Section II

100 Minutes 2 Questions

1. 1. Question 1: Document-Based Question

      Suggested reading period: 15 minutes

      Suggested writing time: 45 minutes

   2. Directions

      Question 1 is based on the accompanying documents. The documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise.

      Write your responses on the lined pages that follow the question.

      In your response you should do the following.

      • State a relevant thesis that directly addresses all parts of the question.
      • Support the thesis or a relevant argument with evidence from all, or all but one, of the documents.
      • Incorporate analysis of all, or all but one, of the documents into your argument.
      • Focus your analysis of each document on at least one of the following: intended audience, purpose, historical context, and/or point of view.
      • Support your argument with analysis of historical examples outside the documents.
      • Connect historical phenomena relevant to your argument to broader events or processes.
      • Synthesize the elements above into a persuasive essay that extends your argument, connects it to a different historical context, or accounts for contradictory evidence on the topic.

   1. Analyze the roles of women under communist rule in the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

      Document 1

      Source: V. I. Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks and instigator of Communist revolution in Russia, from articles in the official Soviet newspaper Pravda, 1920 

      The Soviet government was the first and only government in the world to abolish completely all the old, bourgeois, infamous laws which placed women in an inferior position compared with men and which granted privileges to men, as, for instance, in the sphere of marriage laws or in the sphere of the legal attitude to children. The Soviet government was the first and only government in the world which, as a government of the toilers, abolished all the privileges connected with property, which men retained in the family laws of all bourgeois republics, even the most democratic. The proletariat cannot achieve complete freedom, unless it achieves complete freedom for women.

      Document 2

      Source: Emma Goldman, an American anarchist deported to Russia in 1920, from her memoir My Disillusionment in Russia, 1923

      …the rations were distributed at the Commissary, but one had to fetch them himself. One day, while waiting my turn in the long line, a peasant girl came in and asked for vinegar. “Vinegar! Who is it calls for such a luxury?” cried several women. It appeared that the girl was Zinoviev’s servant. She spoke of him as her master, who worked very hard and was surely entitled to something extra. At once a storm of indignation broke loose. “Master! Is that what we made the Revolution for, or was it to do away with masters? Zinoviev is no more than we, and he is not entitled to more.”

      Document 3

      Source: Grigory Shegal, teacher at the Moscow Art Institute and artist, official government poster, 1931

      

      Caption: Say goodbye to kitchen slavery! Let the new life begin!

      
      

      Document 4

      Source: Nadezhda Krupskaya, V. I. Lenin’s wife and a leader within the Bolshevik Party, preface to Lenin’s The Emancipation of Women, 1933

      We in Russia no longer have the base, mean and infamous denial of rights to women or inequality of the sexes, that disgusting survival of feudalism and medievalism of the greedy bourgeoisie in every other country in the world without exception.

      Document 5

      Source: Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, excerpts from The Selected Quotations of Mao Zedong (known as the Little Red Book)

      Introductory note to Women Have Gone to the Labour Front, 1955

      In order to build a great socialist society it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity. Men and women must receive equal pay for equal work in production. Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.

      Document 6

      Source: Poster used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 1965

      

      Caption: Become a red seedling—Strike root, flower and bear seeds in the places the motherland needs it most!

      Document 7

      Source: Shao Dangdi, Chinese grandmother and insurance agent, comments quoted in the American magazine The New Republic, March 2004

      After Liberation, women were made very equal…. The government promoted women’s equality, but also it was necessary for family survival: you couldn’t live on a single income. Now, you can…. Work units were required to maintain a rough gender balance in all departments and at all levels…. Now the workplace is so competitive. There are too many educated young people vying for too few positions, so employers pick the men first.

2. 1. Question 2, Question 3, OR Question 4: LONG ESSAY QUESTION

                                   

      Suggested writing time: 35 minutes

   2. Directions

      Choose Question 2, Question 3, OR Question 4 to answer. 

      In your response you should do the following.

      • Present a thesis statement
      • Apply AP History Reasoning Skills as directed by the question
        
      • Utilize specific examples of historical evidence to support the thesis, and explain relationships among the evidence. 
      • Extend the argument by explaining the connections between the argument and either: a development in a different historical period, situation, era, or geographic location; or a theme/approach to history that is not the focus of the essay.

   2. Analyze the similarities and differences in the effect of religions on gender roles and social structures in American Indian societies and European societies prior to 1450 C.E.

   3. Analyze the similarities and differences in the economic and political effects of the Hindu caste system and the Spanish American social structure from 1450 C.E. to 1750 C.E.

   4. Analyze the continuities and changes in social structures due to the global economic transformations which occurred between 1750 C.E. and 1900 C.E.

END OF SECTION II