Dictatorship and democracy in the 20th century
Teacher notes
This resource can be used alongside resources How different are democracies and
dictatorships? (search ‘20470’) and Understanding democracy and dictatorship (search
‘20487’)
A PowerPoint (subscribers only) accompanies this resource which allows for easy display
of the tasks.
A starter activity (comparison of pictures) is suggested below but you might want do a
word association game as a warm up first.
Word association game
Working in pairs students have 30 seconds to write down as many words as they can
which relate to the key word. The group with the most words wins!

Practice round: Giraffe!

Real thing:
Round 1: Democracy
Round 2: Dictatorship
Main activity
Students use the information on the cards to colour in the map and annotate it with key
information about the regimes of each country.
Plenary
Discussion around ‘Why is this an important topic for us to study today?’ could pull out
key themes. You could also show a Freedom of the press map
(freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press-2015/press-freedom-maps) to show the
current world view.
© www.teachithistory.co.uk 2016
20471
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Dictatorship and democracy in the 20th century
Task
Study these images. What can you infer about the different political systems of these two countries?
The House of Commons, United Kingdom
A parade in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China.
House of Commons / Credit: PA Archive / Press Association Images / Universal Images Group /
Copyright © Press Association Images / For Education Use Only. This and millions of other
educational images are available through Britannica Image Quest. For a free trial, please
visit www.britannica.co.uk/trial
Surface-to-surface conventional guided missile formation passing by the Tiananmen Rostrum / Credit: Sovfoto/Universal
Images Group / Copyright © Universal Images Group / For Education Use Only. This and millions of other educational
images are available through Britannica Image Quest. For a free trial, please visit www.britannica.co.uk/trial
What can you infer about the different political systems of these two countries?
© www.teachithistory.co.uk 2016
20471
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Dictatorship and democracy in the 20th century
Democracy or dictatorship?

Read through the information about
the different countries on your
cards.

For each card decide whether you
are reading about a DEMOCRACY OR
A DICTATORSHIP.
 Colour code the country on the
map, and make a note of the key
details from your card in the
labelled box.
Spain is currently a democratic country.
This, however, is a relatively recent
development. In 1936 General Francisco
Franco fought a bloody civil war in Spain
against the previous democratically elected
government. With the support of Hitler,
from Germany and Italian dictator Mussolini,
he won. Franco passed very restrictive laws
which limited people’s freedom. For
example, laws were passed which meant
that women could not become judges, go to
university or open a bank account without
her father or husband’s permission.
There is a strong tradition in Canada of
being ruled by a parliament of people who
have various political beliefs. People vote
in regions for a person to put forward their
views in the parliament. The leader of
Canada is known as the Prime Minister (as in
Britain), and in order to get laws passed, he
has to get the members of parliament to
vote in favour of them. Canada’s laws
guarantee that all citizens have their basic
human rights such as freedom of speech
protected.
In 1949 a man called Mao Zedong became
the leader of China following the victory of
his Communist Party. Communists believe in
a more equal society in which wealth is
evenly spread. In practice this needs a very
strong government to enforce. Mao made
many changes to China which led to a lot of
deaths. His plan for a ‘Great Leap Forward’
entailed forcing Chinese people to work in
small groups of farmers called communes.
It was an impractical way to run the
country. Not enough food was grown and
millions of people died. China is still a
communist state today.
Since it became independent from the
British Empire in 1949, India has, in theory
at least, been the world’s largest
democracy. It currently has over one billion
inhabitants, and all those over 18 years old
are allowed to vote. There are many
different political parties for Indian people
to choose from. Some people suggest that
Indian democracy is weakened because the
poverty and lack of education of some
people prevents them from really being able
to take part properly in elections.
Adolf Hitler was democratically elected as
Chancellor of Germany in 1933. However,
he quickly moved to change the way that
Germany was run in order to secure supreme
personal power for himself and his Nazi
party. He used his secret police, the
Gestapo, to intimidate members of other
political parties. He had a firm personal
hatred of Jewish people and therefore sent
millions of Jews from Germany and other
parts of Europe to their deaths in
extermination camps.
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20471
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Dictatorship and democracy in the 20th century
Spain 1936-1975
Germany 1933-1945
th
China 1949...?
Canada in the 20 Century
India 1945 – present
Key
Democracy
Dictatorship
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20471
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