Transcription
[Music] hi there and welcome to the history teacher. this revision video covers superpower relations and the cold war 1941 to 1991 from the gcse edexcel nine to one course. hopefully you'll also find it useful if you're studying any of the other exam boards or if like me you just love history. you can now become a member to support me to continue to make this content. you'll get exclusive access to worksheets, revision materials, and you'll get to vote on forthcoming episodes. just click on the join button below this video.
hi there guys. today we're going to be looking at the consequences question on paper two. this question carries eight marks, but it's really two four mark questions because the two consequences are marked separately. you'll notice the answer space gives you room to give two completely separate answers. you need to allow no more than 10 minutes for this question, so aim for around five minutes per paragraph. it's a really straightforward question, so let's start by looking at what the question is asking us to do.
the question asks you to explain. remember that always means we're going to give a reason for our answer. it then asks us to give two consequences. so what is a consequence? quite simply, it's something that happened because of the event described in the question. in this case, we're looking for things that happened as a result of the creation of the satellite states. pay close attention to this part of the question because the consequences you describe must be direct consequences of the event in the question. it's no good saying that the berlin wall is a consequence because there are too many steps between the creation of the satellite estates and the building of the wall. so we are looking for things that happened with no steps between them.
if you pop back to my video on the creation of the satellite estates, you will find i have identified three consequences: loss of freedoms in satellite states, increased tensions, and churchill's iron curtain speech. i'm going to talk about the increased tensions and the loss of freedoms in the satellite estates, so i'm going to jot those down near to the question to remind me what i'm doing.
later, in terms of structure, the mark scheme is asking you to analyze the features of the period to explain a consequence. but unlike questions on other papers, this answer can only be awarded at level two as a maximum. so we're going to stick to a p-e-e paragraph because a solid explanation linking the two events will be sufficient to get that level two answer.
one consequence of every event is how it changes the relationship between the superpowers. so saying that the event increased or decreased tension will always be a valid answer in this question. the creation of the satellite states definitely increases tension, so i'm going to start my answer with that. my point for this paragraph is going to be: one consequence is the increased tension between the two superpowers. so that's really straightforward. then we need to go on to add our evidence. here we need to add details of what happened. in this case, we're looking for details of where the tension between the superpowers increased. so i'm gonna add: stalin used salami tactics to turn each of the satellite states into communist states under the control of the ussr. this meant that he took one country at a time and either fixed the elections or threatened the candidates. truman saw this as evidence that the soviet union intended to spread communism worldwide. so that's plenty for our evidence. we've clearly shown the events that led to the increased tension.
so the final part of this answer is we need to explain how the creation of the satellite states led to the increase in tension. so i've written: this led to increased tension because for truman, the creation of the satellite states was evidence that stalin was not to be trusted and he intended to spread communism throughout europe, even by ignoring democracy if necessary. and that's everything i need to say for the first paragraph.
my second consequence is going to be churchill's iron curtain speech. so again, i'm going to need a point, evidence, and explanation which demonstrates the link between the two events. so my point will be: another consequence of the creation of satellite estates was churchill's iron curtain speech. remember, keep it simple. this only carries four marks. so i'm going to add a couple of sentences just giving the detail which supports my point. in march 1946, churchill gave a speech on a visit to the usa. he warned the americans that a divide between east and west europe had been created by stalin's expansion into eastern europe.
so now i just need to add my explanation linking the two events, and then we're done. so i've written: it was clear to churchill at the beginning of 1946 that the creation of the satellite states was dividing europe into east and west. churchill was worried enough about the expansion of communism to warn truman publicly. there is no need for any kind of conclusion or judgment.
so that's everything you need to know about how to answer the consequence question on paper two. don't forget to check out my website for worksheets and revision guidance, and i will see you next time.