AQA A-level HISTORY 7042/2N Component 2N Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 Version: 1.0 Final IB/M/Jun23/E4 7042/2N A-level HISTORYQUESTION PAPER & MARKING SCHEME/ [MERGED] Mark scheme June 2023

AQA A-level HISTORY 7042/2N Component 2N Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 Version: 1.0 Final IB/M/Jun23/E4 7042/2N A-level HISTORY Component 2N Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 Friday 9 June 2023 Afternoon Time allowed: 2 hours 30 minutes Materials For this paper you must have: • an AQA 16-page answer book. Instructions • Use black ink or black ball-point pen. • Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is 7042/2N. • Answer three questions. In Section A answer Question 01. In Section B answer two questions. Information • The marks for questions are shown in brackets. • The maximum mark for this paper is 80. • You will be marked on your ability to: – use good English – organise information clearly – use specialist vocabulary where appropriate. Advice • You are advised to spend about: – 1 hour on Question 01 from Section A – 45 minutes on each of the two questions answered from Section B. A 2 IB/M/Jun23/7042/2N Section A Answer Question 01. Source A From ‘I Chose Freedom’ by Viktor Kravchenko, 1946. Kravchenko was a Red Army captain during the Great Patriotic War but defected to the USA in 1944. Had the Nazi invaders displayed good political sense, they would have avoided a lot of the fierce guerrilla resistance that plagued them day and night. Instead, the Germans proceeded to kill, torture, burn, rape and enslave. Upon collectivisation, which most peasants abhorred, the conquerors now imposed an insufferable German efficiency. In place of the dreaded NKVD, the Germans brought their dreadful Gestapo. Thus the Germans did a magnificent job for Stalin. They turned the overwhelming majority of people, whether in captured territory or not, against them and gave Stalin material for arousing a burning national hatred of the invaders. Refugees and escaped prisoners spread the news of German atrocities and how they regarded all Slavs as a sub-human species. I know from my own emotions that indignation against the Germans drove out resentments against our own regime. Hitler’s armies succeeded in inflaming Soviet patriotism more effectively than all the new cries of race and nation in the Stalinist propaganda. 5 10 Source B From a post-war letter sent to her cousin, the writer Boris Pasternak, by Olga Freidenberg. Freidenberg was a Jewish university professor who worked as a nurse in Leningrad in wartime. The siege of Leningrad was a double act of barbarity, Hitler’s and Stalin’s. People walked and fell, stood and toppled. The streets were littered with corpses. In doorways and on landings there were bodies. They lay there because people threw them there. The doorkeepers swept them out in the mornings like rubbish. Yet the hunger and the killing of people in Leningrad were kept a secret. The censors had a legal right to check all our letters. You could not tell, nor complain, nor appeal. The newspapers and radio screamed about the courage and valour of the besieged; the deaths were vaguely termed ‘sacrifices on the altar of the Fatherland’. Our hardships were not only hidden from the world, but the official version spread the rumour that things were better in Leningrad than in the rest of the country, including Moscow. There was something bizarre about these besieged people, these starving ghosts left without water and fuel, being officially proclaimed as the luckiest people in the country. 5 10 3 IB/M/Jun23/7042/2N Turn over ► Source C From secret telegrams sent to Stalin by Beria, the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs and Chief of Soviet security (NKVD), 1944. 29 February: This is to report the results of the resettlement operation of the Chechens and Inguish. The resettlement began on 23 February in the majority of districts with the exception of high mountain areas. 177 special trains have been loaded of which 159 have already been sent to the new place of settlement. Today special trains departed carrying former leaders and religious authorities. 10 May: Taking into account the treacherous activities of the Crimean Tatars against the Soviet people and the undesirability of the further habitation of the Crimean Tatars in border zones of the USSR, the NKVD presents for your consideration a draft resolution on the resettlement of all Tatars from the Crimea. We consider it expedient to resettle the Crimean Tatars as special settlers in regions of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, to be used for agricultural work and also in industry and transport. The resettlement operation will begin on 20/21 May and be completed by 1 July. 5 10 0 1 With reference to these sources and your understanding of the historical context, assess the value of these three sources to an historian studying the impact of the Great Patriotic War on the Soviet people. [30 marks] Turn over for Section B 4 IB/M/Jun23/7042/2N Section B Answer two questions. 0 2 How significant was Lenin’s leadership in bringing about the October/November 1917 revolution in Russia? [25 marks] 0 3 ‘In the years 1918 to 1924 Communist Russia was completely isolated in Europe.’ Assess the validity of this view. [25 marks] 0 4 How extensively did Stalinism change Soviet society and culture in the 1930s? [25 marks] END OF QUESTIONS Copyright information For confidentiality purposes, all acknowledgements of third-party copyright material are published in a separate booklet. This booklet is published after each live examination series and is available for free download from Permission to reproduce all copyright material has been applied for. In some cases, efforts to contact copyright-holders may have been unsuccessful and AQA will be happy to rectify any omissions of acknowledgements. If you have any queries please contact the Copyright Team. Copyright © 2023 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. *236A7042/2N* A-level HISTORY 7042/2N Component 2N Revolution and dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 Mark scheme June 2023 Version: 1.0 Final *236A7042/2N/MS* MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL HISTORY – 7042/2N – JUNE 2023 2 Mark schemes are prepared by the Lead Assessment Writer and considered, together with the relevant questions, by a panel of subject teachers. This mark scheme includes any amendments made at the standardisation events which all associates participate in and is the scheme which was used by them in this examination. The standardisation process ensures that the mark scheme covers the students’ responses to questions and that every associate understands and applies it in the same correct way. As preparation for standardisation each associate analyses a number of students’ scripts. Alternative answers not already covered by the mark scheme are discussed and legislated for. If, after the standardisation process, associates encounter unusual answers which have not been raised they are required to refer these to the Lead Examiner. It must be stressed that a mark scheme is a working document, in many cases further developed and expanded on the basis of students’ reactions to a particular paper. Assumptions about future mark schemes on the basis of one year’s document should be avoided; whilst the guiding principles of assessment remain constant, details will change, depending on the content of a particular examination paper. Further copies of this mark scheme are available from Copyright information AQA retains the copyright on all its publications. However, registered schools/colleges for AQA are permitted to copy material from this booklet for their own internal use, with the following important exception: AQA cannot give permission to schools/colleges to photocopy any material that is acknowledged to a third party even for internal use within the centre. Copyright © 2023 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL HISTORY – 7042/2N – JUNE 2023 3 Level of response marking instructions Level of response mark schemes are broken down into levels, each of which has a descriptor. The descriptor for the level shows the average performance for the level. There are marks in each level. Before you apply the mark scheme to a student’s answer read through the answer and annotate it (as instructed) to show the qualities that are being looked for. You can then apply the mark scheme. Step 1 Determine a level Start at the lowest level of the mark scheme and use it as a ladder to see whether the answer meets the descriptor for that level. The descriptor for the level indicates the different qualities that might be seen in the student’s answer for that level. If it meets the lowest level then go to the next one and decide if it meets this level, and so on, until you have a match between the level descriptor and the answer. With practice and familiarity, you will find that for better answers you will be able to quickly skip through the lower levels of the mark scheme. When assigning a level, you should look at the overall quality of the answer and not look to pick holes in small and specific parts of the answer where the student has not performed quite as well as the rest. If the answer covers different aspects of different levels of the mark scheme you should use a best fit approach for defining the level and then use the variability of the response to help decide the mark within the level, ie if the response is predominantly Level 3 with a small amount of Level 4 material it would be placed in Level 3 but be awarded a mark near the top of the level because of the Level 4 content. Step 2 Determine a mark Once you have assigned a level you need to decide on the mark. The descriptors on how to allocate marks can help with this. The exemplar materials used during standardisation will help. There will be an answer in the standardising materials which will correspond with each level of the mark scheme. This answer will have been awarded a mark by the Lead Examiner. You can compare the student’s answer with the example to determine if it is the same standard, better or worse than the example. You can then use this to allocate a mark for the answer based on the Lead Examiner’s mark on the example. You may well need to read back through the answer as you apply the mark scheme to clarify points and assure yourself that the level and the mark are appropriate. Indicative content in the mark scheme is provided as a guide for examiners. It is not intended to be exhaustive and you must credit other valid points. Students do not have to cover all of the points mentioned in the Indicative content to reach the highest level of the mark scheme. An answer which contains nothing of relevance to the question must be awarded no marks. MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL HISTORY – 7042/2N – JUNE 2023 4 Section A 0 1 With reference to these sources and your understanding of the historical context, assess the value of these three sources to an historian studying the impact of the Great Patriotic War on the Soviet people. [30 marks] Target: AO2 Analyse and evaluate appropriate source material, primary and/or contemporary to the period, within the historical context. Generic Mark Scheme L5: Shows a very good understanding of all three sources in relation to both content and provenance and combines this with a strong awareness of the historical context to present a balanced argument on their value for the particular purpose given in the question. The answer will convey a substantiated judgement. The response demonstrates a very good understanding of context. 25–30 L4: Shows a good understanding of all three sources in relation to both content and provenance and combines this with an awareness of the historical context to provide a balanced argument on their value for the particular purpose given in the question. Judgements may, however, be partial or limited in substantiation. The response demonstrates a good understanding of context. 19–24 L3: Shows some understanding of all three sources in relation to both content and provenance together with some awareness of the historical context. There may, however, be some imbalance in the degree of breadth and depth of comment offered on all three sources and the analysis may not be fully convincing. The answer will make some attempt to consider the value of the sources for the particular purpose given in the question. The response demonstrates an understanding of context. 13–18 L2: The answer will be partial. It may, for example, provide some c