Lesson Y9-U07-L06

Y9-U07-L06 1989-91 The End of the Cold War Quiz: KS3 History, Unit 20

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y9-U07-L06, 1989-91 The End of the Cold War: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 History (National Curriculum), Unit 20: Year 9: The Cold War, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. Who became Soviet leader in 1985 and launched reforms?

    • Boris Yeltsin
    • Nikita Khrushchev
    • Joseph Stalin
    • Mikhail Gorbachev

  2. What was 'glasnost'?

    • A plan to sell Soviet factories to the USA for hard currency
    • A Soviet ban on all foreign travel and the closing of the border posts
    • Gorbachev's plan to build a new Soviet navy for the Pacific fleet
    • Gorbachev's policy of openness, with more free speech and less censorship

  3. What was 'perestroika'?

    • A ban on all Soviet exports to the satellite states of Eastern Europe
    • A plan to restore the tsars to power and their palace courts in Moscow
    • Gorbachev's restructuring of the Soviet economy, including some private business
    • A plan to give Eastern Europe full control of its armies and frontiers

  4. What did the 'Sinatra Doctrine' of 1988 mean?

    • The USSR would join NATO and send observers to its meetings each year
    • The USSR would sing its anthem at every summit in every capital city
    • The USSR would not send tanks to crush protests in satellite states
    • The USSR would end its alliance with China and sign a new border treaty

  5. Which earlier uprisings were crushed by Soviet tanks?

    • Cuba in 1962 and Vietnam in 1973
    • Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968
    • Poland in 1989 and East Germany in 1990
    • Romania in 1989 and Bulgaria in 1991

  6. Why was the USSR in deep trouble by the mid-1980s?

    • It had too many oil wells in Siberia and could not sell all of them to its trading partners
    • Its economy was failing, and it spent heavily on the arms race and the war in Afghanistan
    • It had joined the European Union as a full member in the late 1980s and paid its dues
    • It had been defeated in a war with Japan on the Manchurian border in the early 1980s

  7. When did the Soviet war in Afghanistan take place?

    • 1945 to 1949
    • 1979 to 1989
    • 1956 to 1960
    • 1989 to 1995

  8. What did Gorbachev hope to achieve with his reforms?

    • To join NATO and leave the Warsaw Pact in a formal ceremony in Brussels
    • To give up communism and become a capitalist state with free markets
    • To go to war with the USA over control of the Pacific and its islands
    • To save communism by reforming it, not to end the Cold War

  9. In which year did Solidarity win free elections in Poland?

    • 1956
    • 1968
    • 1989
    • 1979

  10. Which country opened its border with Austria in 1989, letting East Germans escape?

    • Romania
    • Bulgaria
    • Czechoslovakia
    • Hungary

  11. What happened in Romania in December 1989?

    • The Romanian government joined NATO
    • Gorbachev was arrested by the Romanian army
    • Free elections were held in Bucharest and the communists won
    • Communist dictator Ceausescu was overthrown and executed

  12. What was the 'Velvet Revolution' in Czechoslovakia?

    • A trade war with Austria
    • A peaceful revolution that ended communist rule
    • A military coup led by the Soviet army
    • A violent uprising that brought communism to power

  13. Why was the Berlin Wall opened on 9 November 1989?

    • An official muddled a press conference and announced that borders were open
    • A referendum in West Berlin voted to open the gates after a long public debate
    • The Allies agreed to demolish the Wall in a joint ceremony at Checkpoint Charlie
    • The Soviet army ordered the Wall to be torn down by Red Army engineers

  14. What did crowds do on the Berlin Wall after 9 November 1989?

    • They sent it as a gift to the Soviet Union
    • They climbed on it and began to tear it down
    • They painted it over and left it untouched
    • They built a second wall beside it

  15. What happened in the failed coup of August 1991?

    • The USA launched an invasion of Moscow with tanks and aircraft from Germany
    • The Baltic states joined the Soviet Union in a formal vote in Tallinn
    • Hardline communists tried to stop the reforms, but the coup failed within days
    • Gorbachev led a coup against the Communist Party and its central committee

  16. Who stood on a tank to lead the resistance during the coup of August 1991?

    • Nikita Khrushchev
    • Mikhail Gorbachev
    • Fidel Castro
    • Boris Yeltsin

  17. When was the Soviet Union formally dissolved?

    • 25 December 1991
    • 9 November 1989
    • 24 June 1948
    • 13 August 1961

  18. Which republics inside the USSR demanded independence?

    • Austria and Switzerland along the alpine border between the two countries
    • Cuba and Nicaragua in the Caribbean and Central America
    • The Baltic states and Ukraine
    • Korea and Vietnam after the armistice and the partition of the 1950s

  19. Why did the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe happen with no Soviet tanks to stop them?

    • Gorbachev had said the USSR would no longer use force to keep satellites in line
    • The Soviet army had been defeated in Afghanistan in 1989 and withdrew
    • The United Nations had banned tanks in Europe under a 1988 treaty
    • The satellite states had their own nuclear weapons for protection

  20. Why is the collapse of the USSR seen as the end of the Cold War?

    • The USA invaded the USSR and took its capital in a short campaign
    • The USSR gave all its nuclear weapons to China as part of a deal
    • The USA and the USSR signed a peace treaty in 1991 in a formal ceremony
    • With the USSR gone, there was no communist superpower left to rival the USA

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