DBQ The CCP and the Peasants in Communist China WHAP/Napp
Rules for the DBQ on the College Board World History Advanced Placement Examination: Students will be allotted ten minutes for the mandatory reading of documents. During the reading period, students may take notes but not start writing the essay.
Strategies for the Document-Based Question: After the reading period, a student should write the essay in 40 minutes. Students should write the DBQ essay first (there are three essays). Students will be provided anywhere from four to ten documents. The purpose of the DBQ is to assess the ability to evaluate primary sources. Students must incorporate all, or all but one, of the documents in the essay. Students must also comment on at least one OTHER type of document, NOT included, that might shed light on the question [The Missing Document]. Students must analyze point of view in documents.
Additional Strategies: Students cite documents by identifying the author and/or title of the document. Students must comment on point of view. - What is the bias or perspective of the author, speaker, or artist? - The point of view may be clear from the speaker’s or writer’s nationality, ethnicity, gender, social class, religion, or political affiliation. - For full credit, a student should analyze point of view for all or most of the documents. One of the skills a student MUST demonstrate is an ability to group documents into useful and meaningful categories. - Can the documents be grouped by political philosophy or outlook? - By purpose? By gender? According to cultural attitudes? - There is no single right way to group but the groupings must make sense. - A student should try to group documents in three ways but in this essay there may only be two groups. The DBQ also asks students to demonstrate historical judgment by commenting on what is missing from the picture. - If the student could have OTHER documents, what types would be useful in answering the question? Don’t forget the thesis. - Most often, the thesis will clearly state the three groups the student has created. ~ Adapted from Barron’s World History AP
Questions: 1- How long is the mandatory reading period? ______2- What may students do during the mandatory reading period? ______3- What are students not allowed to do during the mandatory reading period? ______4- After the reading period, students will have 120 minutes to write three essays, which essay should the student write first? Why? ______5- How many documents can a student expect in the DBQ? ______6- What is the purpose of the DBQ? ______7- How many documents must the student incorporate into the DBQ essay? ______8- What is the “missing document” or “other document”? ______9- Why must students incorporate a missing document into the DBQ essay? ______10- How do students cite documents? ______11- What is point of view analysis? ______12- For how many documents should a student analyze point of view? ______13- What is a skill that a student must demonstrate in the DBQ essay? ______14- How can students group documents? ______15- How many groups should a student create? ______16- How else does a student demonstrate historical judgment in the DBQ essay? ______17- What must the thesis clearly state in order to be a valid thesis? ______From the 2014 College Board World History Examination: The following question is based on the accompanying Documents 1-9.
Using the following documents, analyze the relationship between Chinese peasants and the Chinese Communist Party between circa 1925 and circa 1950. Identify one additional type of document and explain how it would help you assess the relationship between Chinese peasants and the Chinese Communist Party.
Historical background: Japan invaded China in 1937 and occupied large parts of it until Japan’s defeat in the Second World War in 1945. In 1949 the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China.
Question: What is the essay’s prompt? ______Phrase the essay prompt in your own words. ______Ten Minutes: Mandatory Reading of the Documents Try to read all documents in the allotted ten minutes. - If you do not finish reading the documents in ten minute period, you will need to take minutes from the 120 minutes allotted for writing the three essays. Underline the main point of each document while reading. Take notes in the margins. Do NOT start writing the essay during the mandatory reading period.
Document 1 Source: Mao Zedong, rising leader of the Chinese Communist Party, written report on the peasant movement in central China, 1927.
The present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China’s central, southern, and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the chains that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants, and evil landowners into their graves.
Document 2 Source: Conversation between a teenaged peasant and his grandfather, from an area controlled by Chinese Communists, recounted by Edgar Snow, United States journalist, 1936. Grandfather, you call villagers joining the Poor People’s league, voting for Communists, having their sons join Communist armies or daughters enroll in schools crimes? These are patriotic acts! Did we have a free school before? Did we ever get news of the world before the Communists brought us radios? Who told us what the world was like? You say the cooperative has no cloth, but did we even have a cooperative before? How about your farm? Wasn’t there a big mortgage on it to landlord Wang? My sister starved to death three years ago, but haven’t we had plenty to eat since the Communists came? You say it’s bitter, but it isn’t bitter for us Young Communist Vanguards when we learn to use a rifle and fight traitors and Japan!
Document 3 Source: Japanese Political Affairs Bureau for Occupied China, administrative office of the Japanese Army, report, 1941.
The Chinese Communist Red Army champions army-civilian integration and is continuously organizing local guerrilla units. As a consequence, it is extraordinarily difficult to separate the Communist bandits from the peasants in our efforts to destroy the Communists.
Document 4 Source: Chinese Communist report on Japanese military actions in North China villages, 1942.
In Japanese attacks on our villages, they killed 97 civilians, wounded 382, kidnapped 3, and raped 216 women. Japanese soldiers stole farm animals (734 oxen, 694 mules, 6 donkeys, 45 horses, 734 hogs, 6 goats, 106 ducks, 13,817 chickens); thousands of chairs and tables, kitchen pots and rice bowls, and stone grinders; thousands of peasants’ quilts and piles of clothing; over 6,000 bushels of grain; tons of straw; and 430,000 yuan.*
*yuan: Chinese currency
Document 5 Source: Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, instructions to local party officials, 1942.
Recognize that peasants constitute the basic strength of the Anti-Japanese War. Accordingly it is the policy of the party to assist the peasant, reduce feudal exploitation by the landlords, support civil liberties, political rights, and economic rights of the peasants in order to improve their living conditions and enhance their enthusiasm for the Anti- Japanese War. Document 6 Source: William Hinton, United States–born member of a Chinese Communist land reform task force in northern China, 1948. The arming of the people for resistance against Japan had placed the peasants in a position to challenge the landlords and money lenders in the countryside, and not even the tremendous prestige of the Chinese Communist Party or the critical situation of the country and the world could prevent this challenge from breaking out in one form or another. This increasingly explosive force transferred land from the landowners to the peasants. Now peasants demanded not only the correction of abuses but also repayment of overcharges and restoration of lands and property seized in default of debts. When grievances were totaled up, the charges almost always amounted to more than most landowning families could pay, and everything they owned was transferred from the landlords to the peasants for distribution.
Document 7 Source: Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China, 1950.
The feudal marriage system based on arbitrary and compulsory arrangements and the supremacy of man over woman, and in disregard of the interest of the children, is abolished.
The new democratic marriage system, which is based on the free choice of partners, on monogamy, on equal rights for both sexes, and on the protection of the lawful interests of women and children, is put into effect. Document 8 Source: Agrarian Reform Law of the People’s Republic of China, 1950.
Article 1. The landownership system of feudal exploitation by the landlord class shall be abolished and the system of peasant landownership shall be introduced in order to set free the rural productive forces, develop agricultural production, and thus pave the way for new China’s industrialization.
Article 2. The land, draft animals, farm implements, and surplus grain of the landlords and their surplus houses in the countryside shall be confiscated.
Document 9 Source: Chinese peasants at a struggle meeting. In the center stands a peasant woman with her former landlord standing in front of her. Struggle meetings were organized by the Chinese Communist Party as part of the land reform process. Photo circa 1950. END OF PART A
Group the Documents Two Ways: Students are generally encouraged to group documents in three ways but sometimes it is necessary to only group documents in two ways. The student must first and foremost be an independent thinker. Rules apply but sometimes rules must be challenged in order to write the most effective essay. However, if the student believes that it is possible to group in three ways then the student must defer to his sound judgment. Write a Valid Thesis Statement for the DBQ: ______Identify a missing document: ______How would this document help the student answer the question? ______Analyze point of view in a document: ______Write one body paragraph for the essay: ______Sample Thesis Statements:
Sample Thesis Statement #1:
“The Chinese Communist Party soon came into power after chasing the Kuomintang and its anti-communist policies into Taiwan; with the growth of the party’s power, the peasant class experienced major influence. Chinese peasants and the Chinese Communist Party between circa 1925 and circa 1950 had a relationship where the party fostered the state of the people, igniting a sense of nationalism in the peasants, advocating social equality, and fostering anti-Japanese feelings.” Sample Thesis Statement #2:
“The relationship between Chinese peasants and Chinese Communist Party between 1925 and 1950 has been generally good. The Communist Party has sparked new life into the peasants’ class, improving their way of life and making equal rights for the women as well. All of these benefits will surely help them in the time to come and into modern times.”
Which sample thesis statement is the better thesis statement? ______
Why is this sample thesis statement the better thesis statement? ______
The secret to a better sample thesis statement is to be specific.
In the space below, write an introduction for this essay along with your revised thesis statement.
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