AP European History › Unit 8
This unit runs from World War I through World War II. It covers the causes and new technology of the Great War, the Russian Revolution, the Versailles settlement, the Great Depression, fascism and totalitarianism, and the Holocaust. You will also examine postwar disillusionment in art and ideas. Expect document-based questions that ask you to build an argument from several sources and explain their context. Students often blame World War I on one assassination alone. Another frequent error is treating fascism and communism as the same ideology because both produced dictatorships.
These are taken from the Regular set, with the answer and explanation shown.
1) In our attitude towards the war, which under the new government of Lvov and Co. unquestionably remains on Russia's part a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to "revolutionary defencism" is permissible. ...
3) No support for the Provisional Government; the utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear ...
5) Not a parliamentary republic ... but a republic of Soviets of Workers', Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom. ...
6) ... Confiscation of all landed estates. Nationalisation of all lands in the country, the land to be disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies. ...
V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 24 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), translated by Isaacs Bernard, via the Lenin Internet Archive, Marxists Internet Archive. Prince Georgy Lvov headed the Provisional Government that replaced the tsar in March 1917. "Revolutionary defencism" meant supporting the war to defend the revolution. Source
1. Lenin's call for "No support for the Provisional Government" is best explained by the fact that this government
Answer: A. The Provisional Government that replaced the tsar kept Russia in the war. Thesis 1 calls this "a predatory imperialist war." Lenin used the war's unpopularity to turn people against the new government.
Common trap: The separate peace with Germany was real, but the Bolsheviks signed it in March 1918, after they took power. The Provisional Government never did.
Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. ... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. ...
And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society. Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it ...
Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State.
Benito Mussolini, "What Is Fascism" (1932), English translation (translator not named), via the Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham University. Source
2. Which action by Mussolini's government best put the excerpt's ideas about war into practice?
Answer: A. Mussolini says Fascism does not believe in "perpetual peace" and that war "puts the stamp of nobility" on a people. In 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia to build an empire, and the League of Nations failed to stop it.
Common trap: Italy did join the Allies in 1915, but Mussolini was not in power until 1922. That option has the wrong government.
2. ... I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December, 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total dead of about 3,000,000. This figure represents about 70% or 80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners, the remainder having been selected and used for slave labor ...
6. The "final solution" of the Jewish question meant the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe. ...
7. Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chambers to accommodate 2,000 people at one time, whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers only accommodated 200 people each. ...
Rudolf Hoess, Affidavit, April 5, 1946, Nuremberg document 3868-PS, in Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, vol. 33 (Nuremberg, 1949), pp. 275 to 279, via the Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham University. Short excerpt. Source
3. Paragraph 6 of the affidavit refers most directly to which Nazi policy?
Answer: D. Höss says the "final solution" meant "the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe." Nazi leaders coordinated this plan at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942.
Common trap: The Madagascar Plan was a real Nazi idea in 1940 to deport Jews to an island. It was dropped. Höss describes killing, not removal.