S6 History Practice Paper: The Cold War And Post-Cold War International Relations (12 Questions, 100 Marks, 75 Minutes, With Answers)

S6 History Practice Paper: The Cold War and Post-Cold War International Relations (12 Questions, 100 Marks, 75 Minutes, with Answers)

2026-11-09

HKDSE History: The Cold War and Post-Cold War International Relations

S6 History practice paper on the Cold War: origins, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Blockade, the Cuban Missile Crisis, NATO, Vietnam and detente, with full answers.

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Section A: Data and Calculation Questions — Origins and Crises of the Cold War (32 marks)

Study the information in each question and answer as instructed.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
1	Data: the Berlin Blockade lasted from 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949, a total of 318 days; the Western powers airlifted an average of 4700 tonnes of supplies into West Berlin each day. (a) Calculate the total tonnage airlifted during the blockade. (2 marks) (b) Explain how the airlift defeated the purpose of the Soviet blockade of West Berlin. (4 marks)	(a) Total tonnage is 318 days multiplied by 4700 tonnes per day, which is 1494600 tonnes. (2 marks) (b) The airlift bypassed the land and water routes cut by the Soviet blockade; British and American aircraft flew round the clock carrying food, fuel and medicine, so the people of West Berlin could survive and its industry partly resumed. The blockade failed to make the West abandon West Berlin and damaged Soviet standing in world opinion, so it was lifted in May 1949. The airlift showed the West’s determination to defend the city and became a turning point in the first great confrontation of the Cold War. (4 marks)
2	Data: the Marshall Plan provided about 13.3 billion US dollars of aid to Western Europe between 1948 and 1951; the Truman Doctrine provided about 400 million US dollars to Greece and Turkey in 1947. (a) Calculate how many times the Marshall Plan aid exceeded the Truman Doctrine aid, to two decimal places. (4 marks) (b) Explain the difference in aims between the two policies. (4 marks)	(a) 133 divided by 4 is 33.25, so Marshall Plan aid was about 33.25 times the aid under the Truman Doctrine. (4 marks) (b) The Truman Doctrine gave short-term military and financial aid, sending weapons and money directly to Greece and Turkey to stop communist forces taking power, and was primarily military containment. The Marshall Plan gave long-term economic aid, rebuilding industry, stabilising currencies and restoring trade, so as to remove the economic roots of social unrest in Western Europe and to tie the region to American leadership through economic cooperation. (4 marks)
3	The Cuban Missile Crisis: on 14 October 1962 a US U-2 aircraft photographed missile sites in Cuba; on 28 October the Soviet Union announced the withdrawal of the missiles. The United States imposed a quarantine on Cuba on 24 October. (a) Calculate how many days passed between the discovery of the missiles and the Soviet announcement of withdrawal. (4 marks) (b) Explain why the United States called its measure a quarantine rather than a blockade. (4 marks)	(a) From 14 October to 28 October is 14 days. (4 marks) (b) A blockade is an act of war in international law and would require authorisation by the Security Council under the UN Charter; declaring a blockade would amount to a declaration of war on Cuba and could trigger treaty obligations between the superpowers. Calling it a quarantine, which stopped only ships carrying offensive weapons, kept military pressure while leaving room for negotiation and avoided putting the United States in the wrong under international law. (4 marks)
4	Data: the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was founded in 1949 with 12 founding members; by 2020 it had 30 members. The Soviet Union founded the Warsaw Treaty Organisation with the Eastern European states in 1955. (a) Calculate the percentage increase in NATO membership from 1949 to 2020, to one decimal place. (3 marks) (b) Explain the background to the founding of NATO and then of the Warsaw Pact. (4 marks) (c) Give one event in which the Soviet Union intervened in the name of the Warsaw Pact and state its consequence. (3 marks)	(a) The increase is (30 minus 12) divided by 12 times 100 per cent, which is 150.0 per cent. (3 marks) (b) NATO: after the Second World War Western Europe was economically weak, and the 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Blockade raised fears of Soviet expansion, so the United States turned from isolationism to collective defence and signed the North Atlantic Treaty with Canada and ten Western European states, establishing the principle of collective self-defence. Warsaw Pact: NATO admitted West Germany and allowed it to rearm, so the Soviet Union, to secure its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and to counter NATO, signed the Warsaw Treaty with seven Eastern European states, and Europe was divided into two military blocs. (4 marks) (c) In 1968 the Soviet Union intervened in Czechoslovakia in the name of the Warsaw Pact to crush the Prague Spring; the reforms were halted, resentment of Soviet control grew in Eastern Europe, and communist parties in Western Europe distanced themselves from Moscow. (3 marks)

Section B: Structured Questions — Confrontation, War and Detente (36 marks)

Answer in points with reference to historical evidence.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
5	(a) Compare the Truman Doctrine with the Marshall Plan, giving one similarity and one difference. (3 marks) (b) Explain how the Marshall Plan served economic and strategic aims at the same time. (6 marks)	(a) Similarity: both aimed to contain the expansion of communism and formed part of America’s containment policy towards the Soviet Union after the war. Difference: the Truman Doctrine relied mainly on military and financial aid and was a short-term emergency measure, while the Marshall Plan relied mainly on economic reconstruction and was a long-term multilateral aid programme. (3 marks) (b) Economic aims: it provided funds, machinery and technical help to Western Europe, restored industrial output and trade, stabilised currencies, averted a post-war slump and opened markets for American goods and capital. Strategic aims: recovery weakened the social base of communist parties in Western Europe and reduced the chance of left-wing gains in elections and labour movements; recipient states had to accept American coordination and supervision, forming an economic order centred on the United States and aligning their policy towards the Soviet Union with Washington, so the plan became economic containment. (6 marks)
6	The Vietnam War: about 184000 US troops were in Vietnam in 1965 and about 543000 in 1969; US forces withdrew in 1973 and Saigon fell in 1975. (a) Calculate the percentage increase in US troop numbers between 1965 and 1969, to one decimal place. (4 marks) (b) State the year in which US forces withdrew from Vietnam. (2 marks) (c) Describe two effects of the Vietnam War on American society. (3 marks)	(a) The increase is (54.3 minus 18.4) divided by 18.4 times 100 per cent, which is 195.1 per cent. (4 marks) (b) 1973. (2 marks) (c) Socially, the anti-war movement spread through campuses and cities, the young questioned the honesty of government, and a gap in values opened between generations; returning veterans faced unemployment and trauma, adding to social welfare costs. Politically, the publication of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal sharply reduced public trust in presidential power, and Congress later passed the War Powers Act to limit the president’s power to commit forces. (3 marks)
7	Detente: the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) in 1972, and 35 states signed the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. (a) State two main provisions of SALT I. (4 marks) (b) Explain how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 ended detente. (5 marks)	(a) First, it set limits on the number of strategic missile launchers held by each side, freezing the totals of offensive strategic weapons; second, it banned nationwide missile defence systems and allowed only one defensive system at the capital and one at a missile site, so as to preserve the stability of mutual assured destruction. (4 marks) (b) The invasion convinced the United States that the Soviet Union was expanding under cover of detente, so the Carter administration postponed consideration of SALT II and imposed a grain embargo and restrictions on high technology exports; the United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics and funded Afghan resistance. The Reagan administration then called the Soviet Union an evil empire, raised military spending sharply and deployed intermediate-range missiles in Europe, restarting the arms race and ending detente. (5 marks)
8	The collapse of the Soviet Union: regimes changed across Eastern Europe in 1989, and the Soviet Union was formally dissolved on 26 December 1991, ending the Cold War. (a) State two internal causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union. (4 marks) (b) Explain the link between Gorbachev’s reforms and the revolutions in Eastern Europe. (5 marks)	(a) Economically, the planned economy was chronically inefficient, heavy industry and arms were favoured so consumer goods were scarce, farm output was inadequate, falling oil prices cut foreign earnings and the budget deficit grew. Politically, the bureaucracy was rigid and corrupt, one-party rule made reform difficult, and Gorbachev’s openness exposed the flaws of the system while nationalist movements rose in the republics. (4 marks) (b) Gorbachev’s new thinking abandoned the use of force to keep control of Eastern Europe and allowed each state to choose its own path; in 1989 regimes changed across the region without Soviet intervention and the Berlin Wall fell in November. These revolutions in turn weakened Soviet leadership of the Warsaw Pact, which was dissolved in 1991, and the loss of the buffer zone contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of that year. (5 marks)

Section C: Essay Questions — Synthesis and Evaluation (32 marks)

Answer each question with reference to historical evidence.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
9	‘The main cause of the Cold War was ideological conflict.’ Do you agree? (8 marks)	For: ideological conflict ran through the whole Cold War. The United States was founded on free markets and representative government while the Soviet Union claimed Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and a planned economy, and the two visions of the post-war order were incompatible. The Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and NATO were all presented as containment of communism, and the Soviet Union held Eastern Europe together through the Warsaw Pact and ideological discipline. Against: geopolitics and history mattered as much. After 1945 a power vacuum opened in Europe, the Soviet Union sought a buffer zone in the east for security, and the United States sought open markets for its post-war economy; the atomic bomb and then missiles produced a security dilemma, and conflicts such as the Greek civil war, the Berlin Blockade and the Cuban Missile Crisis were triggered by concrete interests. Ideology was therefore an important cause, but it must be combined with geopolitics and security to explain how the Cold War began and why it lasted. (8 marks)
10	‘The Marshall Plan was essentially economic aid and not a political instrument.’ Do you agree? (8 marks)	For: the form of the aid was economic. Funds were given as grants and loans to buy food, fuel, machinery and raw materials, and counterpart funds in local currency financed infrastructure; the programme was coordinated by the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation as multilateral economic cooperation and led to the European Payments Union and trade liberalisation. Against: the plan had clear political purposes from the start. Marshall’s 1947 speech spoke of combating hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos, and its designers said openly that the aid was meant to keep Western Europe out of communist hands; recipients had to submit economic plans and accept review, and the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe refused to take part, so the European economy split along political lines. The plan was thus an economic means serving political ends, and the two cannot be separated. (8 marks)
11	‘The Cuban Missile Crisis proved that nuclear deterrence can keep the peace.’ Explain with reference to one Asian example. (8 marks)	For: the outcome of the crisis does show the working of deterrence. Both sides avoided direct military conflict, the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba and a secret undertaking to remove missiles from Turkey, and afterwards the two sides set up a hotline and signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty, so the crisis actually advanced arms control. Against: deterrence works only under conditions and carries risk. The crisis arose from the missile gap between the superpowers’ deployments in Turkey and Cuba, and a misjudgement or a delay in communication could still have led to nuclear war; both sides later admitted how close they came to losing control. An Asian example: after the Sino-Soviet border clashes at Zhenbao Island in 1969 the Soviet Union considered strikes on Chinese nuclear facilities, and deterrence did not prevent bloodshed on the border but pushed China to speed up its own nuclear programme. Nuclear deterrence reduces the chance of all-out war but cannot guarantee peace without communication channels and arms control. (8 marks)
12	‘The United Nations played only a limited role during the Cold War.’ Do you agree? (8 marks)	For: the five permanent members hold the veto, and the United States and the Soviet Union vetoed each other on almost every major issue, so the Security Council could rarely pass resolutions and peacekeeping forces often could not be deployed. During the Cold War the United Nations failed to stop the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Hungarian uprising, the Prague Spring and the war in Afghanistan, its action limited by great power interests. Against: the United Nations contributed substantially elsewhere. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 set standards that became the basis of later covenants; the World Health Organisation declared smallpox eradicated in 1980 and UNESCO promoted education and cultural cooperation; the refugee agency resettled large numbers of people after Hungary, Vietnam and Afghanistan; and during the Cuban Missile Crisis the United Nations provided a public channel between the two sides. The United Nations was constrained by the great powers in security matters but had real effect on human rights, health, refugees and international law, so any judgement must be made field by field. (8 marks)

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