Authoritarian States

Question 1

Economic Factors (Hitler) (4)

Answer 1

1. Prior to the Wall Street Crash, the Nazi Party only won 12 seats in the 1928 elections despite extensive changes to their organisation yet in 1930 they won 120 and then in 1932 they won 230 (largest party)
2. Great Depression: 6 million unemployed, ⅓ no regular wages
3. Ian Kershaw: Hitler required a “crisis of the state”
4. The Treaty of Versailles demanded 6.6 billion in war guilt and 13.5% of territory

Question 2

Economic Factors (Castro) (3)

Answer 2

1. 1901 Platt Amendment – US stranglehold over Cuban economy (90% of telephone, electricity, most banks and all of its oil were US owned, US mafia dominated Havana) US companies also owned 40% of sugar refineries and 60% of sugar harvest
2. By 1956, ⅓ of Cubans were not in full time work
3. Castro’s Five Revolutionary Laws promised a minimum wage for sugar cutters and a share of 55% of its profits which was especially appealing since price of sugar had declined between 1957-58 and 17% unemployed

Question 3

Leadership/Personality/Ideology (5)

Hitler

Answer 3

1. Hitler was an impressive orator e.g Trial for the Munich Putsch (Treason - 5 years - 9 months)
2. He was also extremely determined and committed e.g he visited 21 towns in a week by plane
3. Allan Bullock: “display of energy”
4. Establishment of gauches, SS, propaganda (People’s Observer, Mein Kampf, Lebensraum, ubermensch)
   Feb 1933 Reichstag fire - innovative? emergency decree to arrest political opponents and pass the Enabling Act - Kroll theatre, open vote; Loyal Brownshirts - beat up opposition (persuasion and coercion)
5. Ideology was very appealing and exploited social division - Article 231/ War Guilt Clause, anti-Semitism, lebensraum, superiority of the german race, aryan, stabbed in back, Mein Kampf

Question 4

Leadership/Personality/Ideology (6)

Castro

Answer 4

1. 1953 Moncada Barracks Attack was heroic although ½ of 165 died and failed
2. “History will Absolve Me” speech outlined his 5 revolutionary laws which appealed to the people: return to 1940 constitution, land rights, 30% profits for industrial workers, 55% share of profits for sugar planters. This made Castro’s ideal appealing e.g size of guerilla army grew from the 20 survivors of the Granma landing to 5,000 (1956-58)
3. Influence of Jose Marti and belief in cubiana
4. Use of Herbert Matthews, Radio Rebelde 1958 - general strike
5. Pact of Caracas 1958 and Expertise of Raul Castro and Che Guevara
6. Saney: working class was “critical” to its success

Question 5

Weakness of Opposition (4)

Hitler

Answer 5

1. Weimar Government caused hyperinflation in 1923 - During the fourteen years of the Weimar Republic, there were twenty separate coalition
2. System of proportional government allowed Hitler to gain a foothold in German politics and paralyze the Reichstag leading to his appointment as Chancellor
3. Article 48 meant already effectively a dictatorship
4. He is underestimated by Hindenburg, von Papen and von Schleicher

Question 6

Weakness of Opposition (5)

Castro

Answer 6

1. US reduced support to Batista by implementing an arms embargo in 1958
2. Bethell: “most effective step”
3. Decision to not initially pursue Castro and his followers into the mountains of Sierra Maestra
4. Failure of the Liquidation Campaign 1958 against Guerrilla tactics (2/3 raw recruits, 30 out of 80 El Cerro)
5. Use of increased repression further alienated public from Batista’s regime

Question 7

Use of Force/ Treatment of Opposition (5)

Hitler

Answer 7

1. Night of the Long Knives 1934: over 200 SA members and opponents were killed
2. Emergency Powers used to arrest over 300,000 Communists, 30,000 killed
3. Concentration Camps: 1933-39 (225,000) 5,000 officials executed
4. In control of judges and courts, Heinrich Himmler and the SS, block wardens, Laurence Rees: Gestapo dependent on citizens informing (80% arrests)
5. Brutal executions of Swing Movement, White Rose Group and Edelweiss

Question 8

Use of Force/ Treatment of Opposition (4)

Castro

Answer 8

1. Use of emigration and exile, e,g between 1959 and 61, at least 40,000 emigrants left Cuba.
2. Leslie Bethell: This use of forced exile contributed to a “brain drain” but enabled potential leaders of opposition to be “exported.”
3. Opposition leaders were sent to UMAP camps to do forced labour. Of the 35,000 internees, 507 ended up in psychiatric wards, 72 died from torture, and 180 committed suicide. Eventually closed in 1965 due to international condemnation
4. Cuban Civil War 1960 - 66. Opponents publically trialled and then executed over firing squad. Ochoa Affair 1989. Similarly brutal response.

Question 9

Use of Propaganda (6)

Hitler

Answer 9

1. Goebbels as minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. By 1939 ⅔ of press owned by Nazis
2. Radio had limited range and was cheap, 25% to 70% of German households owned one from 1932-39
3. Extensive rallies, Films e.g “The Victory of Faith” 1933.
4. Mein Kampf sold 5.2 million copies by 1939 - It was given free to every newlywed couple and every soldier fighting at the front
5. Götz Ally concluded that Hitler did not maintain power by violence, but instead headed a regime supported by popular acclaim.
6. Evans: young people in particular were influenced by propaganda

Question 10

Use of Propaganda (5)

Castro

Answer 10

1. Committees for the Defense of The Revolution have a membership of 8 million (2008). Monitor others but also help people identify with the revolution
2. Castro was able to generate huge support after the Bay of Pigs Invasion which increased nationalism and pride. 3,500 counter revolutionaries were detained in Havana
3. Counter Petition to the Varela project 11,000 signatures had 8 million although 75 members were later arrested
4. Radio Rebelde, Castroism,
5. Balfour: he embodied the struggle

Question 11

Legal Methods     (3)
(Hitler)

Answer 11

1. Law Against the Establishment of Parties July 1933
   Restoration of the Professional Civil Service April 1933 Law to ensure the unity of the party and the State
2. National Socialist Teachers League, 97% by 1939, Abolishment of left wing unions
3. Parallel institutions set up; Bracher - deliberate in order to ensure competition between others and so retain ultimate control; Martin Broszat - result of his neglect and disinterest.

Question 12

Legal Methods    (4)
(Castro)

Answer 12

1. System of dual power set up in 1959 to remove unwanted liberals from positions of power
2. In Jan 1959, the Office for Revolutionary Plans and Coordination was formed to mimic the cabinet of Urrutia’s government. This led to Castro becoming Prime Minister in February and in May 1959, IRNA - institute for agrarian reform - was set up to replace the government.
3. In July Urrutia was force to resign and replaced by Dorticos who was more sympathetic to the Communists
4. However by 1972 Castro was so reliant on the Soviet Union that he had to expand his Cabinet, diminishing his power, although he obtain a $100 million in credits for industrial reform

Question 13

Successful Economic Policies (3)

Hitler

Answer 13

1. The Reich Food Estate was established in 1933 which provide farmers with increased financial security by guaranteeing prices. All peasant’s debts (12 billion reichsmarks) were suspended. By 1937, agricultural prices had increased by 20 per cent.
2. Dr Hjalmar Schacht: emergency relief schemes, recruitment to RAD, discouragement of female labour, mefo bills and deficit financing, seizure of german properties (77.6% of Austrian Jewish shops),
3. Unemployment to 1.6 million by 1936 and below 200,000 by 1939

Question 14

Successful Economic Policies (5)

Mao

Answer 14

1. First Five Year Plan (1953-57): Inspired by the Soviet model and was financially supported by the USSR through a loan of approximately $300 million in addition to thousands of professionals and technicians.
2. The plan aimed to double industrial output and was a great success: steel production grew from 1.3 million tonnes (1952) to 5.2 million tonnes (1957)
3. Urban workers received a 40% better income and the average life expectancy for industrial workers increased from 36 to 57 years.
4. Some opposition by rural workers who were struggling to feed the growing industrial population and resorted to attacking government officials who had been ordered to seize their livestock but ultimately minimal
5. Marc Blecher “The First Five Year Plan produced results that were impressive enough to sustain the Chinese leaders’ dreams… yet agriculture could not grow at this pace.”

Question 15

Unsuccessful Economic Policies (4)

Hitler

Answer 15

1. Overambitious - main aim was to produce a defense economy for war and rearmament put a serious strain on the economy leading to an increase in wage prices
2. The four year plan led by Hermann Goering: autarky, development of chemical and steel industry yet failed. Also by the start of the war Germany was still importing 20 per cent of its food and 33 per cent of its raw materials.
3. Tim Marson: German economy had reached a crisis point in 1938, driving Germany to war
4. Albert Speer despite some success - overall armament production rose 50% and peak production of planes in 1944 - but not enough to win the war

Question 16

Unsuccessful Economic Policies (5)

Mao

Answer 16

1. The Great Leap Forward (1958-62) was a humanitarian and economic disaster
   Mao had intended for the Great Leap Forward to rapidly transform China into an industrialised economic power through a process of mass collectivisation. 70,000 communes were set up as private farming was outlawed
2. 90 million peasants were also commissioned to become involved in small scale backyard steel projects.
3. Historian Frank Dikotter: the 600,000 backyard furnaces made China look like it had been “dipped into a sea of fire.”
4. It was a huge failure due to a general lack of expertise which led to poor harvests, up to 70 million died from the resulting famines, and ineffective steel, barely 1% was usable and the rest was abandoned as “slag.”
5. Phillip Short “ended in an apocalyptic failure.”

Question 17

Use of Propaganda (6)

Mao

Answer 17

1. Mao was painted as ‘saviour of the nation’
2. ‘The Little Red Book’ sold 750 million in 4 years and everyone carried one. Readings from it settled every dispute and preceded every organized public event.
3. All news was controlled by the CCP and journalists/editors had to go through re-education.
4. Swim down Yangtze River in July 1966 was a propaganda exercise.
5. The August Rally, 1966: Tiananmen Square in Beijing filled w/ 1 mil. young people → shouted w/ joy when Mao came. Destruction of ‘four olds’ .
6. Frank Dikotter: “By the end of 1952 virtually every student or teacher was a loyal servant of the state.” Undermined by Taiwan.

Question 18

Policies Towards Women (4)

Hitler

Answer 18

1. Encouraged to adopt a traditional housewife role: birth control centres closed, abortion illegal unless necessary, maternity benefits increased,
2. Lebensborn project, Mother Cross, fitness to marry certificate (1935), unproductive marriages could be ended (1938)
   3.Law for Reduction of Employment yet Labour shortage required for female mobilization in 1942
3. No makeup, dress conservatively, no trousers
   Marriage loans
4. Feminist historian Gisela Bock : women were the main targets of racism in the pre-war years of the Third Reich. e.g Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring 1933. (32,000)

Question 19

Policies Towards Women (9)

Castro

Answer 19

1. Easier divorce, free abortions and subsidised family planning
2. The proportion of women in the labour doubled from 1950 to 1980 to 1990 (13% - 30% - 40%)
3. Cuban women guaranteed equal pay and Women’s Commision on Employment monitors discrimination
   However highest paid jobs are restricted to men as deemed too dangerous and so salaries 15% behind in public sector
4. Bethell: not fundamentally the result of government policy but modernisation
5. Cuba has highest rates of school enrolment of young girls, 60% of uni students and 47% teachers = female
6. Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) set up in 1960 vital in equalising domestic work (36 hrs to 10 hrs), 85% of women are members
7. Mid 1980s only 19% of PCC members were women but by 2003 30%
8. Smith: “Women participated very little in the making of policies”
9. Saney: Cuba ranks favourably with other nations in terms of equality

Question 20

Policies Towards Minorities (6)

Hitler

Answer 20

1. Nuremberg laws forbade marriage between aryan and non-aryan races.
2. Kristallnacht 1938 - 91 murdered, 20,000 sent to concentration camps
3. Final Solution: 6 million Jews killed
4. Law against dangerous habitual criminals, 1933 - hundreds of thousands of tramps sent to concentration camps or compulsory sterilized
5. Evans: violence “widespread” and spread to whole population
6. 350,000 people were sterilized and Nazis aimed to devalue the disabled through propaganda. Euthanasia programme killed 5,000 children by 1934 and 72,000 people by 1941. Stopped only by outburst of public.

Question 21

Policies Towards Minorities (3)

Castro

Answer 21

1. March 1959 - Proclamation Against Discrimination speech - led to repealing of pre-1959 race laws although closed down black only societies
   1979 only 5 of 34 ministers were black but later declared a priority
2. Same-sex relations were viewed as “bourgeois decadence” and gay men were sent to UMAPs although attitude changed in 1975 with Supreme Court Ruling and formation of CNES which works to educate
   In 1979, no longer a criminal offense but gay organisations still banned
3. Carlos Moore: Castro’s “icy silence” in relation to the plight of Black Cuba

Question 22

Policies regarding Education and Healthcare (6)

Hitler

Answer 22

1. Hitler Youth took over all Catholic organisations and became compulsory. Aimed to train boys to be soldiers and girls to be mothers.
2. All teachers had to join the Nazi Teachers’ Association. By 1939, 97% of teachers belonged to it.
3. Fitness was vital so children had at least five one-hour sessions of physical education (PE) every week, often for two hours per day. E
4. Boys mostly studied history, eugenics and PE. Boxing was compulsory. Girls primarily studied home economics, eugenics and PE.
5. Boys with potential to be future leaders were sent to special Adolf Hitler Schools (Adolf-Hitler-Schulen or AHS in German).
6. National healthcare and unemployment insurance established as well as education standard

Question 23

Policies regarding Education and Healthcare (4)

Castro

Answer 23

1. Free health care - in 1958 only 8% had access, after 1959 100%. Infant mortality reduced
2. Year of Education 1961 - all private and Church schools were taken over, over 100,000 volunteer student teachers were recruited into brigades which taught over a million to read and write
3. 3,000 schools built and 300,000 children attended school for the first time (1960: 14% attended secondary school, 1990: 90%)
4. Highest literacy rates in the world. 1960: 77%, 1961: 96%

Question 24

Foreign Policy    (8)
(Hitler)

Answer 24

1. 1933 - Hitler stops paying reparations and leaves league of nations without consequences. He begins rearming
2. 1934 - 10 year non aggression pact with Poland
3. 1935 - Conscription enforced and expansion the armed forces
4. 1936 - Nazi’s send transport planes to Morocco to aid Franco in Spain. German Condor Legion also involved in bombing runs such as Guernica. The Rhineland is also remilitarized (22,000 troops march in) - Popular as contradicted TOV
5. 1938 - Hitler is able to force the Austrian P.M to resign and forms and Anschluss. He also takes over the Sudetenland
6. 1939 - Czechoslovakia is invaded and Hitler form the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact
7. 1939 Sep- Germany invades Poland, Britain and France declare war
8. A.J.P Taylor: Hitler wanted an Empire but didn’t necessarily want to start war to achieve it

Question 25

Foreign Policy

Castro

Answer 25

1. After land reform in 1959, Eisenhower broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba and established a trade embargo
2. Tensions heightened after the Bay of Pigs invasion which pushed Castro into a Soviet alliance
3. Encouraged small scare operations against Trujillo and Somoza as well as in Peru, Venezuela and Argentina. (1,500 trained in Cuba between 1961-64)
4. 250,000 Cubans served in Angola between 1975-91 and helped the MPLA to defeat a South African invasion. Also sent 17,000 troops to help Ethiopia defeat Somalia
5. Piero Gleijeses “Cuba’s role in the world is without precedent … second only to the USA.”
6. Kapacia: “source of pride for Cubans to serve on internationalist duty”