Name__________________________________________________________________________________ Period_____
Study Guide – Between the Wars Test
1. After the death of Lenin, which two candidates emerged as favorites for the leadership position?
a. Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky
2. Define collectivization.
a. A system in which private farms are eliminated and peasants work land owned by the government
3. How did Russian farmers react as a result of Stalin’s collectivization?
a. They killed livestock and hoarded crops
4. What was the goal of Stalin’s Five Year economic plans?
a. To set economic goals for a 5 year period. Their purpose was to transform Russia virtually overnight
from an agricultural community to an industrial one.
5. Was he successful? At what cost?
a. Yes. Everything was aimed at making the country a bigger industrial power. Collectivization and the 5
year plans caused many Russians to have their lives changed dramatically. People died from starvation
and from being killed.
6. Describe the Great Purge.
a. Stalin expelled army officers, diplomats, union officials, intellectuals, and ordinary citizens. About 8
million people were sent to labor camps and they never returned. Others were executed.
7. How did living conditions and wages change for factory workers during Stalin’s Five Year Plans?
a. Stalin and the government stopped investing in living space. The result was that millions of workers and
their families lived in miserable conditions. Real wages of industrial workers declined by 43% between
1928 and 1940.
8. Compare and contrast authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships.
a. Totalitarian – The government aims to control the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural
lives of its citizens. Authoritarian - a form of government characterized by strong central power and
limited political freedoms. Individual freedoms are subordinate to the state and there is no
constitutional accountability under an authoritarian regime.
9. Describe fascism.
a. A political philosophy that glorifies the state above the individual by emphasizing the need for a strong
central government led by a dictatorial ruler.
10. Describe how Benito Mussolini assumed power of Italy.
a. Mussolini gained followers by offering something else besides socialism and communism. The fascists
threatened to march on Rome but the king, Victor Emmanuel III gave in and made Mussolini the prime
minister. Eventually he became the only ruler over Italy.
11. What does Il Duce mean?
a. The Leader
12. How did Mussolini expand his power and control after taking office (give 2 examples)?
a. The police were allowed to arrest people that committed political or nonpolitical crimes. The
government controlled newspapers, radio, and film to spread propaganda.
13. Explain how Mussolini and Stalin differ in regard to social life and religion. Give examples. Which was
totalitarian, which was authoritarian?
a. Stalin made atheism the national religion and Mussolini used Fascist youth groups to brain wash future
generations of Italians.
14. Explain how Mussolini and Stalin/Hitler and differed in their responses to opposition political parties? Which
was totalitarian, which was authoritarian?
a. Mussolini –
b.
15. Describe Hitler’s early life? How might it affected his political views?
a. It was full of failure. He had many issues with his family and little to no success with anything. He moved
to Vienna to get work but he struggled to do so. While in Vienna, he found himself captivated and
influenced by people that spread ideas and propaganda against Jews.
16. What was the name of the book that Hitler wrote while in prison?
a. Mein Kampf
17. Describe how Hitler failed, and then succeeded to take control of Germany.
a. His first attempt to gain power, Beer Hall Putsch, failed and Hitler was jailed. He wrote Mein Kampf
while in jail. After he was released, Hitler gained momentum and the Nazi party started to gain more
and more power in Germany.
18. Define Anti-Semitism.
a. hostility to or prejudice against Jews
19. Define Lebensraum and describe how it related to the Aryan race?
a. Lebensraum is defined as living space through expansion. Hitler believed that it allowed superior
individuals to gain authoritarian leadership over the masses.
20. Define ultra-nationalism.
a. extreme nationalism that promotes the interest of one state or people above all others.
21. How did Hitler plan to spark the German economy?
a. By rebuilding the military (rearming)
22. Describe the importance of the Enabling Act (be sure to known when it was passed).
a. Passed March 23, 1933. Passed by the Reichstag to give Hitler a legal seizure of power. Hitler could now
make decisions for Germany without the constitution or anyone else for four years.
23. What was the significance of the Nuremburg rallies? When were they held? How often?
a. Held September 1935 and these rallies were held annually. These laws defined who was considered a
Jew. They also stripped Jews of their citizenship and civil rights.
24. What was the SS and what was their goal? Who was Heinrich Himmler?
a. Schutzstaffeln or Guard Squadrons. Their two main goals were to terrorize and to spread Nazi Ideology.
Himmler was the leader of the SS.
25. What was Kristallnacht and when did occur?
a. The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by
Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. Night of Broken Glass, Nazis burned
synagogues and destroyed over 7000 Jewish businesses. 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to
concentration camps. November 9, 1938.
26. What restrictions were placed on the Jews between 1935 and 1938?
a. Jews had to wear the yellow Star of David and carry identification cards with them at all times. They
were also prohibited from owning, managing or working in retail stores. Jews were also banned from
public transportation and public buildings.
27. Describe the Treaty of Locarno.
a. This guaranteed Germany’s new western borders with France and Belgium.
28. Define economic depression.
a. a depression is a sustained, long-term downturn in economic activity in one or more economies.
29. Explain why France occupied the Ruhr Valley?
a. a period of military occupation of the German Ruhr valley by France and Belgium between 1923 and
1925 in response to the Weimar Republic's failure to continue its reparation payments in the aftermath
of World War I. The valley was rich in coal and other minerals.
30. List two factors that played a role in causing the Great Depression.
a. The American stock market crashed and a series of downturns in the economies of individual nations.
31. Compare how the governments of Germany, France, and Great Britain responded to economic crisis.
a. Germany – Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took power
b. France – Although a democratic society, they had elements of socialism and communism
c. Great Britain – Used a policy of deficit spending to keep their economy going
32. Describe Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal? How did it benefit the United States?
a. Elected FDR, he created a New Deal that increased public works programs, began a social welfare
system, and started the Social Security Act. All of these programs helped to prevent the people to revolt
against the government.