Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91: Growing Rivalry and the Berlin Blockade, 1945-58 - Worksheets, Questions and Revision

12 original exam-style questions - 4 pages of questions with a full mark scheme - free printable PDF.

Download PDF Jump to mark scheme (page 5)Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91: Growing Rivalry and the Berlin Blockade, 1945-58 revision guide

This topic is chapter 2 of GCSE History: Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91 Practice Book.

Next in this strand

4.2 Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91: Growing Rivalry and the Berlin Blockade, 1945-58

EDEXCEL 1HI0 · about 55 minutes

Total Marks

Name: _______________________________ Date: ____ / ____ / ______

Answer ALL questions. Write in full sentences for Questions 15, 16 and 17. You are advised to spend about 65 minutes on this pack.

Name the operation by which the Western Allies supplied West Berlin with food, fuel and other necessities by air during the blockade.

(Total for Question 1 is 1 mark)

Give the month and year in which the Berlin Blockade was lifted.

(Total for Question 2 is 2 marks)

Name the military alliance formed by the USA, Canada and Western European states in April 1949, and the rival alliance the USSR formed with Eastern European states in May 1955.

(Total for Question 3 is 2 marks)

Explain two consequences of the Truman Doctrine (March 1947).

(Total for Question 4 is 8 marks)

Write a narrative account analysing how the crisis over Berlin developed between the introduction of a new currency in the Western zones of Germany in June 1948 and the lifting of the blockade in May 1949.

You may use the following information in your answer:
- the Soviet blockade of land, rail and canal routes into West Berlin
- the Berlin Airlift

You should also use information of your own.

(Total for Question 5 is 8 marks)

Explain two of the following:
(a) the importance of the Marshall Plan (1947) for the division of Europe
(b) the importance of the Berlin Blockade (1948-49) for the formal division of Germany
(c) the importance of the formation of NATO (1949) for the growth of superpower rivalry

You must answer on TWO parts.

(Total for Question 6 is 16 marks)

Give the year and location of Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech, which warned that the USSR was dividing Europe.

(Total for Question 7 is 2 marks)

Give the year in which President Truman announced the Truman Doctrine.

(Total for Question 8 is 1 mark)

Give the year in which the Marshall Plan for European economic recovery was announced.

(Total for Question 9 is 1 mark)

State how Stalin responded when the USSR and Eastern European states were offered Marshall Aid.

(Total for Question 10 is 2 marks)

Name the organisation the USSR set up in September 1947 to coordinate communist parties across Europe, partly in response to the Marshall Plan.

(Total for Question 11 is 1 mark)

State the event that triggered Stalin's decision to blockade the land, rail and canal routes into West Berlin.

(Total for Question 12 is 2 marks)

Mark scheme · 4.2 Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91: Growing Rivalry and the Berlin Blockade, 1945-58

Question 1

B1 the Berlin Airlift
Answer: The Berlin Airlift

Question 2

B1 May
B1 1949
Answer: May 1949

Question 3

B1 the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), 1949
B1 the Warsaw Pact, 1955
Answer: NATO (1949) and the Warsaw Pact (1955).

Question 4

Level 1 (1-2): Identifies one or two general consequences of the Truman Doctrine, with little or no supporting detail or explanation.
Level 2 (3-4): Identifies and begins to explain one consequence, supported by accurate detail.
Level 3 (5-6): Explains two consequences of the Truman Doctrine, each supported by accurate and relevant detail.
Level 4 (7-8): Explains two consequences in a well-developed, logically structured way, supported throughout by precise and accurate detail, showing how the consequences connect.
Indicative content:
- It committed the USA to a long-term policy of containment, providing the justification for the wider Marshall Plan just months later, extending US involvement from military and financial aid for Greece and Turkey into a general economic strategy for Europe.
- It hardened Soviet suspicion of American intentions, since Stalin viewed the Doctrine as evidence the USA intended to actively oppose Soviet influence wherever it could, contributing to the formation of Cominform in September 1947 as a coordinated communist response.
- It marked a clear public break from the wartime cooperation of the Grand Alliance to an openly stated policy of resisting Soviet-linked expansion, making the division of Europe into two opposing camps more explicit than it had been immediately after 1945.
- In the immediate term it provided $400 million in military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey, helping the Greek government defeat a communist-led insurgency in the Greek Civil War and keeping Turkey outside Soviet influence.

Question 5

Level 1 (1-2): Simple, generalised statements about the Berlin crisis, with little organisation or sense of change over time.
Level 2 (3-4): Some accurate knowledge is deployed, with limited organisation into a sequence; the account may be more a list of events than a developed narrative.
Level 3 (5-6): The account is organised and mostly coherent, and shows some analysis of how the crisis developed, with accurate supporting detail.
Level 4 (7-8): The answer demonstrates a coherent, well-organised narrative that analyses connections between events across the crisis, showing clearly how the currency reform led to the blockade and how the Airlift led to its lifting, fully supported by precise and accurate detail.
Indicative content:
- In June 1948 the Western Allies introduced the Deutsche Mark into their occupation zones and West Berlin, a step Stalin saw as moving towards a permanent, economically strong, separate West German state that threatened Soviet security in the region.
- Stalin responded by blockading all land, rail and canal routes into West Berlin from late June 1948, cutting off the Western sectors of the city, which lay deep inside the Soviet occupation zone, from overland Western supply.
- Rather than force a way through by land, which risked direct military confrontation, the Western Allies chose to supply West Berlin by air, beginning the Berlin Airlift, which continued for almost a year and successfully kept the city's population supplied with food, coal and other necessities.
- As the Airlift proved sustainable and Western resolve did not weaken, the blockade increasingly failed to achieve Stalin's aim and instead damaged Soviet international standing, leading Stalin to lift the blockade in May 1949.
- The crisis had lasting consequences beyond its resolution: it hardened the division of Germany, contributing directly to the creation of separate West and East German states later in 1949, and to the formation of NATO in April 1949 while the blockade was still ongoing.

Question 6

Level 1 (1-4): For each part answered: identifies a general point of importance, with little or no supporting detail or explanation.
Level 2 (5-8): For each part answered: begins to explain importance, supported by some accurate detail.
Level 3 (9-12): For each part answered: explains importance clearly, supported by accurate and relevant detail, with some analysis of consequences.
Level 4 (13-16): For each part answered: explains importance in a well-developed, analytical way, fully supported by precise and accurate detail, showing clearly why the event mattered for the outcome named.
Indicative content:
- (a) The Marshall Plan was important for the division of Europe because Stalin's refusal to allow Eastern European states to accept it split the continent economically between American-aided Western states and a Soviet-controlled Eastern bloc, hardening a divide that continued through the establishment of Comecon in January 1949 as the Soviet economic alternative.
- (b) The Berlin Blockade was important for the formal division of Germany because its failure demonstrated that the two sides could not cooperatively govern Germany, and shortly after the blockade ended, separate states were established: the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in May 1949 and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in October 1949.
- (c) NATO was important for the growth of superpower rivalry because it formally committed the USA and Western European states to mutual defence, converting an informal alignment into a binding military alliance, which the USSR viewed as directly threatening and answered with the Warsaw Pact once West Germany joined NATO in 1955.
- A strong answer on any two parts explains a clear causal chain from the named development to the outcome specified, distinguishing between economic, political and military dimensions of rivalry and using precise dates rather than general description.

Question 7

B1 1946
B1 Fulton, Missouri, USA
Answer: 1946, at Fulton, Missouri.

Question 8

B1 1947
Answer: 1947

Question 9

B1 1947
Answer: 1947

Question 10

B1 Stalin refused Marshall Aid for the USSR and forbade Eastern European states under Soviet influence from accepting it
B1 he viewed the offer as an attempt by the USA to use economic ties to draw Eastern Europe out of the Soviet sphere of influence, which he saw as a threat to Soviet security
Answer: Stalin refused Marshall Aid and forbade Eastern European states from accepting it, seeing it as a threat to Soviet influence in the region.

Question 11

B1 Cominform (the Communist Information Bureau)
Answer: Cominform

Question 12

B1 the Western Allies introduced a new currency, the Deutsche Mark, into their occupation zones of Germany and West Berlin
B1 Stalin saw this as a step towards a separate, economically stronger West German state that would threaten Soviet security, and blockaded West Berlin's land routes in response
Answer: The Western Allies introduced the Deutsche Mark currency into their zones, which Stalin saw as a threatening step towards a separate West German state.

Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91: Growing Rivalry and the Berlin Blockade, 1945-58 - Worksheets, Questions and Revision

Next in this strand

Related topics

4.2 Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91: Growing Rivalry and the Berlin Blockade, 1945-58

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Question 7

Question 8

Question 9

Question 10

Question 11

Question 12

Mark your answers

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Question 7

Question 8

Question 9

Question 10

Question 11

Question 12