World History — Practice Questions
UPSC-pattern practice questions on world history with full explanations — peace treaties, revolutions, decolonisation, Cold War, Russian Revolution — plus two Mains questions.
Questions
World history is examined mainly in Mains GS I, so this set has two Mains questions. The MCQs test facts that make good value-addition in answers — and that occasionally appear in Prelims.
Which one of the following pairs of peace treaty (after the First World War) and defeated country is not correctly matched?
Solution
The Treaty of Sèvres (1920) was imposed on the Ottoman Empire and was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) after the Turkish war of independence. The treaty with Austria was Saint-Germain. The other three pairs are correct.
Answer: D
Arrange the following events in chronological order:
- Treaty of Paris recognising the independence of the United States
- Napoleonic Civil Code
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- Congress of Vienna
Select the correct answer using the code given below.
Solution
Treaty of Paris — 1783; Declaration of the Rights of Man — August 1789; Napoleonic Civil Code — 1804; Congress of Vienna — 1814–15. Order: 1-3-2-4.
Answer: A
Consider the following statements:
- Ghana became independent under Kwame Nkrumah in 1957.
- Algeria won independence from France in 1962 after a prolonged war.
- The Bandung Conference of 1955 was held in Belgrade and formally founded the Non-Aligned Movement.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Solution
Statements 1 and 2 are correct. The Bandung Conference (April 1955) was held at Bandung, Indonesia, as an Afro-Asian conference. NAM was formally founded at the Belgrade summit (1961).
Answer: C
The policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in the Soviet Union are associated with:
Solution
Mikhail Gorbachev, who led the Soviet Communist Party from 1985. Khrushchev is associated with de-Stalinisation (1956); Brezhnev with the era of stagnation and détente; Yeltsin with post-Soviet Russia after 1991.
Answer: B
Consider the following statements about Soviet Russia:
- The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk took Russia out of the First World War.
- The New Economic Policy was introduced by Stalin along with the first Five-Year Plan.
- The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed in 1922.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Solution
Statements 1 and 3 are correct. Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) ended Russia’s war; the USSR was formed in December 1922. The New Economic Policy was Lenin’s (1921) — a partial return to markets after civil war. Stalin replaced it with the first Five-Year Plan (1928) and forced collectivisation.
Answer: A
Mains
“The Treaty of Versailles carried within it the seeds of the Second World War.” Examine.
Solution
Introduction: Signed on 28 June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles imposed terms on Germany without negotiation. Many historians see it as a cause of the next war; others stress later failures.
Body:
- Seeds of war: the war-guilt clause (Article 231) and heavy reparations bred resentment — Keynes warned of the economic consequences (1919); territorial losses (Alsace-Lorraine, the Polish Corridor) and the loss of colonies; military limits seen as humiliating; Nazi propaganda exploited the “Diktat”.
- A weak guardian: the League of Nations lacked the USA and any armed force.
- Other causes: the Great Depression (1929) radicalised German politics; appeasement (Munich, 1938) failed to enforce the treaty; Japanese and Italian aggression; the Nazi–Soviet Pact (1939).
Conclusion: Versailles was too harsh to reconcile Germany and too weak to restrain it; but the Depression and appeasement turned that grievance into war.
Distinguish between utopian socialism and Marxian socialism. How did socialist ideas influence the Indian national movement?
Solution
Introduction: Socialism arose in 19th-century Europe as a response to the inequalities of industrial capitalism. Its early “utopian” form and Marx’s “scientific” socialism differed in method and theory.
Body:
- Utopian socialism (Owen, Saint-Simon, Fourier): moral appeal to all classes; model co-operative communities; gradual, peaceful change; little theory of history.
- Marxian socialism (Marx and Engels, 1848): historical materialism and class struggle; capitalism’s contradictions would produce revolution by the proletariat; abolition of private ownership of the means of production; a classless society.
- Influence on India:
- The Russian Revolution (1917) inspired young nationalists; the Communist Party of India and workers’ and peasants’ parties emerged in the 1920s.
- Revolutionaries such as Bhagat Singh and the HSRA (1928) adopted socialist goals.
- Within the Congress — Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose; the Congress Socialist Party (1934) of Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and others.
- The Karachi resolution (1931) on economic rights and the National Planning Committee (1938) shaped post-independence planning.
- Gandhi’s trusteeship offered a non-violent alternative to class war.
Conclusion: India absorbed socialist ideas selectively — as democratic socialism through planning and a mixed economy — a commitment later written into the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment (1976).