Authoritarian states (20th century) practice questions.

Which two policies introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s aimed to reform the Soviet Union?

• Glasnost (openness) and perestroika
• Collectivisation and the Five-Year Plans
• Containment and rollback
• Blitzkrieg and lebensraum

Answer: Glasnost (openness) and perestroika

Gorbachev, Soviet leader from 1985, introduced glasnost (openness/transparency) and perestroika (economic and political restructuring). These reforms unintentionally accelerated the collapse of the USSR by 1991.

A 'cult of personality' refers to

• a leader's private religious beliefs
• an idealised image of a leader
• a secret police organisation
• a plan for rapid industrialisation

Answer: an idealised image of a leader

Cults of personality present the leader as indispensable and near-infallible, reinforcing loyalty and discouraging dissent.

Authoritarian leaders in the twentieth century came to power

• only through violent revolution
• only through free democratic elections
• by appointment, coercion or crises
• solely by inheriting a throne

Answer: by appointment, coercion or crises

Routes to power varied; some combined legal or constitutional means with intimidation and the exploitation of instability.

How did Mussolini formally come to power in October 1922?

• Appointed Prime Minister by King Victor Emmanuel III
• Installed as dictator by an occupying German army
• Elected with an outright parliamentary majority in 1921
• Seized the capital in an armed workers' uprising

Answer: Appointed Prime Minister by King Victor Emmanuel III

The March on Rome was a bluff that succeeded because the King refused to declare martial law; Mussolini was legally appointed, then dismantled democracy afterwards. Legal appointment before consolidation is a pattern he shares with Hitler in 1933.

In the Nazi consolidation of power, the Reichstag Fire of February 1933 is best understood as

• the pretext for a decree suspending civil liberties
• the long-term cause of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor
• the event that first made Hitler leader of his party
• the final act that formally abolished the Weimar state

Answer: the pretext for a decree suspending civil liberties

The fire came a month after Hitler was already Chancellor and gave him the excuse for the Reichstag Fire Decree. Treating it as the cause of his appointment reverses the chronology.

What was the primary aim of Stalin's Five-Year Plans launched from 1928?

• Rapid state-directed industrialisation of the economy
• A return to small-scale private peasant farming
• Encouraging large-scale investment by Western firms
• Reducing the authority of the central planners

Answer: Rapid state-directed industrialisation of the economy

The plans set centrally imposed targets to industrialise the USSR at speed, especially in heavy industry. They were the opposite of private farming, which collectivisation was destroying at the same time.