The Approaching Midterm…

The midterm for History 342 will be in one week (Tuesday October 12).

It will consist of two parts: short answer questions worth 70% and one longer essay worth 30%. You will have a choice in both sections – answer 7 of 10 short answers and 1 of 3 essays. The best way to prepare is to refer to the study questions posted on the web and to those below. The short answer questions will be drawn from these questions. In most cases, you will see the same questions word for word on the midterm.

Origins of the Cold War

1. How is a Communist system of government supposed to work? What are the basic assumptions of Marxist-Leninist ideology upon which Communism is founded?

2. What did Karl Marx foresee as the future of capitalism? How did this aspect of Marxist doctrine shape Soviet foreign policy?

3. How did Stalin plan on spreading Communism across the globe after World War II? How long would this process take? What was his strategy for achieving this goal?

4. What is “containment?” When did the U.S. implement this policy? What were its strengths and weaknesses?

5. Why was West Berlin such an issue of contention for the Soviets?

Cuban Missile Crisis

6. How did “Operation Mongoose” help to precipitate the Cuban Missile Crisis?

7. Why did Khrushchev decide to install nuclear missiles in Cuba?

8. How was the Cuban Missile Crisis resolved? What were some of the consequences of the crisis (some anticipated, others unanticipated)?

Vietnam

9. What role did France play in drawing the United States into the Vietnamese conflict?

10. Why didn’t the U.S. support free elections in Vietnam in 1956?

11. What caused the U.S. to send ground troops into Vietnam in 1964?

12. In what sense were the Americans and the Vietnamese fighting very different wars? How did their respective goals and their means for achieving them differ?

13. How was the Tet Offensive of 1968 both a victory and a defeat for the U.S.?

14. What is meant by the term “credibility gap?”

15. What was the policy of “Vietnamization?” What was its purpose and what were its results?

China

16. What did President Richard Nixon hope to accomplish by pursuing friendlier relations with China? How did this policy affect US-Soviet relations?

17. In the late 1940s, what two things did the Chinese Communists promise the people in order to win their support?

18. What was the purpose of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward?” Why didn’t it work?

19. What was the “100 Flowers” campaign? What was its purpose and why did it end?

20. How was Mao able to retain the support of the people even after his policies failed?

21. How did Vietnam under Communism differ from China under Communism?

22. What is the difference between an authoritarian and a totalitarian system of government? What evidence is there that China under Communism was a totalitarian state?

23. What were the most significant successes and failures of Mao Zedong?

24. What changes did Deng Xiaoping introduce after he became leader of China?

USSR—History

25. How did Mikhail Gorbachev’s approach to governing the USSR differ from that of Leonid Brezhnev?

26. How did the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant demonstrate that the entire Soviet system was in serious trouble? How did this crisis affect Gorbachev?

27. Both China and the USSR had to confront the crisis of Communism in the 1980s. Why were the Chinese more successful in preserving the Communist party’s monopoly over state power?