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Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995

  • 7 subtopics
  • 20 things to know
  • Unit group 2
  • Non-British period study, one unit of twenty-four

What Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995 covers

The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995 is unit Y223 of OCR History A, one of the twenty-four options in unit group 2, the non-British period study; a student sits one of them. Its four key topics are the origins of the Cold War to 1945, the development of the Cold War 1946–1955, the Cold War 1956–1984 and the end of the Cold War 1984–1995. 334 recall questions across 7 subtopics.

Where it is assessed

Unit group 2

Non-British period study, one unit of twenty-four.

Check the OCR specification ↗

The 7 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

Summarise the main decisions of the Yalta Conference of February 1945.

Key term

What happened in the coup of August 1991?

Evaluation

Why did the wartime alliance break down so quickly after 1945?

Evaluation

Why did the western powers reform the currency in their German zones in 1948?

Key term

What were the consequences of the Hungarian rising?

Numbers

What did the SALT talks achieve?

Evaluation

Why did the Soviet Union accept a reunified Germany within NATO?

Numbers

What was the position of the Soviet Union and the western powers in 1941?

Who and when

How did the ideologies of capitalism and communism differ?

Numbers

How did the communists take control of Poland?

Who and when

How did Czechoslovakia lose its democracy in 1948?

Numbers

What were Cominform and Comecon?

Key term

What happened in Poland in 1956?

Who and when

Why was the Berlin Wall built in 1961, and what did it settle?

Numbers

Outline the second front dispute.

Key term

How had the leading personalities changed by the Potsdam Conference?

Who and when

Why did the eastern bloc refuse Marshall Aid?

Numbers

What were the results of the Berlin blockade?

Who and when

Why did the Soviet Union crush the Hungarian rising of 1956?

Key term

What economic problems faced the Soviet Union by the mid-1980s?

Take Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995 further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Truman Doctrine vs Marshall Aid

    Truman Doctrine: the pledge of 1947 to support free peoples resisting armed subjugation. Marshall Aid: the American programme of economic assistance to rebuild Europe from 1948.

  • Cominform vs Comecon

    Cominform: the body founded in 1947 to coordinate the policy of European communist parties. Comecon: the organisation founded in 1949 to integrate the economies of the eastern bloc.

  • Detente vs Sinatra Doctrine

    Detente: the relaxation of superpower tension in the late 1960s and 1970s, marked by arms limitation. Sinatra Doctrine: the announcement that the satellites could go their own way without Soviet interference.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was the position of the Soviet Union and the western powers in 1941?

    Model answer

    Britain stood alone against Germany until the invasion of the USSR in June 1941 forced Stalin into an alliance of necessity, joined in December by the United States after Pearl Harbor.

  2. 2

    How did the ideologies of capitalism and communism differ?

    Model answer

    Capitalism rested on private property, market exchange and competitive multi-party politics, while Soviet communism rested on state ownership, central planning and the rule of a single party claiming to speak for the working class.

  3. 3

    Explain why the western powers distrusted the Soviet Union before 1941.

    Model answer

    They remembered the Bolshevik repudiation of debts, allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, the Comintern's calls for world revolution, the purges, and above all the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939.

  4. 4

    Why did Stalin distrust his western allies?

    Model answer

    He recalled their intervention against the Bolsheviks, his exclusion from the Munich agreement of 1938, and what he saw as western willingness to let Germany and the USSR destroy each other.

  5. 5

    Outline the second front dispute.

    Model answer

    Stalin demanded an invasion of western Europe to relieve the pressure on the Red Army, and resented the repeated postponements until the Normandy landings of June 1944 while Soviet casualties mounted.

  6. 6

    How did the atomic bomb and Lend-Lease add to wartime suspicion?

    Model answer

    The Americans supplied huge quantities of Lend-Lease aid but kept the atomic project secret from their Soviet ally, who learned its details through espionage long before Truman's vague hint at Potsdam.

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Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995 revision questions

What does Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995 cover in OCR A-Level History A?
7 subtopics: the origins of the cold war to 1945: situation in 1941 and wartime tensions in the grand alliance, the origins of the cold war to 1945: the wartime conferences and the breakdown of the alliance, the development of the cold war 1946–1955: ‘iron curtain’ speech, truman doctrine and marshall aid, the development of the cold war 1946–1955: cominform and comecon, conflicts over germany, atomic weapons, the cold war 1956–1984: hungary, the prague spring and poland, the cold war 1956–1984: berlin, the arms race, détente and the new cold war and the end of the cold war 1984–1995: soviet decline, gorbachev and the end of communism. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995 organised?
By the OCR H505 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

Every question in Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

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