Understanding Early Communist Ideas

I used this this document-based question to assess students’ historical thinking.  Students read and annotated the documents during a unit on communism that included Marxism, the Russian Revolutions, and the early Chinese Communist Party.  Students used their annotated documents and any class notes to define communism.  I evaluated student work using a five-row rubric for historical thinking.

Document set, images below:

DBQ Instructions:

Color image with workers holding hands around a globe. Figure of liberty on top wearing red cap.
“Workers of the World Unite” (German print, 1889, produced to celebrate May Day, May 1st, as an international day of worker unity). Source German History in Documents and Images
Color image with two workers, armed, standing on royal symbols. Sunrise, marching workers, and factory in the background
“Year of Proletarian (Worker) Dictatorship” (Alexander Apsit, Russian poster, produced on the one year anniversary of the Bolshevik/Communist Revolution, 1918)
Source Wikipedia
Woman in tractor leading a group of peasants into a field.
“Off to Collective Work”, Soviet poster, c. 1930. Source Loyola University Chicago
Three male electrical workers working on powerline with factories in the background
“Let’s consolidate the victory of socialism in the USSR! Let’s technically reconstruct the country’s economy!” Soviet poster, 1932. Source International Institute of Social History