Maoism — adapted Marxism for peasant society. Anti-intellectual | Marxism-Leninism — "Socialism in One Country." Rapid industrialization |
| Founding Myth | Long March (1934) — 6,000 miles, survival. Invoked for decades | October Revolution (1917). Mythologized through film and propaganda |
| Consolidation | Land reform → peasant associations. 1M+ landlords killed | Five-Year Plans, collectivization, dekulakization |
| Terror | Yan'an Terror, land reform killings, rectification campaigns | Great Purges, show trials, Gulag, NKVD |
| Role of War | Japanese invasion weakened Nationalists during United Front | WWI created revolution conditions; WWII consolidated Soviet power |
| Key Similarity | Both combined popular legitimacy with systematic terror. Both from humble origins. Both built personality cults and eliminated opposition through purges. | |
Click any event to reveal its significance, historiography, and Paper 2 application.
Common Cold War essay prompts and how to structure your response.
"To what extent did events in the final year of WWII turn wartime allies into Cold War enemies?"
Structure: 1945 events sowed seeds, but post-1945 responses were decisive. Cover conferences, leadership change (FDR→Truman), atom bomb, then argue the Truman Doctrine/Marshall Plan were the real turning points.
"Who was responsible for the development of the Cold War?"
Deploy historiography: Orthodox (Soviet aggression), Revisionist (U.S. dollar imperialism), Post-revisionist (mutual misperception). New historians: Stalin's personality was decisive. Best answers don't pick one school but show how evidence supports multiple interpretations.
"How and why did the Cold War spread beyond Europe?"
Korea = containment applied to Asia. NSC-68 globalized U.S. commitment. Domino theory logic. Cuba = Cold War reaches Western Hemisphere. Each case study shows the action-reaction pattern escalating.
"To what extent can détente be seen as a failure?"
Gaddis: détente wasn't meant to end the arms race — just make competition predictable. SALT I, Helsinki, Nixon-China were achievements. Collapsed due to Afghanistan, Soviet interventions in Africa, and U.S. disillusionment. Key: Helsinki's human rights basket was a long-term "time bomb" for the USSR.
"To what extent was Gorbachev responsible for ending the Cold War?"
Three factors: (1) Gorbachev — glasnost, perestroika, abandoning Brezhnev Doctrine; (2) Reagan — pressure + willingness to negotiate; (3) structural — Soviet economic stagnation, people power in Eastern Europe. Best answers show these interacting, not competing.
"What was the impact of the arms race on the Cold War?"
Atom bomb (1945) → Soviet bomb (1949) → H-bomb → ICBM → MAD doctrine → Cuban Missile Crisis → arms control (SALT, INF). Nuclear weapons made direct conflict unthinkable — forcing proxy wars and "wars of nerves." SDI threatened to break MAD.
Knowing the schools of thought and key historians will elevate your essays significantly.
The Cold War was caused by Soviet expansionism. Stalin's totalitarian regime was inherently aggressive; the West was forced to respond defensively. The USSR violated wartime agreements and imposed Communist regimes on Eastern Europe.
Key evidence: Salami tactics in Eastern Europe, Czech Coup 1948, Berlin Blockade, support for North Korea.
The USA bears significant responsibility. American "dollar imperialism" (Marshall Plan), aggressive containment policy, and atomic diplomacy provoked legitimate Soviet security concerns. The USSR was primarily defensive — seeking security after losing 25–27 million people in WWII.
Key evidence: Marshall Plan conditions designed to exclude USSR, Truman's hardline approach vs. FDR's accommodation, U.S. atomic monopoly used as leverage.
Both sides share responsibility. Misperceptions drove an "action-reaction" cycle. Neither side had a master plan — both were "improvising." Gaddis & LaFeber agreed both superpowers overestimated each other's threat.
Key figure: John Lewis Gaddis (early work). Also LaFeber's emphasis on both sides being expansionist powers since the 19th century.
With access to Soviet archives after 1991, historians focused more on individuals (especially Stalin). Gaddis revised his view: "As long as Stalin was running the Soviet Union, a Cold War was unavoidable." Mastny focuses on Stalin's paranoia. Individual decisions, not systemic forces, drove key events.
Key debate: Gaddis, Zubok & Pleshakov on Soviet side; also de Tocqueville's 1835 prediction that USA and Russia were "marked out to sway the destinies of half the globe" — was ideology even the real driver?
European fears and opinions shaped American policy more than previously recognized. British fears (Churchill's Iron Curtain speech) actively pushed the U.S. toward confrontation. Neither Revisionists nor Post-revisionists adequately considered European influence.
Reagan Victory School (Weinberger, Perle, Pipes): U.S. military buildup + SDI forced Soviet collapse. Détente was a Soviet "trick" that prolonged the Cold War.
Counter-view (Garthoff, Deudney & Ikenberry): "The West did not win the Cold War through containment and military deterrence." Victory came when Soviet leaders realized their system had failed. Containment "held Soviet power in check until internal seeds of destruction could mature."
Balanced view (McMahon): Reagan deserves credit for moderating his views and engaging Gorbachev — but Gorbachev's reforms were the decisive factor.
The fundamental differences that drove 45 years of conflict.
| Dimension | USA | USSR |
|---|---|---|
| Economic System | Capitalism — free market, private ownership, individual competition, open trade | Communism — state ownership, central planning, collective good, COMECON |
| Political System | Liberal democracy — multiple parties, free elections, individual rights, free press | One-party state — Communist Party rules on behalf of workers; individual freedoms deemed unnecessary |
| Idealism | Wilsonian/Rooseveltian — collective security, self-determination, economic integration | Marxist-Leninist — international socialism, liberation of exploited working classes |
| Self-Interest | Open markets, avoid another 1929 depression, "what's good for America is good for the world" | Secure borders, recover from WWII devastation (25–27M dead), "nursery of Communism" |
| Post-WWII Strength | Economy doubled by 1944. #1 air power. 400,000 deaths. Atomic monopoly (until 1949) | #1 land power. 25–27M deaths. 1,700 towns, 31,000 factories destroyed. Regional dominance |
| Key Policies | Containment → Truman Doctrine → Marshall Plan → NATO → Brinkmanship → Détente | Buffer zone in E. Europe → COMECON → Warsaw Pact → Peaceful coexistence → Brezhnev Doctrine |
| Perception of Other | USSR is expansionist, totalitarian, threat to freedom and free markets | USA practices "dollar imperialism," threatens Soviet security, seeks global economic domination |