Generic Level of Response Mark Scheme Objective 1: Students’ version

Level 1: This means that you are able to write some sentences to answer the question, but you are not able to develop any of them into a paragraph. If you do write paragraphs, you do not really add anything more to what you have said in the first sentence. You may make generalisations, for example you suggest that everyone was treated the same, without explaining how or why. You may also write something that could be true of other periods of history

To improve to Level 2, you need some detailed information to help you back up or explain your answer.

Level 2: This means that you are able to back up your answer with knowledge and understanding in paragraph form. You are now showing that you know and understand more about the topic. But, what you put in the paragraph must be relevant to the topic. You cannot just write anything. For example you could back up your answer by providing more detail about an event, a person or a date.

Level 2 answers will usually look like a series of paragraphs which are not linked together in any way. They are often quite long answers because you write everything that you know about the topic, rather than choosing the information which is most important.

To improve to Level 3, you will need to take time to plan your answer and get the paragraphs in the correct order.

Level 3: This means that you have taken the trouble to write a sequence of paragraphs with detailed knowledge and understanding and also to organise the paragraphs in a way that makes sense. For example, you can do this by making links between events and putting forward an explanation of why something happened.

The most important feature of a Level 3 answer is that it reads much more fluently and it is obvious that you have planned the answer, rather than just writing it straight away. This is because you have taken the trouble to plan and think about your answer before you start.

To improve to Level 4, you will need to organise your answer so that you write an introduction, an argument and a conclusion

Level 4: This means that you have read the question very carefully and are then able to organise your answer properly. Your answer should have an introduction, which sets the scene by explaining any names, dates and events mentioned in the question. You should then write a series of linked paragraphs which support the argument that you put forward. Finally, you should write a conclusion which makes the main points over again.

Why did the Nationalists lose support in the 1930s?

  1. Inflation grew rapidly and the power of Warlords increased.
  1. The GMD appeared to be unwilling to attack the Japanese.
  1. The GMD government became increasingly corrupt as officials competed for personal power and influence.
  1. The Japanese concentrated upon the GMD and left the CCP alone.
  1. Chiang retreated before the Japanese invasion and gave up the capital of Nanjing. He moved the government to Sichuan province.
  1. The policies of the CCP were more attractive to the great majority of Chinese.
  1. In these areas the CCP carried on with land reform, lowering rents from 37.5% of a crop to 20%.
  1. The Nationalists lost support in the 1930s because they were unable to deal with the Japanese invasion.
  1. The GMD was essentially a city-based party. It was out of touch with the needs of large areas of China.
  1. Overall, the most important reasons for the failure of the GMD were the Japanese invasion and the policies of the CCP.
  1. The Eighth Route Army acted independently, often behind Japanese lines. It set up a network of command posts in villages across China.
  1. The CCP advanced into the areas vacated by the GMD and soon controlled most of northern China.
  1. The CCP made clear that its policy was to drive out the Japanese.
  1. The behaviour of the Eighth Route Army won increasing support for the CCP
  1. In Sichuan, Chiang was cut off from the industrialised westernised areas of China, which were his main power base. Consequently the GMD could do little to fight back against Japan.

A
B
C
D
X / Advantages of the Communists
Y / Mistakes of the Nationalists

Cavour and Italy

Which describe (a) how Cavour strengthened Piedmont and (b) how he gained foreign support?

  1. He supported the creation of a Piedmontese constitution, which the king granted in 1848.
  1. Napoleon offered to help Piedmont against Austria, providing that Cavour could come up with a good reason for French intervention.
  1. In 1850 he was the author of a Bill which reduced the power of the Catholic Church and abolished the Church courts.
  1. Cavour’s speech at the peace conference in Paris was reported in French newspapers. He received a good deal of attention and a great deal of sympathy.
  1. He offered to support Britain and France in the Crimean War. The Piedmontese did not do very much and the British and French did not offer much in return.
  1. In 1852 Cavour became the Prime Minister of Piedmont. His main aim was to make Piedmont a strong, modern country and he largely succeeded.
  1. Napoleon III decided that he ought to help and invited Cavour to meet him in July. Cavour travelled in disguise, so that the meeting could be kept secret.
  1. In 1848-9, when there had been a revolt against the Austrian in Venice, Piedmont had declared war on Austria and had tried to drive them out of Italy, but the Piedmontese army had been disastrously defeated.
  1. It was obvious that if Italy was to be rid of the Austrians, Piedmont would need foreign help.
  1. Piedmont would find a way of provoking the Austrians, France would intervene and would then receive Savoy and Nice in return for its troubles.
  1. Cavour began to introduce modern farming methods on his estates and also encouraged the development of banking and railways.
  1. He arranged treaties with Austria, Britain and France and invited foreign banks to invest money in Piedmont.
  1. In January 1858 an Italian called Orsini tried to assassinate Napoleon III, the Emperor of France. Cavour went out of his way to round up anyone who could have been involved in the plot.
  1. In 1850 Cavour became a government minister for agriculture and commerce, but later also for the navy and finance. He raised taxes to build more railways.

Cavour or Garibaldi?

  1. French forces were sent to support the Piedmontese army and won two victories at Magenta and Solferino. The second battle was so bloody that Napoleon was horrified at the loss of life and decided to seek an armistice.
  1. Within two weeks his men had taken the city of Naples and the king fled. He now planned to march north, take control of the Papal States and then possibly attack the Austrians in Venetia.
  1. But when the rulers of the duchies tried to return in August and September 1859, they were rejected and all four duchies voted to be united with Piedmont.
  1. He managed to persuade Napoleon to accept the decisions. Napoleon agreed, but demanded Nice and Savoy as a reward.
  1. In April 1860 there was a revolt against the king of Naples in Sicily. In Piedmont, he decided to go to the support of the people of Naples.
  1. He had planned to march to Nice to defend it against the French when he heard of the revolt in Sicily.
  1. In September 1860, he ordered the Piedmontese army to invade the Papal States and march south to meet him.
  1. In March 1859 all Piedmontese army reserves were ordered to report for duty. The Austrians ordered Piedmont to stand down its army. The ultimatum was rejected and the Austrians invaded Piedmont.
  1. He was quite happy, however, to hand over all of his conquests to Victor Emmanuel, the king of Piedmont.
  1. He almost certainly knew what was going on and did very little to stop him sailing for Sicily. He was quite happy to take advantage of him. The Thousand were all volunteers.
  1. He soon defeated the king’s forces and by the end of July he had driven them out of Sicily. In August he decided to follow them onto the Italian mainland.
  1. When news of the war had spread, the people in the Austrian duchies had driven out their rulers.
  1. Napoleon was concerned and met the Austrian emperor at Villafranca in July 1859. Lombardy was handed over, Venetia remained Austrian. In the duchies, the Austrian rulers would be reinstated.
  1. He knew that he was loyal to the kingdom of Piedmont and so had not been concerned when he overran Sicily and Naples.
  1. But if he attacked Rome, the French would almost certainly intervene.

Alexander II’s Reforms (a) Reasons (b) Effects

  1. In 1874 the army was reformed. In future all people would be treated equally as far as recruitment was concerned.
  1. Russia was a very backward country. There was very little industry and transport was very slow.
  1. All over Russia peasants worked on the land as they had for hundreds of years. Russian peasants were serfs.
  1. Peasants had small plots of land that they worked for themselves, but also had to work on the rest of the land for the landlord.
  1. Alexander set up new courts which used trial by jury. Judges were paid salaries, which meant that they were not likely to be bribed.
  1. All conscripts would have to serve six years in the army and nine years in the reserve.
  1. Serfdom meant that Russian peasants were desperately poor and had very little freedom.
  1. Each landowner would receive 80 percent of his compensation from the government and the peasants would become free men with land.
  1. The Tsar and the members of his court were fabulously wealthy, so that the differences between rich and poor were greater than in any other country in Europe.
  1. The Crimean War had been a disaster. The Russian railways and roads were just not good enough to move large numbers of men and convoys of goods.
  1. Alexander set up a government committee to plan the overall changes. Eventually figures for compensation were worked out.
  1. In 1870 municipal government was reformed. Towns were allowed self-government through councils elected by people owning property.
  1. At the Treaty of Paris in 1856, Russia was forced to give up land on the west coast of the Black Sea and had to agree to withdraw all of its warships from the Black Sea.
  1. Alexander II was well aware that Russia was in crisis and wanted to act quickly. He believed that failing to introduce reforms could well lead to a revolution.
  1. The Tsar’s plan was that serfs should be given their freedom with land and he offered landowners compensation from the state if they agreed to end their rights. Most landowners were completely against this.
  1. In January 1864 Alexander set up district councils (zemstva). The councils were supposed to look after road-building, education and medical services.
  1. Most landowners were in debt and the money they received from the government would just be used to pay off what they owed.

Reforms were theysuccessful? (a) Emancipation (b) Alexander II (c) Alexander III

  1. Although Alexander II freed the serfs in 1861, he never believed that they should have any real say in the way that Russia was governed.
  1. As Alexander got older became less inclined to introduce reforms.
  1. Under the Edict, peasants were given the small plots of land that they had worked for themselves in the past.
  1. He wanted to retain all of the power that he had inherited as Tsar, but at the same time allow his subjects a little more freedom of action.
  1. For the ordinary people of Russia very little actually changed.
  1. The local village commune (mir) had to collect dues, taxes and repayments, but also controlled crop rotations and the use of fields.
  1. Alexander became very involved in the ideas of Pan-Slavism.
  1. Emancipation did little to free the peasants from the control of their landlords.
  1. The threats from revolutionary groups meant that the role of the secret police, the Okhrana, became more and more important.
  1. Alexander himself was assassinated in 1881 by a terrorist bomb.
  1. Communes controlled the movement of people. Peasants had little more freedom than they had had before emancipation.
  1. He came to believe that Russia should put itself forward as the protector of all of the Slavs in Eastern Europe and in particular in Bulgaria.
  1. Alexander III abolished many of the reforms introduced by his father and began a policy of repression.
  1. He also began to try to ‘Russify’ border provinces. This meant forcing them to adopt Russian customs and the Russian language.
  1. Power remained in the hands of the Tsar. He alone could appoint ministers and announce laws.
  1. Peasants had to repay the government for the cost of compensation. The payments would last for forty-nine years.
  1. Alexander III’s reign encouraged Russians who distrusted western ideas to believe that Russian traditions were better. This in turn meant that they rejected democracy and clung to autocracy.

(a) Why did opposition to Tsarist rule develop in the 1870s-80s? (b) Why did opposition become more important after 1900?

  1. In 1876, a secret society called ‘Land and Liberty’ was formed. It tried to encourage the peasants to rebel against the communes, but was not particularly successful.
  1. Vladimir Lenin was the son of a schoolmaster and was determined to overthrow the Tsar by any means.
  1. The ‘People’s Will’ was prepared to use violence against the government. It began to plan to assassinate government ministers and even the Tsar himself.
  1. When the members of the Party assembled in London there were more supporters of Lenin than there were of Plekhanov. But in the Party as a whole, there were many more people who supported Plekhanov.
  1. During the reign of Alexander III opposition groups were suppressed. This continued during the reign of his son Nicholas II.
  1. The result was a split. The majority of the people at the London Congress supported Lenin and broke away from the rest to form the Bolsheviks (the majority). The remainder supported Plekhanov and became known as the Mensheviks (the minority).
  1. Plekhanov believed that the Social Democrats should win power peacefully.
  1. In 1898 the Social Democratic Party was set up in Russia by Georgi Plekhanov. The Social Democrats were Marxists. They tried to gain support from the workers in Russia’s industrial cities.
  1. Georgi Plekhanov was the founder of the Party, and Vladimir Lenin was the leader of the more radical wing.
  1. Lenin now had a party that was completely loyal to himself. When the opportunity arose, he would be able to use that support in any way that he wanted.
  1. In 1901 the Socialist Revolutionaries were founded. They were also Marxists, but believed that the key to success was winning the support of the peasants. They assassinated the Grand Duke Sergei, the uncle of Nicholas II, and Plehve, the Minister of the Interior.
  1. Autocracy did not allow people any legal way of complaining or protesting.
  1. Nicholas II showed no intention of taking any notice of all of these protests. He was not prepared to listen to reason, so violence would have to be used.
  1. In 1903 the Social Democrats met at a congress in London. There were two main leaders of the Party.
  1. Many people had had high hopes that Alexander’s reforms would lead to some form of democracy in Russia, but when the changes dried up in the 1870s they began to turn to other forms of protest.
  1. Lenin wanted a small Party of people who were totally committed to the idea of revolution. Plekhanov on the other hand was prepared to allow any one into the Party who opposed the Tsar.

Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century

  1. Autocracy was the form of government in Russia. It meant that the Tsar had absolute power. He could make laws, appoint ministers and decide on all policies completely on his own.
  1. Autocracy led to the creation of many opposition groups in Russia. The most powerful and the biggest were the Socialist-Revolutionaries, which were strongest in the countryside, where they had the support of many peasants.
  1. But the Bolsheviks, part of the Social Democrats (the other part was the Mensheviks) were to be the most significant. All of these groups used violence.
  1. Tsars had traditionally relied on repression to deal with opposition. The secret police, the Okhrana, were very efficient and street disturbances were broken up by the Cossacks.
  1. This had always worked in the past and he had no other alternatives. This meant that opposition groups also tended to be violent. Nicholas’s grandfather, Alexander II, was killed by a bomb in 1881.
  1. Tsar Nicholas II was weak and easily influenced by others. Even when he took the right decision, e.g. after the 1905 Revolution, he changed his mind later on.
  1. Nicholas did not want to be Tsar and was not capable of acting sensibly. But he felt he had to keep going to pass the throne on to his son.
  1. Even after the setting up of the Duma in 1906, Nicholas II was very reluctant to allow it any real power. This meant that it was impossible to bring about any changes in Russia without Nicholas agreeing to them.
  1. Russia was a very backward country. Only 2% of the population worked in industry, 80% worked in agriculture, which was often very primitive, and there was 80% illiteracy.
  1. Many Russians distrusted Western ideas and preferred to use old-fashioned methods..
  1. In Russia there were extremes of wealth and poverty, far greater than in any other European country. These were made worse by big increases in the populations of the two main cities, St Petersburg and Moscow.
  1. The number of people living in these cities nearly doubled between 1880 and 1914. This led to overcrowding, shortages of food and unrest.
  1. The opposition groups in Russia took advantage of this situation. In 1917 events in Petrograd were all important.

The government of Russia
Failings of Nicholas II
Opposition groups
Problems in Russia

The Impact of the First World War