Mock Exam DBQ: Africa During the Cold War

Question 1

Essay

Evaluate the extent to which African countries were able to conduct independent policies during the Cold War period. 

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

In your response, you will be assessed on the following: 
- Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning. 
- Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt. 
- Support an argument in response to the prompt using at least four documents. 
- Use at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence (beyond that found in the documents) relevant to an argument about the prompt. 
- For at least two documents, explain how or why the document’s point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience is relevant to an argument. 
- Demonstrate a complex understanding of a historical development related to the prompt through sophisticated argumentation and/or effective use of evidence.

Source 1.1

The figure presents a world map titled 'How Communists Menace Vital Materials.' The Soviet Union is labeled with a hammer and sickle, from which six numbered arrows extend to different regions of the world. Some countries have been shaded. The shaded countries are labeled with material commodities such as 'copper' and 'tin.' A legend at the bottom of the map, labeled 'Techniques Being Used in Each Red ‘Thrust’,' contains descriptions of actions taken by the Soviet Union in each of the six regions. The regions are as follows. 1, South America. 2, Western Europe. 3, Africa. 4, Middle East. 5, South Asia. 6, Southeast Asia. The information that accompanies region 3 is as follows. 3. Africa: Encouragement of nationalist terrorists. Stirring up racial tensions. Psychological warfare against U.S. and West based on colonialism and color.

Source 1.2

When it is an African uprising against tyranny and oppression, the imperialists call it 'terrorism’; but when it is White people taking up arms under similar conditions they call it a just cause. [For example], the recent Hungarian uprising* was universally praised as a just opposition against suppression, and the Hungarians who participated in it were christened “freedom fighters.” But what the Russians did to the Hungarians that the “free” world made so much fuss about was the same thing that the British did in Kenya, and the French are doing in Algeria. . . .

Editorial in Evening News, the official newspaper of the ruling Ghanaian Convention People’s Party, published on the eve of the first Conference of Independent African States, Accra, Ghana, 1958.

Source 1.3

In high quarters here [in Washington], there is the clear-cut conclusion that as long as Lumumba continues to hold high office, the inevitable result will at best be chaos and at worst it would pave the way to Communist takeover of the Congo, with disastrous consequences for the U.S. and for the interests of the free world. Consequently, we conclude that [Lumumba’s] removal must be an urgent and prime objective that should be a high priority of our covert action in the Congo.

United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Allen Dulles, secret diplomatic telegram to the CIA agent in the Congolese capital Leopoldville, August 26, 1960.

Source 1.4

It is surely not by chance that the hand of Moscow is ‘discovered,’ in an almost stereotyped way, behind each demand for national independence put forth by a colonial people. This is because any difficulty that is put in the way of the supremacy of the West is seen as a threat to its economic power and its military interests...

Frantz Fanon, French West Indian political philosopher and activist, Toward the African Revolution, book published in 1964.

Source 1.5

After the 1969 military coup in Somalia and the assumption of power of General Siad Barre’s Revolutionary Council, many positive elements in Somali domestic and foreign policies can be observed. Therefore, the Soviet Union is planning to comprehensively activate its relations with that country, including the following activities undertaken so far...

Viktor Bakin, Soviet diplomatic official in Poland, briefing to Polish officials on Soviet activities in Somalia, 1971.

Source 1.6

Although many questions remain open as to the reason behind President Siad’s recent invitation to the Americans to inspect the Soviet-built military facilities in the [Somali] port of Berbera, I believe it was aimed at demonstrating to the world that Soviet-friendly Somalia can retain control over all of its military installations...

Janez Hocevar, Yugoslav ambassador to Somalia, report to the Yugoslav government, sent from Mogadishu, Somalia, 1975.

Source 1.7

We are not a creation of the Soviet Union or Cuba; we are a creation of Zimbabwe. Our army is a manifestation of the nationalist desires of our people, a product of the history of our country. . . . It is true that the Soviets gave us aid, as did the entire international socialist community...

Robert Mugabe, leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union [ZANU], interview in the Mozambique-based newspaper Tempo, 1978.

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