World History DBQ Directions: The following question is based on the accompanying documents 1-12. (Some of the documents have been edited for the purpose of this essay.) Write an essay composing the documents listed. This question is designed to test your ability to work with and understand historical documents. Write an essay that: Has a relevant thesis and supports that thesis with evidence from the documents. Uses no less than nine of the 11 of the 12 documents listed. Analyzes the documents by grouping them in as many appropriate ways as possible. Do not simply summarize the documents individually. Take into account both the sources of the documents and the authors' points of view. You may refer to relevant historical information not mentioned in the documents. Historical Background: 1. Using the documents, analyze the causes and factors associated with the rise and spread of Communism in the 20th century, and the effects it had on the world. The first attempts to arrive at a communist society (leaving aside early, medieval and more modern Christian communities) were made in the United States in the 19th century. The establishment of small agrarian settlements was based on collective property, communally organized labor and the total absence of money inside their boundaries. The spread of communism occurred in many areas around the globe, such as the USSR, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. The idea was popularizedby Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They wrote a book "The Communist Manifesto" which stressed that "the control of the means of production should reside in the hands of those who invest their labor for production." Ideally, a communist government would eliminate social divisions, everyone would live in profusion and there would be no supervision by a ruling party. There would be no private ownership; the society would be egalitarian. There are many different "schools" of communism, or divisions within the belief system.
An example is Marxist-Leninism, which is essentially a "higher" state of Marxism used in the Soviet Union by Stalin. Document I Saurce: unknown "The second problera was general economic distress. Italy was a poor nation. She could only' suppofl her war elftirt by obtaining l'oreign loans. Lnrnediately alier the war" as Europe lvas exhausted by the war" the Italian tourist lrade and export trade came to a standstill and there was large-scale unemployment thror"rghout the country. The problem o1'unemployment was aggravated by the return of millions o1'ex-soldiers to ltaly and a new immigration law olthe ti.s. govemment which restricted entr:y ol'immigrants. Moreover, runaway inllation added to the sul-ferings of the Italians. The lira had only one-fifth ol'its pre-war value." Dacument 2 Source: mtknrnyn "After his initial success. Mussolini became more violently anti-bolshevik than ever in order to win more support from the properly class. Ile stopped attacking the monarchy, the Catholics and capitalists. I-le promised a strong government which could suppress the socialists' disturbances and a strong foreign policy which could bring national glory to ltaly. Economically. he championed economic liberalism and an improvement in the conditions of the workers. As a result of Mussolini's new tactics, finances poured in fiom the industrialists. Fascist membership jumped up from 20,000 in 1920 to 24{1,000 in 1921. and to 300.000 in 1922;'
Document 3 Stxtrce:,/ohn Pritchett Carloons
Document 4 Source: Ho Chi Minh "The Communists Must Organize Themselves into a Single Party," 1929 The revolutionary movement in Vietnam has now begun the stage of proletarian leadership. Vietnam, therefore, must have a communist party. The Communist Party is the avant-garde of the proletariat, and the peasantry is the leader of the proletariat, so the peasantry will overthrow the French Imperialists, seize political power, and set up the dictatorship of peasants and workers in order to achieve a communist societv Document 5 Source: "Stalin's Reply to Churchill," March 14, 1946 (interview with Pravda) "...what can be surprising in the fact that the Soviet Union, in a desire to ensure its security for the future, tries to achieve that these countries should have governments whose relations to the Soviet Union are loyal? How can one, without having lost one's reason, qualify these peaceful aspirations of the Soviet Union as "expansionist tendencies" of our Govemment?... Mr. Churchill wanders around the truth when he speaks of the growth of the influence of the Communist parties in Eastern Europe... The growth of the influence of communism cannot be considered accidental. It is a normal function. The influence of the Communists grew because during the hard years of the mastery of fascism in Europe, Communists slowed themselves to be reliable, daring and self-sacrificing fighters against fascist regimes for the liberty of peoples."
Document 6 Source: John Foster Dulles: US Secretary of State, Dynamic Peace, 1957 Armaments are nothing that we crave. Their possession is forced on us by the aggressive and devious designs of international communism. Ail arms race is costly, sterile, and dangerous. We shall not cease our striving to bring it to a dependable end. Document 7 Source: unknov,n
Document I Sour ce : w v,tv. tnf opl e us e. c om After Communist victories in Vietnam and Cambodia, the Pathet Lao took control of the country in 1975, abolished the monarchy, and made Laos a republic. Souphanouvong became president, and Kaysone Phomvihane, head of the Communist party, became premier. Huge numbers of Laotians (many Hmong) fled to Thailand and many eventually sought refuge in the United States. (Small Hmong forces, however, continued to fight against the Communists into the 21st cent.) Laos became increasingly dependent on Vietnam for military and economic assistance, and the two countries signed a 25-year treaty of friendship in 1977. Document 9 Source : v,wtt,. co I oradoco I le ge. e dtt The fifth development in this century that has also affected continuities and discontinuities in Muslim life and thought was the rise of communism and the establishment of the Soviet state in Russia and eastern Europe after the Second World War. Judging events from the perspective of the post-cold War era might be distorting the real nature of things in the Muslim world early in this century. In retrospect, we can argue here that the emergence of Marxist thought as a major contender of human allegiance was seen by Muslim intellectuals as one other alien demon to fight and keep away from the mental and physical spaces of Muslim peoples. The legacies of communism in the Arab world and in central Asia certainly remind us that the problem of cultural continuities and discontinuities will remain a challenge to Muslim leaders and the led for sometime in the future.
Document 10 Source: A Short Introduction to the Bahd'i Faith, 1996 Although Bah6'i communities had existed in Central Asia up to the time of the First World War, these were persecuted and decimated after the Communist takeover. Since the collapse of Communism, there has been a steady growth of Bah6'i communities in all the nations of this resion. Document 11 Source: US Library of Congress An important influence on Chinese foreign policy that has especially affected China's interpretations of world events has been ideology, both Marxist-Leninist and Maoist. The ideological components of China's foreign policy, whose influence has varied over time, have included a belief that conflict and struggle are inevitable; a focus on opposing imperialism; the determination to advance communism throughout the world, especially through the Chinese model; and the Maoist concept of responding with flexibility while adhering to fundamental principles.
Document 12 Source : Internati onal Communi st Curr ent ; www. internati onalism. or g I 9 9 9 In presenting the collapse of Stalinism as the collapse of communism, the ruling class is obviously trying first of all to hide the fact that this was only one of the manifestations of the bankruptcy of capitalism itself. But above all, it has been striving to the utmost to cry at the top of its voice that it is a question of the bankruptcy of any perspective for the revolutionary overturning of its system, as with the 'end of the class struggle'.