Rise of Totalitarians COPY Flashcards
What is a totalitarian government?
A government, usually with one leader, that takes total control of all aspects of public and private life.
What are four methods that dictators use to control their people?
Censorship
Propaganda
Leader Worship
Police State
What is censorship? Why does it work?
Stops any damaging information from being public
People don’t get mad about things they don’t know about.
What is Propaganda?
Biased or false information used to sway people to accept the government’s views
Stress the positives of the government and the negatives of their opponents
What are the propaganda techniques ?
Bandwagon Name-Calling Emotional Words Fear Plain Folks
Describe what a police state is.
Control your country through the use of fear. Used spies, bugging houses, and concentration camps to make people fearful.
Why does police state work to keep people in line.
People are so scared of the secret police, that they never question anything.
What is leader worship?
Replacing organized religion with worship of the dictator
Why is leader worship successful?
People will make sacrifices for religion
The leader gets to be unquestioned no matter what
What kind of government style did Russia have before its revolutions?
Monarchy
What is a czar?
Russian word for king
What were the workers asking for on Bloody Sunday?
Better work hours, conditions, and pay Free Healthcare Parliament and voting rights Freedom of speech, association, press, and religion End of fighting in their war with Japan
Why was Bloody Sunday so damaging to the czar?
Riots broke out nationwide, and Nicholas never regained full control or the trust of his people
In what ways did WWI lead to the end of the Russian monarchy?
Russia lost over 2 million troops, and almost 1 million civilians in the war.
Food was scarce because it was mostly going to the military
People were furious with the government and eventually the Czar had to step down
What were the Russians fighting for in their Civil War?
They were fighting over who would be the new government in Russia
It was a fight between the Red Army (the Communists) and the White Armies (who didn’t want communism)
Explain the slogan of the Bolsheviks?
Peace - Getting out of WWI
Land - Giving land to the peasants
Bread - Providing food to all
Who took over after Lenin died?
Josef Stalin
How did Stalin use censorship to control the public?
He cut people out of pictures, “unpersoned” those who crossed him, and wouldn’t’ let any bad news about his government be printed.
How did Stalin use propaganda to control the public?
He hung posters of how great the Soviet Union was, had songs about himself, wrote all the books, made children’s cartoons, etc.
How did Stalin use leader worship to control the public?
Built statues of himself, had religious songs written about him
How did Stalin use police state to control the public?
Had gulags to throw prisoners in, used secret police,
What was the holodomor?
Stalin’s program of taking food from Ukraine as punishment for rebelling. It killed over 6 million people in less than a year.
How did the Soviet economy (businesses, etc) run on Communist principles?
The government owned and operated all businesses and farms. They also controlled everyone’s labor.
How did the factories operate in the Soviet Union?
The government decided what to make, how it was made, and who worked there.
What issues were there with the factories in the Soviet Union?
In order to meet the quotas, work days were often 16 hours, 7 days a week. Secret police operated the factories and killed anyone who wasn’t work hard enough. Focused mostly on making heavy industry goods, instead of household goods.
What are collective farms?
Massive government owned and operated farms.
What problems did collective farming have?
People didn’t want to work on them, and sabotaged the work. Millions were killed when they resisted work.
What evidence is there that the Soviet industrial and agricultural revolutions were successful?
Iron, coal, and steel production increased. Wheat production doubled.
What were the successes of Stalin as a leader?
He was able to maintain power for decades.
He took a backwards country and turned it into a military and industrial of the United States
What were the failures of Stalin as a leader?
He was responsible for the deaths of millions of his people\Totalitarian life in Germany
What was the Weimar Republic?
Democracy put into place by Treaty of Versailles, enforced by the Allies of WWI. Got rid of Germans monarchy.
Why were Germans mad at the Treaty of Versailles?
Made Germany pay reparations to France, guilt for the war, no more military, lost their lands. made them weak
What is hyperinflation?
Rapid increase in value of money
Why did Germany purposely hyperinflate their economy?
To pay back their reparations
How did US help Germany with hyperinflation?
Loaned Germany A lot of US money to pump into their economy, to stop hyperinflation.
What was the problem with this solution?
Tied Europeans economy to the United States economy
What were the three underlying causes of the Great depression in the US?
Too many people relied on credit to buy goods
Inequality of wealth
The banking system collapsed, taking with it people’s money
How did the Great Depression affect the rest of the world?
When our economy stopped, we stopped loaning money to Germany, which collapsed their economies. They were then unable to pay France and Britain, which collapsed their economies.
How did the US get out of the Great Depression?
All did some form of “Government putting large amounts of money into the economy to jump start it.
We paid people to build schools, plant trees, etc. Eventually, we paid them to build war materials for WW2.
How did the Great Depression affect regular people in Germany?
Lost their jobs, lost their savings in the bank.
How did Hitler use the Great Depression to take power?
He used the fear and anger at the government to convince them he was the only person who could fix it
What are the major beliefs of Fascism?
Based on extreme loyalty to one leader and to the “nation” over the individual
Strong countries are better countries, and need a strong military to conquer lesser countries
Individualism and liberalism enable dangerous decadence and have a negative effect on the group.
A strong sense of community or brotherhood, brought together by the belief they are victims.
What was the reichstag fire?
A fire that at their government building
Who was found guilty of the fire?
A Communists
Who probably started the fire?
Nazis- Hitler
How did the Nazis use the Reichstag Fire to take control of Germany?
Blamed the fire on the communist political party, which allowed them to outlaw the communist party from elections, allowing the nazi party to win the election.
What was the Enabling Act?
Made Hitler a dictator by allowing him to have sole power to pass laws.
How did Hitler use the 4 methods of control?
Propaganda
-Videos, ant-sentism pictures
Censorship
-Book burning
Leader Worship
-Made himself a god figure
Police State
-Sent enemies to concentration camps, secret police.
