UCSB Hist 4C, Spring 2000 Prof. Marcuse
Western Civilization, 1715-present May 18, 2000

SECOND MIDTERM EXAM

The exam is worth 10% of your final grade (100 points as noted below).

I. Identify and define the significance (15 minutes total, 2 @ 10 points each)
Select two of the following terms, identify it (including an approximate date), and situate it correctly in relation to other important events. Then take special care to EXPLAIN WHY THE TERM IS SIGNIFICANT in the context of the history of modern Western Civilization. Ask yourself: Would history have taken a different course without this event or person? Or: Is this term an example of some important principle that played a role in the later course of history? (Your answer should be yes.) Write down the reason(s) WHY as part of your answer to the ID.
Josef StalinScramble for Africa Treaty of Versailles
Canton systemBolsheviks Russo-Japanese War

II. Essay question: Answer the following question. (50 minutes, 80 points)
Note: in grading these essays, we will be looking for the following:
o. a basic command of facts relating to the origins of the war
a. a thesis statement
b. arguments supporting that thesis
c. use of specific cases or examples in the argument to support the thesis
d. whether counterarguments and counterevidence are addressed.

World War I, which began as a limited war and soon escalated to what was called the "Great War," had both longer-term, structural origins, and short-term causes (such as the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand, the Schlieffen Plan, and escalation due to the alliance system).

For this ranking, you might find it helpful to think about other possible ways in which those causes/ problems could have been resolved or were resolved in other cases before and after World War I.

III. EXTRA CREDIT Source Interpretation. (up to 5 points)

In September 1917 Lenin wrote:

"But from this capitalist democracy-that is inevitably narrow, and stealthily pushes aside the poor, and is therefore hypocritical and false to the core-forward development does not proceed simply, directly and smoothly towards 'greater and greater democracy,' as the liberal professors and petty-bourgeois opportunists would have us believe. No, forward development, i.e., toward Communism, proceeds through the dictatorship of the proletariat …"

Link specific passages of this text to other ideas and texts discussed in this course.
Also, how do specific statements in this text help us to understand the course of the Russian Revolution?