Paper 1 Practice

1. a. According to Source C, the Geneva Conference failed because it was unable to accomplish anything in terms of disarmament. The source says that this was because of "capitalist countries" pushing for their own agendas, and that they lied to each other by disguising their demands as "pacifistic phrases." The Soviet view was that these nations were trying to increase their own armaments while decreasing the armaments of others, instead of making any real progress towards global disarmament.

1. b. Source E suggests that the Geneva Conference is only going to bring more destruction. This is represented by the image of King Kong, labeled armaments, breaking free of the control of the people who brought him to the conference.

3. Source C is an article from the official newspaper of the Soviet Union discussing the failures of the Disarmament Conference. The purpose of the article was to convey one interpretation of why the conference was unsuccessful. This source is very valuable for the fact that it shows what Russia thought about the events leading up to World War II, exhibiting the tension between communism and capitalism at the time. This may also be a limitation, however, because the Soviet newspaper could be blaming capitalist countries primarily for propaganda purposes, while there may have been other causes for the lack of progress at the conference.
Source D comes from a British writer who is trying to convey her own thoughts about the conference's failures. The excerpt is helpful in that it shows Britain's perspective of the conference and how France and Britain were allies in the events between World War I and World War II. However, Britain might have only blamed Germany and sided with France because of World War I.