IBDP History SL & HL Paper 2 Conflict (from 750 CE onwards) - Study Notes- New Syllabus

Inquiry Question 1

Why did conflict emerge?

Lines of inquiry: Economic factors; political factors; social factors; environmental factors.

Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)—Europe

Context: The war began with a military uprising against the elected Popular Front government in July 1936. However, the coup became a civil war because Spain had already been divided by disputes over land, religion, class, regional autonomy and the authority of the state.

Economic factors

• Unequal land ownership: Much agricultural land, especially in the south, was concentrated in large estates. Landless labourers faced seasonal unemployment, low wages and insecurity. Republican land reform moved too slowly for many peasants but appeared dangerously radical to landowners.
• Industrial conflict: Urban workers organized through socialist and anarchist unions. Strikes, factory occupations and demands for workers’ control alarmed industrialists and conservative groups.
• Impact of the international depression: Falling trade and employment after 1929 intensified existing hardship. Economic insecurity increased support for political movements promising sweeping change or restored order.
• Limits: Economic grievances created polarization, but they did not make war inevitable. War began only when sections of the military chose rebellion and political compromise failed.

Political factors

• The fall of the monarchy and establishment of the Second Republic in 1931 opened disputes over military reform, Church influence, land redistribution and regional autonomy.
• Governments alternated between left and right. Reform under the left was followed by conservative reversal after 1933, convincing both sides that electoral defeat threatened their fundamental interests.
• The suppression of the Asturias rising in October 1934 deepened hatred between the left and the army. Political violence and fear of revolution weakened faith in constitutional government.
• The Popular Front narrowly won the February 1936 election. Generals including Mola, Sanjurjo and Franco then prepared a coup. The murder of monarchist politician José Calvo Sotelo in July acted as an immediate accelerant, not the underlying cause.
• The coup of 17–18 July succeeded in some regions but failed in major cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. This partial failure divided the armed forces and transformed a rebellion into a prolonged civil war.

Social factors

• Class division: Landowners, many business interests and conservative middle-class groups feared revolution; workers and peasants demanded social and economic change.
• Religion: The Catholic Church was closely associated with wealth, education and conservative authority. Republican secular reforms and anti-clerical violence intensified the belief that religion itself was under attack.
• Regionalism: Catalan and Basque demands for autonomy threatened centralists in the army and on the right. Regional identity therefore intersected with political and social conflict.
• Competing ideologies: Anarchism, socialism, communism, liberal republicanism, monarchism and Falangism offered incompatible visions of Spain, making compromise increasingly difficult.

Environmental factors

• Arid conditions, uneven rainfall and low agricultural productivity worsened rural insecurity in parts of southern and central Spain.
• Environmental constraints mattered mainly because land and water were distributed unequally. They intensified agrarian conflict but did not independently cause the war.
• Geography also helped turn the coup into a divided territorial struggle: Nationalists initially controlled many conservative rural areas, while the Republic retained several large cities and industrial regions.

Judgment: Political factors were the immediate and decisive cause because the army revolt began the fighting. Nevertheless, the revolt gained support and became a civil war because long-term economic inequality, social polarization, religious conflict and regional tensions had weakened the legitimacy of the Republic.

Chinese Civil War (1927–1949)—Asia

Context: Conflict between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Guomindang (GMD) began after the collapse of their First United Front in 1927. It was interrupted, but not resolved, by the war against Japan from 1937 to 1945 and resumed fully after Japan’s defeat.

Economic factors

• Rural inequality: Many peasants paid high rents, taxes and interest while holding little secure land. The CCP’s promises of rent reduction and land redistribution linked economic grievances to political mobilization.
• Weak national finances: Warlordism, internal warfare and invasion limited the GMD government’s revenue. Dependence on indirect taxes and foreign support restricted its ability to reform rural society.
• Inflation: Wartime expenditure and poor fiscal management produced severe inflation, culminating in hyperinflation in the late 1940s. Urban savings and salaries collapsed, weakening confidence in the GMD.
• Economic disruption: Japanese occupation damaged transport, industry and agriculture. Competition for scarce food and resources strengthened whichever side could provide order and credible reform.

Political factors

• The 1911 Revolution removed the Qing dynasty without creating an effective national government. Warlordism fragmented authority and encouraged armed political organization.
• The GMD and CCP cooperated in the First United Front against warlords, but Chiang Kai-shek’s purge of communists in Shanghai in April 1927 destroyed the alliance and began systematic conflict.
• The GMD claimed national legitimacy but was damaged by corruption, coercive conscription and its failure to provide effective local government in many areas.
• Japanese aggression changed the political balance. The CCP presented itself as a patriotic resistance force, while the GMD carried much conventional fighting but was criticized for corruption and strategic withdrawal.
• The Marshall Mission and the January 1946 ceasefire failed because neither side trusted the other or accepted permanent power-sharing. Both expected military victory to deliver national control.

Social factors

• Peasant mobilization: The CCP adapted Marxism to a predominantly rural society. Cadres organized villages, reduced rents and redistributed land, converting social grievances into military and political support.
• Nationalism: Resistance to Japanese occupation enhanced the CCP’s legitimacy. The GMD’s dependence on foreign aid could be portrayed as weakness, although the GMD also led major resistance campaigns.
• Ideology: Communism promised social revolution; the GMD promoted nationalism, centralized government and social order. Their competing goals left little room for a lasting coalition.
• Harsh GMD recruitment, taxation and official corruption alienated sections of the peasantry and urban middle class, whereas CCP discipline and propaganda often created an image of cleaner government.

Environmental factors

• Floods, drought and famine intensified rural poverty and displacement. The 1931 floods and the Henan famine of 1942 exposed weaknesses in relief and administration.
• The GMD’s deliberate breaching of Yellow River dykes in 1938 was intended to slow Japan but caused mass displacement and economic devastation. It harmed the government’s legitimacy in affected regions.
• China’s vast size, mountains and dispersed rural population enabled communist survival, guerrilla warfare and the creation of remote base areas. Geography shaped the course of conflict more than its original cause.

Judgment: Political fragmentation and the violent breakdown of the GMD–CCP alliance explain the outbreak, while social and economic grievances explain why the conflict became a mass struggle. Environmental crises acted as force multipliers by worsening suffering and exposing failures of government.

Comparative conclusion

Both conflicts emerged from political breakdown reinforced by economic inequality and social polarization. Spain’s immediate turning point was a military coup against an elected government; China’s was a longer collapse of national authority followed by the GMD purge of the CCP. Environmental pressures intensified rural hardship in both cases but were secondary to political decisions. A strong essay should therefore distinguish underlying conditions, accelerating factors and the immediate trigger.

Inquiry Question 2

What determined the outcome of the conflict?

Lines of inquiry: Role of leadership; strategies and tactics; mobilization of resources; role of technology.

Spanish Civil War—why the Nationalists won

Role of leadership

• Franco gained command of the Nationalist war effort after the deaths of Sanjurjo and Mola removed possible rivals. He became Generalísimo and head of state in 1936.
• The April 1937 Unification Decree merged the Falange and Carlists into a single political organization. This did not eliminate tensions, but it gave the Nationalists greater unity of command.
• Republican authority was divided among liberals, socialists, communists and anarchists. Disputes over whether to prioritize social revolution or conventional warfare weakened coordination.
• The Barcelona May Days of 1937 exposed deep conflict within the Republican camp. The fall of Largo Caballero and later dependence on communist support did not produce unity comparable to Franco’s.

Strategies and tactics

• The rapid airlift of the Army of Africa from Morocco allowed experienced troops to reach mainland Spain and prevented the uprising from being isolated.
• Franco conducted a methodical campaign that captured territory, destroyed opposition and secured supply lines. The northern campaign of 1937 gave the Nationalists important industrial and mineral resources.
• The Republic successfully defended Madrid in 1936 and launched major offensives at Brunete, Teruel and the Ebro, but these battles consumed trained troops and equipment that were difficult to replace.
• Nationalist victory in the Battle of the Ebro in 1938 exhausted the Republican army and helped separate Catalonia from the remaining Republican zone.

Mobilization of resources

• Nationalists obtained sustained German and Italian aircraft, artillery, vehicles, advisers and troops. Portuguese support also secured the western frontier.
• The Republic received Soviet weapons and assistance from International Brigades, but aid was costly, politically contentious and constrained by geography and the Non-Intervention system.
• Britain and France maintained non-intervention while Germany and Italy frequently violated it. The policy therefore disadvantaged the Republic more than the Nationalists.
• Control of agricultural areas and, after the northern campaign, major industrial and mining resources strengthened the Nationalists’ capacity to continue a war of attrition.

Role of technology

• German transport aircraft made the initial airlift possible. The Condor Legion and Italian aircraft later gave the Nationalists important air support.
• Aircraft and artillery supported combined operations and attacks on cities. The bombing of Guernica demonstrated the destructive and psychological use of air power.
• Soviet tanks and aircraft initially improved Republican capability, but inconsistent supply, training and coordination limited their strategic effect.
• Technology was an enabling factor rather than a self-sufficient explanation. It became decisive because Nationalist leadership integrated foreign equipment into a unified campaign while the Republic struggled to replace losses.

Judgment: Foreign material assistance and technology gave the Nationalists a major advantage, but leadership and political unity converted that advantage into victory. Republican disunity and diplomatic isolation were at least as important as the weapons themselves.

Chinese Civil War—why the CCP won

Role of leadership

• Mao Zedong linked military strategy to political mobilization. The CCP presented itself as disciplined, nationalist and responsive to peasant concerns.
• The Yan’an period helped the CCP train cadres and develop a coordinated party-army structure. Rectification strengthened Mao’s authority, although it also involved coercion.
• Chiang Kai-shek retained international recognition and larger forces but was weakened by corruption, poor delegation and distrust of subordinate commanders.
• GMD officials and officers were frequently blamed for corruption, forced recruitment and misuse of supplies. These failures reduced morale and civilian cooperation.

Strategies and tactics

• The CCP used guerrilla warfare, mobility and rural base areas when it was weaker. It avoided decisive confrontation until conditions became favourable.
• Land reform, propaganda and disciplined conduct were part of military strategy because they generated intelligence, recruits, food and transport from rural communities.
• The GMD initially occupied major cities and railway lines in Manchuria, but holding extended communications exposed its forces and tied them to fixed positions.
• By 1948 the People’s Liberation Army shifted successfully to large-scale conventional warfare. Victories in the Liaoshen, Huaihai and Pingjin campaigns destroyed the GMD’s main armies.
• The Huaihai campaign showed the connection between strategy and social support: very large numbers of civilians helped move food, ammunition and wounded soldiers for the PLA.

Mobilization of resources

• The CCP mobilized a vast rural population through organization and land policies. Human resources, intelligence and local supplies compensated for initial material weakness.
• The CCP acquired Japanese weapons in Manchuria and captured increasing quantities of GMD equipment. Soviet occupation of Manchuria created favourable conditions, but Soviet assistance alone did not determine victory.
• The GMD received substantial American transport, weapons and financial aid. However, inflation, corruption, desertion and weak logistics prevented resources from being used effectively.
• The government’s Gold Yuan reform of 1948 failed to control inflation. Economic collapse damaged urban support and made it harder to supply and pay the army.

Role of technology

• The GMD possessed advantages in aircraft, heavy weapons and transport, especially early in the renewed civil war.
• Technology could not compensate for poor morale, overstretched supply lines and loss of civilian support. Modern equipment was often captured or abandoned.
• The PLA’s victory demonstrates that organization, adaptive strategy and political mobilization can outweigh an opponent’s initial technological superiority.

Judgment: CCP leadership and strategy were the most important factors because they transformed social support into military resources. GMD economic and administrative failure magnified communist strengths. Foreign arms mattered, but neither Soviet nor American involvement mechanically determined the result.

Comparative conclusion

In Spain, victory depended heavily on foreign assistance, access to technology and unified command. In China, the materially weaker CCP won through political mobilization, adaptable tactics and the GMD’s economic and administrative collapse. In both cases, technology affected the outcome only when supported by effective leadership, logistics and morale. This supports the markscheme approach of weighing the named factor against credible alternatives rather than treating any single factor as automatically decisive.

Inquiry Question 3

How did the conflict affect people’s lives?

Lines of inquiry: Economic impact; social impact; experiences of women; experiences of marginalized groups.

Spanish Civil War—impact on people

Economic impact

• Agriculture, industry, housing and transport were disrupted or destroyed. Territorial division separated producers, markets and sources of raw materials.
• Food shortages, inflation and rationing reduced living standards, especially in Republican cities. Civilians endured malnutrition as supply routes contracted.
• The Republic used much of Spain’s gold reserve to pay for Soviet assistance. Both sides accumulated obligations to foreign supporters.
• Post-war autarky, international isolation and continued repression contributed to the “years of hunger” during the 1940s. Economic damage therefore continued well beyond 1939.

Social impact

• Hundreds of thousands died from combat, executions, bombing, disease and deprivation. Exact totals remain debated, which makes carefully qualified estimates preferable.
• Both zones experienced political killing: the “Red Terror” targeted clergy and suspected conservatives, while the Nationalist “White Terror” became a systematic instrument of conquest and post-war control.
• The bombing of civilian areas, including Madrid, Barcelona and Guernica, made the home front part of the battlefield.
• Approximately 450,000 people crossed into France during the mass flight of early 1939. Families were separated and many refugees experienced camps, exile or later persecution.
• Franco’s victory abolished political pluralism, censored culture and education, restored Church influence and suppressed Catalan and Basque public institutions and languages.

Experiences of women

• In the Republican zone, women participated in militias during the early months and worked in nursing, factories, transport, propaganda and welfare organizations.
• Mujeres Libres linked the anti-fascist struggle to women’s education and emancipation. Nevertheless, women continued to face discrimination within left-wing organizations.
• Nationalist women’s organizations mobilized women for welfare and support work while promoting Catholic motherhood and domestic duty.
• After victory, Francoist law and social policy restricted women’s employment, legal independence and public roles. Wartime participation therefore did not produce lasting general emancipation.

Experiences of marginalized groups

• Landless labourers and urban workers were exposed to conscription, food shortages, reprisals and the destruction of unions.
• Basque and Catalan communities experienced bombing, displacement and the later suppression of autonomous institutions and cultural expression.
• Political prisoners, teachers, trade unionists and suspected Republican sympathizers faced imprisonment, forced labour, dismissal or execution after the war.
• Religious people were vulnerable to anti-clerical violence in the Republican zone, while nonconformists and secular activists were vulnerable under Nationalist rule. Experience varied significantly by location, identity and political allegiance.

Judgment: The most enduring effect was not only material destruction but the creation of a society shaped by exile, fear and political repression. Women’s roles expanded temporarily, yet the Nationalist victory imposed a conservative gender order and reversed many Republican reforms.

Chinese Civil War—impact on people

Economic impact

• Decades of war damaged railways, roads, farms, mines and industry. Japanese invasion and renewed civil war made it difficult to separate the economic effects of the two struggles.
• Heavy taxation, requisitioning and conscription imposed severe burdens on rural communities. Armies competed for grain, transport animals and labour.
• Wartime currency expansion produced extreme inflation. By the late 1940s, the collapse of the currency destroyed savings, salaries and confidence in the GMD government.
• Land reform redistributed property in CCP-controlled areas and gave many poor peasants a material stake in communist victory. It also involved public struggle sessions, coercion and violence against landlords.

Social impact

• Combat, famine, disease, forced recruitment and displacement caused immense suffering. Civilian experiences varied across GMD, CCP, Japanese-occupied and contested territories.
• Families were divided by migration, conscription and political allegiance. Refugees moved inland during the Japanese invasion and again as the civil war shifted across China.
• CCP-controlled areas developed mass organizations, literacy campaigns and political education. These expanded participation while also increasing surveillance and ideological pressure.
• GMD defeat produced a major migration to Taiwan, including soldiers, officials, businesspeople and civilians. The conflict therefore created two rival Chinese governments rather than an agreed national settlement.

Experiences of women

• Women served as nurses, couriers, organizers, labourers, intelligence providers and, in smaller numbers, combatants. War increased responsibilities as households lost male labour.
• CCP marriage and land policies challenged arranged marriage, bride price and unequal property relations in some base areas, helping the party mobilize rural women.
• Sexual violence, trafficking, widowhood, poverty and displacement made women particularly vulnerable. Political promises of equality did not remove patriarchal practices.
• The Marriage Law of 1950, enacted after communist victory, promoted free choice in marriage and divorce. It represented significant legal change, but enforcement was uneven and often resisted locally.

Experiences of marginalized groups

• Poor peasants were central to recruitment and supply. Some gained land and influence, while others suffered requisitioning, conscription and repeated military occupation.
• Landlords and people classified as political enemies became targets of dispossession, public denunciation, imprisonment and violence in communist-controlled areas.
• Refugees, orphans and the urban poor faced shortages and weak public health. Inflation was especially destructive for fixed-income workers and lower middle-class families.
• Ethnic minority and frontier communities experienced changing military control and pressure from competing state-building projects. Their experiences should not be treated as identical to those of the Han rural majority.

Judgment: The conflict transformed everyday life through displacement, economic breakdown and mass political mobilization. Communist victory brought reforms benefiting many poor peasants and women, but reform was accompanied by coercion and the creation of new politically marginalized groups.

Comparative conclusion

Both wars blurred the distinction between battlefield and home front, bringing violence, shortages, displacement and political control into civilian life. In Spain, Nationalist victory restored a conservative social and gender hierarchy. In China, CCP victory initiated radical land, family and political change. In neither case should participation by women be equated automatically with lasting equality. Effects also differed according to class, region, gender and political identity.

Inquiry Question 4

How was peace established?

Lines of inquiry: Military outcome; political decision-making; social factors; post-conflict peace-building.

Spanish Civil War—peace through Nationalist victory

Military outcome

• The fall of Catalonia in early 1939 removed the Republic’s main remaining territorial and industrial base.
• Colonel Casado’s March 1939 revolt against Negrín’s government reflected exhaustion and the belief that further resistance was futile.
• Nationalist forces entered Madrid in late March, and Franco declared the war over on 1 April 1939. Peace was therefore established through unconditional military victory rather than a negotiated compromise.

Political decision-making

• Franco refused meaningful negotiated settlement and demanded surrender. Republican divisions undermined their bargaining position.
• Britain and France recognized Franco’s government in February 1939, further isolating the Republic.
• The new regime abolished competing parties, regional autonomy and independent unions. Political centralization ended organized warfare but excluded defeated groups from public life.

Social factors

• War weariness, hunger and the loss of foreign support reduced the capacity and willingness of the Republican population to continue fighting.
• The Nationalist alliance of army, Church, landowners, conservative groups and Falangists provided the regime with institutions of control.
• Large-scale exile and repression removed or silenced many potential opponents. This created stability through fear rather than reconciliation.

Post-conflict peace-building

• The Law of Political Responsibilities of 1939 punished support for the Republic retrospectively. Imprisonment, execution, confiscation and exclusion continued after the fighting ended.
• The regime promoted a victor’s narrative, centralized education and restored Catholic influence instead of pursuing truth, compensation or reintegration.
• Spain achieved an absence of renewed civil war, but not an inclusive peace. Meaningful reconciliation emerged only gradually during and after the democratic transition following Franco’s death in 1975.

Judgment: Spain achieved durable political order through decisive victory and coercive state-building. It was a “negative peace”—the absence of open warfare—rather than a reconciliatory settlement addressing the causes and wounds of conflict.

Chinese Civil War—victory, state-building and unresolved division

Military outcome

• The Liaoshen, Huaihai and Pingjin campaigns of 1948–1949 destroyed or captured the GMD’s principal forces and opened northern and central China to PLA advance.
• Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949. The GMD government withdrew to Taiwan in December.
• Large-scale civil war on the mainland ended through communist military victory, but the survival of the Republic of China on Taiwan meant that the sovereignty dispute remained unresolved.

Political decision-making

• The 1945 Chongqing talks and Double Tenth Agreement promised consultation and political reconstruction, but fundamental disagreement over armies, territory and state power prevented implementation.
• The American Marshall Mission attempted mediation and helped arrange a January 1946 ceasefire. The ceasefire collapsed as both sides sought strategic advantage.
• The CCP created a centralized party-state and incorporated allied groups through the “people’s democratic dictatorship.” Political consolidation replaced negotiated pluralism.

Social factors

• Peasant support and land reform helped the CCP establish local authority and obtain supplies, recruits and intelligence.
• Popular exhaustion with inflation, corruption and prolonged war reduced willingness to defend the GMD government.
• Nationalist troops and civilians who moved to Taiwan formed the social base of a separate regime. Mainland and Taiwanese identities were subsequently shaped by rival political systems.

Post-conflict peace-building

• The PRC restored administrative unity across most of the mainland, stabilized the currency and began reconstruction. These measures strengthened state capacity and reduced some causes of disorder.
• Land reform and the Marriage Law sought social transformation, but campaigns against landlords and “counter-revolutionaries” used coercion and violence.
• There was no comprehensive reconciliation between the CCP and GMD. The Taiwan Strait remained militarized, and the Korean War increased international hostility.
• Peace-building was therefore effective in consolidating the new mainland state but incomplete at the regional and cross-strait level.

Judgment: Communist victory ended most mainland fighting and created a stronger central state, but peace rested on coercive consolidation and did not resolve the conflict between the PRC and ROC. State-building was more successful than reconciliation.

Supplementary peace-making examples

First World War—Paris peace settlement

• Military outcome: German military exhaustion, Allied blockade, the failure of the Spring Offensive and growing American power produced the November 1918 armistice.
• Political decisions: The Paris Peace Conference created treaties including Versailles, Saint-Germain and Sèvres. New states were established and the League of Nations was created.
• Limits: Reparations, territorial losses, the war-guilt clause and exclusion of defeated states encouraged resentment. Self-determination was applied inconsistently and new minorities remained inside successor states.
• Assessment: The settlement ended the immediate war and restructured Europe, but enforcement was inconsistent and it failed to create a fully legitimate or durable European order.

Korean War—armistice without a peace treaty

• Military outcome: By 1951 the front had stabilized near the 38th parallel. Neither coalition could achieve unification at acceptable cost.
• Political decisions: Negotiations addressed the ceasefire line, prisoner repatriation and monitoring. Stalin’s death in 1953 and pressure on the combatants helped make agreement possible.
• Post-conflict order: The July 1953 armistice established a demilitarized zone and mechanisms to supervise the ceasefire.
• Assessment: The armistice successfully stopped large-scale fighting and has endured, but the absence of a peace treaty and continued division mean peace remains incomplete.

Comparative conclusion

Spain and China demonstrate peace through decisive victory, political centralization and the removal of rivals. The First World War demonstrates treaty-based peace-making, while Korea demonstrates an armistice maintained by deterrence. Durable peace is most successful when it ends fighting, creates legitimate institutions, addresses social grievances and provides mechanisms for future disputes. Military victory may achieve stability without reconciliation; a treaty may establish legal peace without resolving underlying hostility.