Opposition and how it was dealt with
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Question
Active vs passive opposition
Answer
Active = organised resistance (plots, leaflets, sabotage). Passive = private dissent (grumbling, not joining in). Active was rarer because more dangerous.
Question
What is a show trial?
Answer
A public trial with the verdict fixed in advance, staged for propaganda to justify destroying opponents (e.g. the Moscow Trials, USSR, 1936-38).
Question
What was the Gulag?
Answer
The Soviet network of forced-labour concentration camps for prisoners and 'enemies of the people'.
Question
What was a purge?
Answer
Removing 'unreliable' people from the party, army or society — by expulsion, imprisonment or execution.
Question
Night of the Long Knives
Answer
Germany, 30 June 1934 — Hitler had SA leaders and rivals murdered to remove internal threats to his power.
Question
Stalin's Great Terror
Answer
USSR, 1936-38 — mass purges, the Moscow show trials of Old Bolsheviks, and the purge of the army; millions sent to the Gulag or shot.
Question
Secret police: Germany vs USSR
Answer
Germany = the Gestapo. USSR = the NKVD. Both used surveillance and informers to detect opposition early.
Question
Why was opposition often weak/ineffective?
Answer
Fear and terror, propaganda, a divided opposition, early detection by surveillance, and some genuine popular support all kept open opposition small.
Question
Opposition in Mao's China (Asia)
Answer
Crushed via mass campaigns and terror: the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) using Red Guards against 'enemies'.
Question
Paper 2 region rule for this topic
Answer
You must use two authoritarian states from DIFFERENT IB regions (Europe; Africa & the Middle East; the Americas; Asia & Oceania), e.g. Stalin (Europe) + Mao (Asia).
Question
How to structure a Paper 2 comparison
Answer
Thematically: one paragraph per shared theme (repression, terror/purges, surveillance), comparing both states in each — never two separate stories.
Question
What does 'evaluate' demand in a Paper 2 essay?
Answer
A judgement — weigh how effective/brutal the methods were and keep returning to a thesis, rather than just narrating events.
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Topic 15.2 hub
Consolidation and maintenance of power
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