MAPS OF HISTORY · IB HISTORY · PAPER 1 · POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSITIONS
IB HISTORY · PAPER 1 · FOCUSED STUDY
Paper 1: Political and Economic Transitions — Meiji Japan and Soviet Union to Russian Federation
Political and Economic Transitions is one of the five Paper 1 Focused Studies of the new IB History course, first examined in May 2028. Paper 1 is the source paper: its questions ask you to read primary sources closely, to judge what each can and cannot tell a historian, and to combine them with your own knowledge. This Focused Study pairs two case studies, Meiji Japan and Soviet Union to Russian Federation, and our atlas Remaking the State: Meiji Japan and Post-Soviet Russia covers both on linked maps, in 12 chapters with 42 primary sources.
In forty years a samurai elite dismantled its own class and built a modern state and empire. Soviet reformers took another path: they lost the union, the economy and then much of the democracy they had opened. Why?
WW2 is free in full, and chapter 1 of every atlas is free. A free account opens 3 more chapters a day. Opening a new atlas uses one of them. Membership opens all 21 — Join.
What this Focused Study asks
Each source set begins with an inquiry question. Together, the questions show the work this Focused Study asks you to do. Read the sources alongside the chapters: a good answer draws on both.
Meiji Japan
- How did Japan’s new leaders justify and impose central authority between 1867 and 1873?
- How far did the Meiji constitution give the Japanese people a share in government?
- Who paid for Japan’s rise to great-power status between 1894 and 1910?
Soviet Union to Russian Federation
- Why did attempts to reform the Soviet economy fail between 1965 and 1991?
- Why did the Soviet Union break apart in 1991?
- Who paid for Russia’s transition to a market economy between 1992 and 1998?
Case study 1: Meiji Japan
Chapters 1–6 of the atlas follow Meiji Japan, from 1600 to 1912. Read them in order: each chapter is a step in one argument, and the map moves with it.
- The Closed CountryCHAPTER 1 · 1600–1853
- The Black ShipsCHAPTER 2 · 1853–1858
- The Fall of the ShogunateCHAPTER 3 · 1858–1869
- Dismantling the Old OrderCHAPTER 4 · 1868–1877
- Building the Meiji StateCHAPTER 5 · 1877–1894
- A Great PowerCHAPTER 6 · 1894–1912
Evidence to use
One point from the IB notes of each chapter, written as a sentence you could use in an answer. Every chapter in the atlas carries four to six.
- After Sekigahara in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu left outer lords such as the Shimazu of Satsuma and the Mōri of Chōshū armed on Japan’s rim. Their domains appear at the grey-tan edges of the 1840 map, far from the shogunal center and harder to control; they later became bases of opposition. CH 1
- On 8 July 1853 Commodore Matthew Perry anchored four American warships, two of them steamers, off Uraga. He refused to go to Nagasaki, showing that steam power had made the shogunate’s rules for receiving foreigners impossible to enforce. CH 2
- In August 1863 British warships shelled Kagoshima; in September 1864 seventeen allied warships silenced Chōshū’s forts at Shimonoseki. The domains most committed to expelling foreigners had met Western naval power, and both Satsuma and Chōshū came to buy Western rifles and steamships. CH 3
- The Charter Oath of 6 April 1868 promised assemblies and “all matters decided by public discussion”. It also called for the “base customs of the past” to be broken. That broad pledge gave the leaders grounds to invoke the oath for sweeping reform before any assembly met. CH 4
- The Iwakura Mission left in December 1871 and spent 21 months in the United States and Europe. It failed to revise the unequal treaties. Its members returned convinced that Japan first needed factories, schools and laws; that judgment helped set the order of the reforms that followed. CH 5
- In 1894, a Donghak peasant rebellion prompted Korea to ask China for troops. Japan sent a larger force and seized the royal palace in Seoul. It declared war in August: Japanese leaders considered control of Korea vital to their country’s security. CH 6
Case study 2: Soviet Union to Russian Federation
Chapters 7–11 of the atlas follow Soviet Union to Russian Federation, from 1964 to 1998. Read them in order: each chapter is a step in one argument, and the map moves with it.
- The Stagnant SuperpowerCHAPTER 7 · 1964–1985
- Gorbachev’s GambleCHAPTER 8 · 1985–1989
- The Union UnravelsCHAPTER 9 · 1989–1991
- Shock TherapyCHAPTER 10 · 1992–1993
- A State at War with ItselfCHAPTER 11 · 1994–1998
Evidence to use
One point from the IB notes of each chapter, written as a sentence you could use in an answer. Every chapter in the atlas carries four to six.
- Brezhnev’s promise of “stability of cadres” gave officials security after the purges and reshuffles of the Khrushchev years. The elite had reason to remain loyal, but its members also remained in office: by 1980 the average age of the Politburo, the party’s ruling committee, was about seventy. CH 7
- Gorbachev launched a campaign against drinking in May 1985, cutting one of the budget’s largest sources of income. At the same time, world oil prices fell from about $27 a barrel in 1985 to around $14 in 1986. With revenue falling, the state printed money. CH 8
- On 23 August 1989, the fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi–Soviet Pact, about two million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians joined hands across some 675 km. The Baltic Way made a grievance that had long been buried visible as a mass demand for independence. CH 9
- On 2 January 1992, Yegor Gaidar’s government freed most prices at once. Goods returned to the shops, but prices rose by about 2,500% over the year, wiping out savings Soviet citizens had built up. CH 10
- On 15 February 1994 Tatarstan signed a treaty with Moscow that kept the republic inside Russia. Russians made up about two-fifths of its population, and the agreement left Tatarstan extensive control over its oil, budget, and much of its law. Bargaining had held this part of the federation together. CH 11
Comparing the two case studies
The atlas ends by setting the two case studies side by side in Two Transitions Compared. Comparison is where the Focused Study pays off: the same question asked of two societies shows which explanations travel and which belong to one place.
PAPER 1 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 12
Compare and contrast the ways in which the sequencing of political and economic reform shaped the outcomes of the Meiji transition (1868–1912) and the post-Soviet transition (1985–2000).
Both transitions were revolutions from above that ended with a strong executive and limited democracy. Their leaders took different routes to that result. Japan built central authority, revenue and an army before allowing limited participation, gaining state capacity at democracy’s expense. Russia opened politics and markets while its center was weakening and before it could tax or judge effectively; it later rebuilt capacity while narrowing the new freedoms.
In both transitions, stronger central government depended on bringing regional power under its control.
Political participation came at different points in the two sequences.
Japan established financial institutions before selling most state factories; Russia opened markets before it had institutions able to govern them effectively.
The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 12 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: Two Transitions Compared.
Key concepts
The course asks you to think with six concepts. Each chapter’s IB notes name the two or three it supports best; here they are across the atlas, most used first.
- Causation · 7 CHAPTERS
Why something happened: the long-term conditions, the triggers and the choices behind it, and which of them mattered most. For example: The Closed Country, The Black Ships, The Fall of the Shogunate, The Stagnant Superpower. - Change · 5 CHAPTERS
What was different afterwards, how quickly it changed, and for whom. For example: The Fall of the Shogunate, Dismantling the Old Order, Building the Meiji State, Gorbachev’s Gamble. - Consequence · 4 CHAPTERS
What followed from an event or decision, intended and unintended, in the short and the long term. For example: Dismantling the Old Order, A Great Power, Shock Therapy, A State at War with Itself. - Continuity · 3 CHAPTERS
What stayed the same through an apparent upheaval, and why it survived. For example: The Closed Country, The Stagnant Superpower, Two Transitions Compared. - Significance · 3 CHAPTERS
Why an event, person or idea matters, judged by its effects and by how it has been remembered. For example: A Great Power, The Union Unravels, Two Transitions Compared. - Perspectives · 3 CHAPTERS
How people at the time, and historians since, have seen the same events differently, and why. For example: The Black Ships, Building the Meiji State, Shock Therapy.
Source-analysis practice
This is one complete source set from the atlas, free to use. It is built around one inquiry question: How did Japan’s new leaders justify and impose central authority between 1867 and 1873? As you read each source, ask who made it, when, and why. These details help you judge what it can tell you. Answer the questions in writing first; then open the guide under each one to see what a strong answer does.
TEXT · CHAPTER 3
Memorial returning governing power to the emperor (Taisei hōkan)
- CREATOR
- Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the fifteenth shogun
- DATE
- 14th day of the 10th month of Keiō 3 (November 1867)
- ORIGIN
- Memorial submitted to the imperial court in Kyoto; Japanese text as printed in the government’s official collection of laws (Hōrei zensho)
Context. Yoshinobu sent this memorial to the Kyoto court hoping to retain a leading role in a council of lords. The Hōgen and Heiji disorders were wars of the 1150s that brought warrior houses to national power.
Translation: Maps of History, from the Japanese text (Wikisource) · original ↗
TEXT · CHAPTER 4
The Charter Oath (Gokajō no goseimon)
- CREATOR
- Sworn by Emperor Mutsuhito; drafted by officials of the new government
- DATE
- 6 April 1868 (14th day of the 3rd month of Keiō 4)
- ORIGIN
- Oath sworn before the gods in the Kyoto palace; text as published in the government’s official collection of laws (Hōrei zensho, no. 156)
Context. The fifteen-year-old emperor swore this oath three months after the January 1868 coup, during the continuing war with the shogun’s supporters. Court nobles and lords signed beneath it.
Translation: Maps of History, from the Japanese text (Wikisource) · original ↗
TEXT · CHAPTER 4
Proclamation on conscription (Chōhei kokuyu)
- CREATOR
- Council of State (Dajōkan), in the emperor’s name
- DATE
- 28 December 1872 (28th day of the 11th month of Meiji 5)
- ORIGIN
- Government proclamation issued with the imperial edict that announced the conscription law (Council of State notice no. 379)
Context. Village heads were to read this explanation of the conscription law, effective January 1873, to the people. The “four classes” were the Tokugawa official ranking of samurai, farmers, artisans and merchants.
Translation: Maps of History, from the Japanese text (Wikisource) · original ↗
PICTURE · CHAPTER 4
Before and after the abolition of the domains, August 1869 and August 1871
- CREATOR
- Maps of History
- DATE
- Reconstruction made in 2026
- ORIGIN
- Two states of the atlas’s Japan map, drawn from its geodata after Jansen and Beasley
Context. The left map shows 1869, after the lords surrendered their land registers but remained appointed governors. The right shows the situation after the decree of 29 August 1871.
Maps of History (own work); base geography Natural Earth (public domain)
The questions
- QUESTION 1 · COMPREHENSION
Why did Tokugawa Yoshinobu say he was returning governing power to the court in November 1867? Use Source A.
What a strong answer does
Yoshinobu admits that government and justice have often failed under his rule, attributing those failures to his own lack of virtue. He also argues that Japan cannot maintain order amid growing foreign relations unless authority comes from the court alone. His call for public discussion and unity, so Japan can stand alongside other nations, also fits his hope of leading a council of lords.
- Identifies the admission of failure
- Identifies the foreign threat as a reason
- Notes the call for public discussion and unity
- QUESTION 2 · ANALYSIS
How does Source D show central authority being imposed between August 1869 and August 1871?
What a strong answer does
In August 1869, most of the map is grey-brown: lords remain in charge as appointed governors, while red marks former shogunal lands and Hokkaido. By August 1871 the whole country is red. The change came in one step by decree, after the return of the registers in 1869; the abolition of domains in 1871 had the backing of a 10,000-strong imperial guard in Tokyo. The modern reconstruction simplifies 261 domains, and the map cannot show the debts and stipends that helped make the decree acceptable.
- Describes the change between the two maps accurately
- Explains that it came by decree in one step
- Adds own knowledge (1869 registers, 1871 decree, imperial guard)
- Notes a limitation of a modern reconstruction
- QUESTION 3 · EVALUATION
How valuable is Source C, and what are its limitations, for a historian studying the Meiji government’s justification of conscription? Consider its origin, purpose and content.
What a strong answer does
The official proclamation of December 1872 lets us see the case the government chose to make for conscription. It invokes equality among the four classes, the duty to repay the country and a comparison with taxation, presenting a revolutionary change as a moral duty. Its purpose was persuasion, however, so we need other evidence to learn how people received it. It omits exemptions for household heads and men able to pay 270 yen, which shifted the burden toward poorer younger sons; riots against conscription followed in 1873.
- Uses the origin and date
- Explains the persuasive purpose
- Draws value from the content
- Uses own knowledge for limitations (exemptions, riots)
- QUESTION 4 · SYNTHESIS
How far did Meiji leaders rely on persuasion to build central authority between 1867 and 1873? Use the sources and your own knowledge.
What a strong answer does
Each text shows persuasion at work. Source A presents the surrender of power as patriotic, B promises public discussion in broadly acceptable terms, and C appeals to equality and duty. Payment mattered too: the state assumed domain debts and gave the lords an income. Force had already been demonstrated at Toba–Fushimi and in the Boshin War, which killed an estimated 4,000–8,000 people, and the 1871 guard stood behind the settlement. Persuasion and payment helped build authority in the presence of that force, chiefly among elites.
- Uses at least three sources
- Adds own knowledge (Boshin War, buyout, imperial guard)
- Weighs persuasion against payment and force
- Reaches a clear judgement
More source sets in the atlas
The atlas holds 5 more source sets for this Focused Study. Their sources sit in the IB notes of the chapters named below: open a chapter in the atlas and turn on the IB notes switch to read them.
- How far did the Meiji constitution give the Japanese people a share in government? MEIJI JAPAN
Its sources are in the IB notes of chapter 5. - Who paid for Japan’s rise to great-power status between 1894 and 1910? MEIJI JAPAN
Its sources are in the IB notes of chapter 6. - Why did attempts to reform the Soviet economy fail between 1965 and 1991? SOVIET UNION TO RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Its sources are in the IB notes of chapter 7, chapter 8. - Why did the Soviet Union break apart in 1991? SOVIET UNION TO RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Its sources are in the IB notes of chapter 9. - Who paid for Russia’s transition to a market economy between 1992 and 1998? SOVIET UNION TO RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Its sources are in the IB notes of chapter 10, chapter 11, chapter 12.
Practice questions and essay plans
Try planning your answers before looking at ours. Each outline states a thesis and shows what each paragraph would claim. The first plan comes from chapter 2, a free chapter, and is shown in full. In the atlas, the chapters’ IB notes give the full plans, with evidence, a counter-argument and a judgement. The atlas’s own page lists those notes: IB notes for Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia.
PAPER 2 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 2
To what extent did the unequal treaties of 1854–1858 cause the shogunate’s loss of authority?
The treaties caused the shogunate’s loss of authority to a large extent. The signing of the 1858 treaty set the shogun against the emperor, while its economic terms spread discontent through inflation. Yet foreign pressure fell on an already divided state without a navy, and Abe’s consultation in 1853 had invited rivals into national decisions before the treaties were signed.
The way the Harris treaty was signed did the greatest political damage.
EVIDENCEOn 29 July 1858 Ii Naosuke had the treaty signed after Emperor Kōmei had refused his approval. Ii then confined great lords and had activists, including Yoshida Shōin, executed in the Ansei Purge. Samurai killed him outside Edo Castle in March 1860.
LINKBy defying the throne, Ii gave opponents a cause they could present as loyalty to the emperor. A diplomatic retreat had become a crisis over the shogunate’s legitimacy.
The economic terms made resentment a mass grievance.
EVIDENCEThe treaties fixed low tariffs. Gold also drained out because its exchange ratio to silver was about one to five in Japan, compared with one to fifteen abroad. The shogunate debased its coinage in 1860, and Osaka rice prices rose several times over between 1859 and 1867.
LINKSamurai on fixed stipends and urban workers blamed the government that had opened the ports. Their grievances fed the slogans of the 1860s.
The treaties brought older institutional weaknesses into view.
EVIDENCEAs chapter 1 shows, the shogunate taxed only its own lands and had no fleet. In 1853 Abe Masahiro asked the daimyo and the court for advice; most lords urged refusal or delay, but offered no ships.
LINKThe consultation showed the outer lords and the court that they had a voice in national decisions. The treaties therefore struck an authority that was already shared.
Conrad Totman stresses the vigor of shogunal reform during these years: a naval school opened at Nagasaki in 1855, followed by an institute for Western studies in 1856. On this reading, authority could still have been recovered in 1858. The decisive loss came in 1866, when a shogunal army failed to defeat the single domain of Chōshū.
The treaties were the decisive cause. They turned an old structural weakness into an open quarrel over who had the right to decide for Japan, while the economic shock widened support for opposition. Military defeats in the 1860s completed the collapse. Without the signing of 1858, the shogunate’s critics would have lacked both a cause and a rival authority.
Read the chapter behind this plan: The Black Ships.
PAPER 2 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 5
How far was the Freedom and People’s Rights movement responsible for the introduction of the Meiji constitution in 1889?
The movement was largely responsible for the constitution’s timing: its petitions helped force the government’s promise of 1881. The content owed more to the oligarchs, the small circle who ran the government. They wanted institutions Western powers would accept for treaty revision, and they kept power with the emperor’s advisers.
Popular pressure made a constitution difficult to avoid.
The oligarchs also had a diplomatic reason to introduce a constitution.
The oligarchs contained the movement while directing the constitution’s design.
The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 5 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: Building the Meiji State.
PAPER 2 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 9
Discuss the importance of national popular movements in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union between 1988 and 1991.
National popular movements brought the Union’s future into question, first in the Baltic states and the Caucasus and finally in Ukraine. They made secession a political possibility and gave republican leaders mandates to pursue it. Their pressure alone could not have ended the Union: Russia’s leaders challenged the center, and the failed coup destroyed the authority of central institutions.
In the Baltic states, popular fronts turned national grievances into a mass political movement.
Moscow’s use of force intensified opposition without restoring its authority.
Ukraine’s referendum gave independence a mandate that transformed the prospects for a renewed Union.
The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 9 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: The Union Unravels.
PAPER 2 · REMAKING THE STATE · CHAPTER 11
To what extent did the weakness of the Russian state cause the outbreak of war in Chechnya in December 1994?
Russian state weakness helps explain how Chechnya escaped Moscow’s control after 1991 and why the army performed so badly once war began. But the outbreak depended more directly on decisions in Moscow and on Chechnya’s particular history. The treaty with Tatarstan that same year shows that the Russian government had another course available: weakness set the stage, while choices started the war.
A weak center allowed Chechnya to move beyond Moscow’s control.
Leaders in Moscow chose to turn a political problem into a war.
Chechnya’s history and position made a settlement harder to reach.
The evidence for each point, the counter-argument and the judgement are in the IB notes of chapter 11 in the atlas. Read the chapter first: A State at War with Itself.
Revision tools
The atlas ends with a map quiz that asks you to find places and moments on the map itself (part of every plan from Starter up). The quick quiz and the discussion questions with our answers are free pages on this site, and the printable study guide gathers every chapter’s notes into one document for revision.
The same atlas for other papers
Several chapters also carry IB notes for Papers 2 and 3, and for topics of the old course examined in 2027:
- Paper 2 · Conflict · 3 CHAPTERS
- Paper 2 · Innovation and Transformation · 1 CHAPTERS
- Paper 2 · Authoritarian Rule · 5 CHAPTERS
- Paper 2 · Popular Movements · 2 CHAPTERS
Maps of History is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate Organization. IB course names describe alignment only; paper, theme and section names follow the new course outline and may change when the final guide is published.
THE DISPATCH
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