QCE Modern History 2025 Paper 1

Question 1 (5 marks): Evaluate the reliability of a 1930s newspaper editorial praising a government's economic recovery program as evidence of that program's success.

Reliability is judged against origin, purpose and corroboration.

The editorial's origin and purpose limit its reliability: a newspaper of the period may be state-aligned or subject to censorship, and an editorial is by nature persuasive rather than factual, so it reflects the intended message about recovery more than measurable outcomes. Its perspective is therefore partial.

It is nonetheless useful as evidence of the regime's propaganda and the narrative of success it promoted. To assess the program's actual success, a historian would corroborate it against economic data (unemployment figures, output statistics) and sources from outside the regime's control. The evaluation: unreliable as direct proof of success, but reliable evidence of how the government wished the recovery to be perceived.

Question 2 (6 marks): Using two provided sources and your own knowledge, analyse the extent to which propaganda explains the consolidation of power in a one-party state you have studied.

A strong answer integrates the sources rather than describing them in turn. Open with a position: propaganda was "a significant instrument of consolidation, shaping mass consent", but it operated alongside coercion and the dismantling of rival institutions, so it explains the appearance of unity more than its full mechanics.

Use Source A (say, a propaganda poster) to evidence the cult of personality and the manufacturing of consent, attributing it as official state production. Use Source B (perhaps an opposition or eyewitness account) to show the limits of propaganda - the role of fear, arrests or suppression that the propaganda concealed. Bring in own knowledge: named decrees, the banning of parties, the use of a secret police. Conclude with a judgement on "the extent" - propaganda was necessary but not sufficient, working in tandem with terror and legal manipulation. The marks come from synthesising sources and knowledge into one argument.

Question 3 (extended essay): "Economic crisis, more than ideology, explains the rise of authoritarian regimes in the interwar period." Evaluate this claim with reference to a studied nation.

"Evaluate" requires a weighed judgement. A thesis might argue that economic crisis created the conditions - mass unemployment, discredited governments, public desperation - in which authoritarian movements could grow, but that "ideology supplied the vision and scapegoats" that converted economic grievance into political support, so the two are interdependent rather than rival explanations.

Body paragraphs each test a factor against the claim: the impact of the economic crisis (with dated figures); the role of ideology in mobilising and directing that discontent; and the structural weaknesses (fragile institutions, fear of revolution) that allowed the movement to seize and hold power. Anchor every claim in specific, dated evidence and cite at least one historian's interpretation to show awareness of debate. The conclusion returns to "more than" and delivers a qualified judgement rather than a summary, explicitly weighing economics against ideology.