In the GDR, civics lessons sought to convey information about the structure of the state, the rights and obligations of GDR citizens, and the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. In all of this, spelling out the superiority of the socialist over the capitalist system was paramount. In this photograph, a 10th-grade teacher at an East Berlin school explains the differences between the two systems to his students. The heading on the blackboard reads: “The GDR and the FRG—two states with different social orders.” For the GDR, he has listed the following: socialist state; socialist ownership of the means of production; rule of the working class in alliance with other working people. The list for the FRG reads: imperialist state; private-capitalist ownership of the means of production; rule of the monopolistic bourgeoisie.