Consolidation and maintenance of power
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What does "consolidation of power" mean?
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All Flashcards in Topic 15.2
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15.2.112 cards
What does "consolidation of power" mean?
Turning a fragile initial grip on power into secure, lasting control by removing rivals and dominating the state.
Name the four pillars authoritarian leaders used to maintain power (LFCP).
Legal methods, Force/terror, Cult of personality (charisma), and Propaganda/censorship.
What did the Reichstag Fire Decree (Feb 1933) do?
It suspended civil rights in Germany, allowing the Nazis to arrest opponents - an early legal tool of consolidation.
What was the significance of the Enabling Act (March 1933)?
It let Hitler make laws without the Reichstag, giving dictatorship a legal cover and creating a one-party state.
What is a cult of personality?
The deliberate glorification of a leader as a near-superhuman, infallible saviour of the nation.
Give the secret police for Germany and for the USSR.
Germany: the Gestapo. USSR: the NKVD. Both used fear, arrest and elimination of opponents.
What was Stalin's Great Purge (1936-38)?
A campaign of show trials and mass executions of party members, army officers and citizens that terrorised the USSR into obedience.
What was Goebbels' role in Nazi Germany?
As head of the Ministry of Propaganda, he controlled the press, radio, film and rallies to shape public opinion.
What is socialist realism?
The enforced Soviet art style requiring artists to glorify the workers and the state; a form of cultural censorship and propaganda.
How did the cult of Mao show in China?
Mao was glorified as an infallible leader, peaking in the Cultural Revolution (from 1966) with the mass-distributed Little Red Book.
Methods that COMPEL vs methods that PERSUADE - give the difference.
Compel = force/terror (secret police, purges, camps) creating obedience through fear. Persuade = propaganda and the cult creating genuine support and legitimacy.
Why must Paper 2 examples come from different regions?
The topic requires two authoritarian states, each from a different IB region. Hitler (Europe) + Mao (Asia) is valid; Hitler + Stalin (both Europe) is not.
15.2.212 cards
Active vs passive opposition
Active = organised resistance (plots, leaflets, sabotage). Passive = private dissent (grumbling, not joining in). Active was rarer because more dangerous.
What is a show trial?
A public trial with the verdict fixed in advance, staged for propaganda to justify destroying opponents (e.g. the Moscow Trials, USSR, 1936-38).
What was the Gulag?
The Soviet network of forced-labour concentration camps for prisoners and 'enemies of the people'.
What was a purge?
Removing 'unreliable' people from the party, army or society — by expulsion, imprisonment or execution.
Night of the Long Knives
Germany, 30 June 1934 — Hitler had SA leaders and rivals murdered to remove internal threats to his power.
Stalin's Great Terror
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.
Secret police: Germany vs USSR
Germany = the Gestapo. USSR = the NKVD. Both used surveillance and informers to detect opposition early.
Why was opposition often weak/ineffective?
Fear and terror, propaganda, a divided opposition, early detection by surveillance, and some genuine popular support all kept open opposition small.
Opposition in Mao's China (Asia)
Crushed via mass campaigns and terror: the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) using Red Guards against 'enemies'.
Paper 2 region rule for this topic
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).
How to structure a Paper 2 comparison
Thematically: one paragraph per shared theme (repression, terror/purges, surveillance), comparing both states in each — never two separate stories.
What does 'evaluate' demand in a Paper 2 essay?
A judgement — weigh how effective/brutal the methods were and keep returning to a thesis, rather than just narrating events.
Topic 15.2 study notes
Full notes & explanations for Consolidation and maintenance of power
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