Key Political and Social Terms of the 20th Century
Totalitarianism
A totalitarian political regime exerts strong intervention in all spheres of national life (political, economic, social, educational, family) by concentrating all state powers in the hands of a group or party that does not allow the actions of others.
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is a form of government in which power is concentrated in one individual.
Nazification
Nazification is the process by which all social, economic, political, or cultural aspects accepted and adopted the principles of the Nazi party.
Autarky
Autarky is a concept that refers to the condition of companies, places, or nations that do not require or reject any foreign aid because they are self-sufficient.
Antisemitism
Antisemitism is a movement, attitude, or doctrine against the religion and culture of the Jewish people. The term refers to the behavior of the proponents of discrimination against Jews in general.
Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg is a new kind of war based on surprise and speed of movement of the German army with armored divisions, their tanks combined with aviation to achieve the destruction of the enemy and its infrastructure.
Cold War
The Cold War was an extremely tense international situation in which the two superpowers, the U.S. and the USSR, began an arms race and adopted an attitude of ideological confrontation but never came to a direct armed confrontation.
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was presented by American Secretary George Marshall. It offered assistance in the form of credits and grants to be distributed among the countries that accepted them.
NATO
NATO is a treaty organization based on North Atlantic military cooperation under the direction of Washington.
Neocolonialism
Neocolonialism is a situation in which new capital investment from rich countries conditions the decisions of newly independent governments.
Real Socialism
Real Socialism is a term used to describe the Soviet system and its particular implementation of socialist ideas.
Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain is the name popularized by Churchill at the time which consolidated the division between Western and Eastern blocs.
Self-determination
Self-determination is a proclamation by the UN since 1945 to support the process of decolonization.
Apartheid
Apartheid is a system of racial segregation imposed on the black population by white settlers from 1961 until 1990.
Non-aligned
Non-aligned is a political orientation based on the will to oppose independence and national sovereignty.
Zionism
Zionism is a political theory by T. Herzl (1896), which states that Jews are a people entitled to have their own state, which must be Palestine.
Welfare State
The welfare state is a political proposal or general model of state and social organization, whereby the state provides certain services and social guarantees to all inhabitants of a country.
Consumer Society
A consumer society is a type of society that corresponds with an advanced stage of capitalist industrial development and is characterized by mass consumption of goods and services available through mass production.