1. Although mass media focuses attention on personalities and scandals in understanding events,  Marxists see as the central force in understanding history the struggle between:

a) political parties;
b) social classes;
c) ideas;
d) empires.

2. In the United States presidential elections have  at crucial times been both a response to and a material force accelerating major  domestic progressive transformations, which makes the 2020  election and the choice of  candidate of great importance. Which of the following elections did not serve to accelerate a major progressive transformation in domestic policies:

a) Abraham Lincoln’s victory in 1860;
b) Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992;
c) Franklin Roosevelt’s victory in 1932;
d) Lyndon Johnson’s victory in 1964.

3. While the Trump administration “hails” the economy today, Marxists contend that capitalists cannot increase workers purchasing power enough to overcome the crisis of overproduction because:

a) They are inherently greedy;
b) they don’t want workers to waste their money;
c) their profit comes from controlling and  reducing the cost of labor;
d) they want workers to save money before they purchase goods;

4. Marxists have contended that  the working class purchasing goods and services under credit/installment plan conditions strengthens the  capitalist class  because:

a) the capitalist class gets back in interest payments wage increases to workers;
b) debt forces workers to live from paycheck to paycheck, increasing their insecurity and the ability of capitalists to exploit them;
c) credit/installment plan conditions fosters the illusion among workers that their  purchase of personal property on credit makes them “middle class;”
d) all of the above.

5. The Trump administration is acting to overthrow the Bolivarian Socialist government of Venezuela in the name of “restoring democracy.” This is in the tradition of:

a) The CIA “ 1954 overthrow of elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, which resulted in a brutal dictatorship in which tens of thousands were murdered;
b) The failed  U.S. planned and  CIA directed  1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba which set in motion the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis which nearly resulted in nuclear war;
c) The U.S. support for the 1973 military coup against the Socialist government of Salvador Allende, which resulted in the murderous military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet;
d) All of the above.

6. U.S. politicians continue to condemn The Peoples Republic of China’s  record on “human rights” and “democracy.” Strengthening the Trump administration’s threats to implement punitive tariffs against the PRC.  Historically, the U.S. government  and ruling class showed its respect for the “human rights” and “self determination” of the Chinese people by:

a) Refusing to participate in the foreign armies bloody  suppression of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900;
b) Refusing to sell  oil and other goods used for war to the Japanese Empire after it launched a full scale invasion of China that would cost millions of lives in 1937;
c) Recognizing the Peoples Republic of China after its establishment in 1949 and  refusing to  intervene with the U.S. Navy  to block   the re-unification of China with Chinese Taiwan in 1950;
d) None of the above.

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