Key Historical Terms and Concepts: Apartheid to Iron Curtain

Classified in History

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Apartheid

A social system based on racial segregation imposed by the governments of South Africa. The white minority dominated, relegating the black majority, who could not occupy positions in government, vote, or access areas exclusively for whites. It was abolished in 1993.

Bolsheviks

Led by Lenin, the Bolsheviks were those who defended the need to promote a social revolution in Russia.

COMECON

An economic cooperation organization formed around the USSR and the socialist countries, whose purpose was to increase trade relations between member states.

Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DOP)

A form of state posited by Marxism in which the working class is set as dominant and controlling over other social classes, especially the bourgeoisie. It is a transitional stage between capitalism and communism, in which there would be no social classes.

Fordism

A mode of production that Henry Ford introduced in his automobile factory in Detroit in the 1920s. It involves the installation of an assembly line with specialized machinery and a large number of workers with sufficient wages to enable them to become consumers.

Cold War

The Cold War consisted of a model of international relations that developed after the Second World War and was based on a permanent antagonism between the blocs led by the United States and the Soviet Union.

Gulag

A Russian acronym that means Directorate General of Labor Camps, designating the forced labor camps in the Stalinist Soviet regime that recruited dissidents.

Irredentism

A political attitude that calls for the incorporation of a territory into another nation that believes it belongs to.

Non-Aligned Movement

A group of mostly emerging countries after decolonization, which wanted to maintain a neutral position and not ally with any of the superpowers. They wanted to play an active role in international politics, showing their interests as countries that were militarily weak and economically underdeveloped.

Neocolonialism

A term designating the indirect control (cultural, political, and especially economic) that the former colonial powers exert over their ex-colonies or, more broadly, the rich countries of the First World over the poorest of the Third World.

New Deal

The New Deal consisted of a program to promote economic recovery and bring the country out of crisis.

Marshall Plan

A plan to rebuild the European economy driven by the U.S. after the Second World War, which owes its name to the American Secretary of State George Marshall. It consisted of grants and loans to countries that wanted to participate and was essential for Europe's economic recovery.

Weimar Republic

After Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated his position, the Republic was proclaimed. It established its capital in the city of Weimar and settled on a democratic constitution.

Resistance

The name given during World War II to a whole set of underground organizations fighting against Nazi rule in countries occupied by Germany. They engaged in information operations, sabotage, and guerrilla attacks on occupation troops.

Soviet

These were workers', peasants', and soldiers' councils who demanded the Czar's withdrawal from the war and the end of autocracy.

Iron Curtain

A term that, after the Second World War, defined the symbolic border separating the USSR and its communist ideology allied states in the rest of Europe from the capitalist economies allied with the United States.

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