What the exam asks
- Multiple Choice (Section I, Part A): Propaganda posters from the Great Leap Forward, excerpts from Mao Zedong or Ho Chi Minh, or grain-production charts testing Causation and Sourcing and Situation.
- Short Answer (Section I, Part B): Prompts asking you to identify or explain causes and effects of land reform in the Global South, or to compare Soviet and Chinese state-controlled economies.
- DBQ and LEQ (Section II): Broad essays evaluating how 20th-century states directed national economies or how Cold War ideologies interacted with decolonization.
Core ideas
The Chinese Communist Revolution (1927–1949)
After the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, China experienced severe internal tension between the Nationalist Party (Guomindang, led by Chiang Kai-shek) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Zedong. While the Nationalists favored urban elites and struggled with corruption and inflation, the CCP survived the Long March (1934–1935) and built deep support among China’s vast peasant majority by promising land redistribution.
Japanese aggression during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) proved decisive. The Japanese invasion devastated coastal cities—the Nationalist stronghold—and exposed the Guomindang’s military weakness. Meanwhile, the CCP waged effective guerrilla warfare against Japan in the northern countryside, earning nationalist legitimacy and millions of peasant recruits. When civil war resumed (1945–1949), the CCP defeated the Nationalists and established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949.
Controlling the Chinese economy and society
In 1958, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) to rapidly industrialize China and collectivize agriculture without relying on the Soviet model of urban heavy industry.
- People’s communes: Private land ownership was abolished; peasant families were forced into massive, state-run agricultural communes with communal kitchens and barracks.
- Backyard furnaces: Peasants were ordered to melt down scrap metal (even cooking pots and farm tools) to meet unrealistic steel quotas.
- Repressive policies and repercussions: Local officials feared punishment and falsified grain-harvest data, leading the state to requisition food peasants did not have. Combined with poor weather and diverted farm labor, these policies caused a catastrophic famine that killed an estimated 20 to 45 million people.