Consolidating and maintaining power
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Question
What does "consolidation of power" mean?
Answer
Turning a fragile initial grip on power into secure, lasting control by removing rivals and dominating the state.
Question
Name the four pillars authoritarian leaders used to maintain power (LFCP).
Answer
Legal methods, Force/terror, Cult of personality (charisma), and Propaganda/censorship.
Question
What did the Reichstag Fire Decree (Feb 1933) do?
Answer
It suspended civil rights in Germany, allowing the Nazis to arrest opponents - an early legal tool of consolidation.
Question
What was the significance of the Enabling Act (March 1933)?
Answer
It let Hitler make laws without the Reichstag, giving dictatorship a legal cover and creating a one-party state.
Question
What is a cult of personality?
Answer
The deliberate glorification of a leader as a near-superhuman, infallible saviour of the nation.
Question
Give the secret police for Germany and for the USSR.
Answer
Germany: the Gestapo. USSR: the NKVD. Both used fear, arrest and elimination of opponents.
Question
What was Stalin's Great Purge (1936-38)?
Answer
A campaign of show trials and mass executions of party members, army officers and citizens that terrorised the USSR into obedience.
Question
What was Goebbels' role in Nazi Germany?
Answer
As head of the Ministry of Propaganda, he controlled the press, radio, film and rallies to shape public opinion.
Question
What is socialist realism?
Answer
The enforced Soviet art style requiring artists to glorify the workers and the state; a form of cultural censorship and propaganda.
Question
How did the cult of Mao show in China?
Answer
Mao was glorified as an infallible leader, peaking in the Cultural Revolution (from 1966) with the mass-distributed Little Red Book.
Question
Methods that COMPEL vs methods that PERSUADE - give the difference.
Answer
Compel = force/terror (secret police, purges, camps) creating obedience through fear. Persuade = propaganda and the cult creating genuine support and legitimacy.
Question
Why must Paper 2 examples come from different regions?
Answer
The topic requires two authoritarian states, each from a different IB region. Hitler (Europe) + Mao (Asia) is valid; Hitler + Stalin (both Europe) is not.
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