From the May 2025 IBDP History Paper 2 Examination
From an actual example from an exam- this student was actually awarded 6/15 for this by the IBO, making a mockery of what I expect from my students in a two-year course!
Example 1:
The emergence of twentieth-century authoritarian states was a complex phenomenon, rooted in a confluence of socio-economic, political, and ideological factors. Amongst these, the significance of pre-existing social divisions as a catalyst warrants particular scrutiny. Deep societal fissures, whether based on class, ethnicity, religion, or regional disparities, often created environments of profound instability and widespread discontent, which aspiring authoritarian leaders and movements could adeptly exploit. By magnifying these divisions, scapegoating specific groups, and promising a new, often illusory, form of national unity or social justice through radical means, such movements could garner support and dismantle fragile democratic or traditional structures. This essay will contend that social division constituted a profoundly significant, and often the most crucial, underlying factor in the rise of authoritarianism in two disparate twentieth-century states: Nazi Germany and Maoist China. While economic crises, political failures, and the agency of individual leaders were instrumental in the immediate seizure of power, it was the deep-seated social schisms within these societies that provided the fertile ground upon which authoritarian ideologies took root and ultimately flourished, shaping the specific character of the ensuing regimes.
The ascent of the Nazi Party in Germany was intrinsically linked to its ability to exploit and deepen the manifold social divisions that plagued the Weimar Republic. German society in the aftermath of the First World War was profoundly fractured. The experience of defeat and the widely believed 'stab-in-the-back' myth – the notion that Germany had not been defeated militarily but betrayed by internal enemies, primarily Jews, socialists, and pacifists – created a poisonous atmosphere of recrimination and delegitimised the nascent democratic republic from its inception. This narrative deliberately inflamed existing antisemitism, a pernicious undercurrent in German and European society that the Nazis would later elevate to a central tenet of their ideology. Class divisions also remained acute; the powerful industrial elites and traditional Junker landowners often viewed the Weimar Republic with suspicion, fearing the rise of communism and lamenting the loss of imperial prestige, while a large urban working class, politically organised under the Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD), sought greater social and economic reforms. The Mittelstand, or lower middle class, comprising small business owners, artisans, and white-collar workers, felt squeezed between big capital and organised labour, their economic anxieties heightened by the hyperinflation of 1923 and later, catastrophically, by the Great Depression from 1929. This group proved particularly susceptible to Nazi propaganda that promised to restore their status and protect them from the perceived threats of both Marxism and international finance capitalism, often conflated with Jewish influence. Regional disparities, such as those between the more industrialised Protestant north and the more agrarian Catholic south, particularly Bavaria, also contributed to a fragmented political landscape, with parties like the Bavarian People's Party reflecting these specific interests. The Treaty of Versailles, with its territorial losses, war guilt clause, and reparation demands, was a constant source of national humiliation, a wound that festered and was relentlessly prodded by nationalist groups, including the Nazis, who used it to further divide society between those who accepted the post-war order and those who sought its violent overthrow. Nazi propaganda, masterminded by Joseph Goebbels, skilfully targeted these diverse grievances, tailoring its messages to appeal to different segments of the population while consistently identifying common enemies. For instance, Jews were portrayed as both capitalist exploiters and Bolshevik conspirators, a contradictory but emotionally potent image. Communists and socialists were depicted as unpatriotic agents of foreign powers, responsible for Germany's weakness. The promise of creating a racially pure and harmonious Volksgemeinschaft, or people's community, appealed to a longing for unity and belonging in a society deeply scarred by division and perceived decline, even though this unity was predicated on the brutal exclusion and persecution of those deemed 'non-Aryan' or 'community aliens'. Evans highlights how the Nazis offered a potent, albeit destructive, vision of national renewal that resonated with many Germans disillusioned by the Weimar Republic’s perceived failures and internal strife. He details the specific social constituencies that gravitated towards Nazism, noting the party’s disproportionate success among Protestant, rural, and lower-middle-class voters, particularly after 1929, when the economic crisis amplified pre-existing social anxieties to an unbearable degree. The unemployment figures, soaring from 1.3 million in September 1929 to over 6 million by early 1932, created a desperate populace more receptive to radical solutions. The Nazis offered simple explanations for complex problems, channelling widespread anger and fear against identifiable scapegoats.
The actual mechanism through which these social divisions facilitated the Nazi seizure and consolidation of power was multifaceted. The chronic instability of Weimar's political system, characterised by a highly proportional electoral system that encouraged a multiplicity of parties and made coalition governments fragile and short-lived, was itself a reflection of Germany's deep social and ideological fragmentation. No single party could command a stable majority, and the chasm between parties like the SPD and KPD on the left, and the conservative DNVP and the emerging Nazis on the right, made broad-based governing coalitions increasingly impossible. This political paralysis, exacerbated by the Great Depression, led to an increasing reliance on presidential emergency decrees under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, eroding democratic norms long before Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in January 1933. Kershaw emphasises the critical role of conservative elites, such as Franz von Papen and elements within the military and big business, who, fearing a communist takeover and underestimating Hitler, ultimately manoeuvred him into power, believing they could control him. Their decision was partly rooted in their own alienation from the Weimar democratic process and their desire to see a more authoritarian, nationalist government that would suppress the left and revise Versailles; these elites represented a powerful segment of society deeply divided from the republican consensus. The Nazi Party's electoral successes, while never achieving an outright majority in free elections (peaking at 37.3% in July 1932), demonstrated its ability to mobilise a significant cross-section of disaffected voters, particularly from the Protestant middle and rural classes, who felt their social status and economic well-being were under existential threat. The failure of the left-wing parties, the SPD and KPD, to form a united front against fascism, itself a product of their own deep ideological divisions and mutual distrust stemming from the violent suppression of the Spartacist uprising in 1919, critically weakened the opposition to Nazism. The KPD, under Comintern directives, often viewed the SPD as 'social fascists' and a primary enemy, fatally misjudging the Nazi threat. Furthermore, the Nazis' strategic use of violence and intimidation by the Sturmabteilung (SA), their paramilitary wing, played a crucial role in polarising society and silencing opponents. Street battles with communists and social democrats, the disruption of political meetings, and attacks on Jewish businesses created an atmosphere of crisis and disorder that the Nazis then promised to resolve through strong leadership. This projection of strength and decisiveness appealed to those yearning for order amidst chaos. Once in power, the Nazis moved rapidly to eliminate all sources of opposition and enforce their vision of a unified, racially defined nation. The Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of March 1933 effectively dismantled civil liberties and parliamentary democracy, allowing the regime to persecute political opponents – communists and socialists were among the first to be arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps like Dachau, established in March 1933. Trade unions were abolished and replaced by the German Labour Front. All other political parties were either banned or dissolved themselves by July 1933. The Gleichschaltung, or 'coordination', brought all aspects of German society under Nazi control, from youth groups (Hitler Youth) to professional organisations. The systematic persecution of Jews, beginning with boycotts and discriminatory laws like the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and culminating in the Holocaust, was the most extreme manifestation of how the Nazis exploited and weaponised pre-existing social divisions to consolidate their totalitarian rule and forge their exclusionary Volksgemeinschaft. Social divisions, therefore, were not merely a background feature but the very fault lines along which the Weimar Republic fractured and upon which the Nazi state was constructed. The economic devastation of the Depression acted as an immense accelerant, but it was the underlying societal fragmentation, carefully manipulated by a ruthless political movement, that proved fatal to German democracy.
In a different regional context, the rise of the Communist Party of China (CCP) under Mao Zedong and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 were also profoundly shaped by the exploitation of deep-seated social divisions. Early twentieth-century China was a society marked by vast inequalities and profound social dislocations. The most significant of these was the chasm between a numerically small but powerful landlord class and an enormous impoverished peasantry, comprising perhaps 80% of the population. For centuries, peasants had faced exploitation through high rents, usurious loans, and arbitrary taxation, leading to endemic poverty and recurrent famines. Land distribution was highly unequal; in many areas, a small percentage of families owned the majority of arable land, while millions were landless tenants or owned plots too small to sustain a family. This agrarian crisis was exacerbated by a rapidly growing population and limited technological advancement in agriculture. The collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, and the subsequent failure of the nascent republic under figures like Sun Yat-sen and later Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT), led to decades of political instability and the Warlord Era (roughly 1916-1928). Warlords, ruling over shifting regional fiefdoms, imposed ruinous taxes, conscripted peasants into their armies, and engaged in destructive internecine warfare, further devastating the countryside and deepening the misery of the rural population. This period witnessed a breakdown of central authority and social cohesion, creating a power vacuum that both the KMT and the CCP sought to fill. Another critical social division was the growing gulf between the modernising, often Western-influenced coastal cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, and the vast, traditional, and impoverished rural hinterland. While new industries and a nascent urban proletariat were emerging in the cities, along with a bourgeoisie and an intelligentsia exposed to foreign ideas, the countryside remained largely untouched by these developments, mired in ancient patterns of life and suffering. Foreign imperialism also carved deep scars and divisions within Chinese society. The "century of humiliation," beginning with the Opium Wars, saw foreign powers impose unequal treaties, extract concessions, and dominate key sectors of the Chinese economy. This engendered widespread anti-foreign sentiment and a powerful surge of nationalism, but it also created collaborators and compradors who benefited from foreign presence, thus dividing loyalties. The CCP, from its founding in 1921, and particularly under Mao's evolving leadership, recognised the revolutionary potential inherent in these social divisions, especially the agrarian crisis. Mao’s 1927 "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" famously identified the peasantry as the main force of the Chinese revolution, a departure from orthodox Marxist emphasis on the urban proletariat. Spence details how the CCP, particularly after its violent suppression by the KMT in 1927, shifted its focus to rural base areas, meticulously cultivating peasant support through promises of land reform, rent reduction, and the abolition of feudal practices. Their strategy involved mobilising the poorest peasants against landlords and local gentry, often through "speak bitterness" sessions where peasants publicly aired their grievances, thereby heightening class consciousness and channelling resentment into revolutionary action. The CCP's ability to tap into this vast reservoir of rural discontent, framing the struggle in stark terms of class warfare – peasants versus oppressive landlords, the nation versus imperialists and their KMT "running dogs" – was fundamental to its eventual success.
The process by which these social divisions facilitated the CCP's rise to power was protracted and intimately linked with periods of intense conflict. The Long March (1934-1935), though a strategic retreat forced by KMT encirclement campaigns, became a foundational myth for the CCP. During this arduous journey, the CCP under Mao consolidated its leadership and further refined its techniques of peasant mobilisation and guerrilla warfare, often implementing land reform in areas they temporarily controlled, thus winning local support and recruits. The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and the subsequent eight-year Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) were pivotal. This national crisis dramatically intensified social suffering across China, but it also provided the CCP with an unprecedented opportunity to expand its influence. While the KMT government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, bore the brunt of conventional warfare against the Japanese and was forced to retreat inland to Chongqing, its governance was often characterised by corruption, inefficiency, hyperinflation that devastated urban populations, and brutal conscription policies that alienated the peasantry. In contrast, the CCP, operating primarily in rural areas behind enemy lines in North China, presented itself as a more effective and patriotic resistance force. They organised peasant militias, waged guerrilla warfare against the Japanese, and implemented moderate land and social reforms in their base areas, such as rent and interest reduction, which broadened their appeal beyond the poorest peasants to include some middle peasants and even sympathetic landlords. Fenby argues that the KMT’s inability to address the deep-seated rural problems, its internal corruption, and its failure to effectively lead the national resistance against Japan, fatally undermined its legitimacy and played directly into the hands of the CCP. The social divisions, particularly the plight of the peasantry, were issues the KMT largely failed to resolve, focusing instead on military consolidation and urban elites. By the end of the war in 1945, the CCP had significantly expanded its military forces and controlled territory with a population of nearly 100 million. The ensuing Civil War (1945-1949) saw the CCP strategically exploit the KMT's weaknesses and the profound social cleavages. The CCP’s promises of "land to the tiller" resonated powerfully with the peasantry, who formed the backbone of the People's Liberation Army. KMT soldiers, often poorly paid, ill-treated conscripts with low morale, deserted in large numbers. Hyperinflation under KMT rule destroyed the savings and livelihoods of the urban middle classes and intellectuals, many of whom became disillusioned with Chiang's regime and either supported the CCP or remained neutral. The CCP's disciplined cadres and effective propaganda contrasted sharply with the KMT's perceived decadence and detachment from the people's suffering. Thus, the CCP's victory was not solely a military one; it was profoundly a social and political victory, achieved by systematically mobilising the largest and most aggrieved segment of Chinese society – the peasantry – and by capitalising on the KMT's failure to bridge or manage the country's vast social divisions. The establishment of the People's Republic of China in October 1949 marked the culmination of a revolution fuelled by these societal fractures, promising a new social order based on Marxist-Leninist principles and Maoist thought, which itself institutionalised new forms of social categorisation and control.
A comparative examination of Nazi Germany and Maoist China reveals both striking similarities and important distinctions in the way social divisions contributed to the emergence of authoritarian states. In both nations, society was deeply fractured prior to the authoritarian ascent: Germany grappled with the legacies of a lost war, class antagonisms, religious differences, and, most virulently, racial antisemitism, all exacerbated by economic calamity. China laboured under the weight of centuries of peasant exploitation by a landlord class, regional fragmentation under warlordism, the corrosive impact of foreign imperialism, and a growing ideological battle between nationalists and communists. In each case, the aspiring authoritarian movement – the Nazis and the CCP – proved exceptionally adept at identifying, articulating, and manipulating these pre-existing grievances for political gain. Both movements offered a vision, however distorted or brutal, of a new, unified society that would transcend these old divisions, typically by identifying and eliminating internal and external enemies deemed responsible for national woes. The Nazis promised a Volksgemeinschaft, a racially pure people's community, to be achieved by purging Jews, communists, and other "undesirables." The CCP promised a classless society, to be achieved by overthrowing landlords, "bureaucratic capitalists," and foreign imperialists. The very promise of revolutionary unity underscored the depth of the divisions they sought to overcome. However, the nature of the primary social divisions and the methods of their exploitation differed. In Germany, while class was a significant factor, the ethno-nationalist and racial dimensions, particularly antisemitism, became the defining features of Nazi ideology and its mobilising power. The Nazis utilised sophisticated modern propaganda, initially participated in electoral politics (however subversively), and deployed paramilitary violence within a more developed, industrialised state. In China, the socio-economic chasm between the peasantry and the landlord class was arguably the most fundamental and widespread division. Mao and the CCP focused their efforts on rural mobilisation, employing strategies of land reform, guerrilla warfare, and ideological indoctrination within a largely agrarian, pre-industrial society facing different external pressures, notably Japanese invasion. An analytical framework, such as one David Heath might encourage in fostering critical historical understanding, would emphasise the importance of viewing social divisions not as static background conditions but as dynamic elements within a complex interplay of factors. Heath might suggest that these divisions represent societal vulnerabilities or fault lines. When subjected to the immense pressures of economic crises (like the Great Depression in Germany or the chronic rural poverty and wartime hyperinflation in China), political incompetence or collapse (the Weimar Republic's systemic weaknesses or the KMT's corruption and administrative failures), and the determined agency of charismatic leaders and disciplined revolutionary parties, these pre-existing social fissures can widen catastrophically, paving the way for authoritarian takeovers. Such a perspective would resist monocausal explanations, instead highlighting the synergy between deep social discontent and other precipitating factors.
The critical question of whether social division was the *most* significant factor requires a nuanced assessment. It can be persuasively argued that profound social divisions often serve as a necessary precondition or a fundamental structural vulnerability without which other factors – economic shocks, political crises, or individual leadership – might not have produced the same authoritarian outcomes. In Weimar Germany, the Great Depression undoubtedly acted as a powerful catalyst, plunging millions into despair and making them receptive to radical ideologies. However, the *direction* this desperation took, towards Nazism rather than other alternatives, was heavily influenced by the specific social and ideological cleavages already present: the potent appeal of antisemitism, the resentment over Versailles, the fear of communism among the middle and upper classes, and the yearning for a restored national pride which the Nazis so effectively promised to deliver by exploiting these very sentiments. Without these particular pre-existing divisions, the Depression might have led to different political realignments or forms of social unrest. Similarly, in China, the decades of peasant suffering and the stark land inequality constituted a massive reservoir of revolutionary potential. The Japanese invasion and the KMT's manifold failures certainly created the window of opportunity for the CCP's ascent. Still, it was Mao's strategic genius in recognising and systematically mobilising the peasantry around the land issue – the most profound social division in rural China – that ultimately powered the communist revolution. Had Chinese society been less starkly divided along class lines in the countryside, or had the KMT been more successful in addressing peasant grievances, the CCP's path to power would have been far more arduous, if not impossible, regardless of external invasions or KMT errors. Authoritarian regimes often rise with the explicit promise of healing or resolving these deep societal fractures, albeit typically through violent suppression, the exclusion of designated "enemy" groups, or the imposition of a new, enforced homogeneity. The Nazi concept of Volksgemeinschaft and the Maoist ideal of a classless society, while vastly different in their ideological underpinnings, both testify to the centrality of the social divisions they claimed to supersede. The very act of identifying and demonising scapegoats – Jews and Marxists in Germany, landlords and counter-revolutionaries in China – is a core mechanism by which authoritarian movements consolidate support from one segment of a divided society against another, thereby using division itself as a tool of power. While economic crises provide the acute distress and political failures the immediate opportunity, it is the underlying social divisions that frequently provide the enduring narratives, the group identities, and the exploitable grievances that authoritarian leaders weaponise to seize and maintain control. These divisions furnish the raw material for ideologies that seek to cleave society before remaking it in their own image.
To conclude, social division was a factor of paramount significance in the emergence of both Nazi Germany and Maoist China in the twentieth century. In each case, profound and long-standing societal fissures – rooted in race, class, national trauma, and economic disparity – created a fertile environment for radical ideologies and authoritarian movements to take hold. These movements, led by figures like Hitler and Mao, did not merely acknowledge these divisions but actively exacerbated and manipulated them, identifying scapegoats and promising a revolutionary new order that would, in their vision, transcend the existing societal fragmentation. In Germany, the potent combination of post-war humiliation, deep-seated antisemitism, and class anxieties, all intensified by the Great Depression, allowed the Nazi Party to dismantle Weimar democracy by exploiting these vulnerabilities. In China, the CCP’s success was built upon mobilising the vast, impoverished peasantry against a backdrop of landlord exploitation, warlordism, foreign imperialism, and the manifest failures of the Kuomintang to address these fundamental social schisms. While other elements, such as severe economic crises, the collapse of political legitimacy in existing regimes, the impact of war, and the specific agency of authoritarian leaders, were undeniably crucial contributing factors, their destructive or transformative potential was often realised by acting upon these pre-existing and deeply ingrained social divisions. These divisions provided the essential fault lines along which societies fractured, and upon which authoritarian states constructed their power, often by promising a coercive form of unity built upon the exclusion or elimination of those deemed to be on the wrong side of these societal divides. Therefore, while not always the sole or immediate trigger, the extent of social division within a state frequently determined its susceptibility to authoritarian transformation, making it arguably the most significant foundational factor in the rise of these particular twentieth-century regimes.
Example 2
Social division was a critical but not exclusive factor in the emergence of authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century, functioning as both a symptom and a catalyst of deeper systemic crises. In interwar Germany, the fragmented social structure inherited from the Wilhelmine Empire and exacerbated by the economic and political turmoil of the Weimar period created fertile ground for the Nazi Party’s rise. Similarly, in Argentina during the mid-twentieth century, entrenched socio-economic inequalities and regional disparities enabled Juan Domingo Perón to mobilise mass support through a populist platform that simultaneously addressed and manipulated class divisions. In both cases, social division interacted with institutional fragility, elite miscalculation, and external pressures to facilitate authoritarian consolidation, though the precise mechanisms and outcomes differed significantly. The extent to which social division was the most significant factor must be assessed alongside political instability, economic crisis, and the agency of individual leaders.
Germany’s transition from a fragile democracy to a totalitarian dictatorship under Adolf Hitler between 1930 and 1933 illustrated how acute social fragmentation could undermine parliamentary legitimacy and empower extremist movements. Following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918 and the imposition of the Treaty of Versailles, German society was deeply polarised along class, religious, and ideological lines. The Weimar Republic inherited a polity fractured between industrial workers aligned with Social Democracy, conservatives rooted in the Prussian aristocracy, Catholic centrists, and a growing radical right disillusioned with liberal democracy. These divisions were institutionalised through proportional representation, which ensured parliamentary fragmentation and chronic governmental instability; between 1919 and 1933, no fewer than twenty different cabinets held office, none lasting more than 2.5 years on average. Historians such as Eric D. Weitz have emphasised that the structural weaknesses of the Weimar Republic, particularly its inability to forge a cohesive national identity amid deep-seated social cleavages, made it uniquely vulnerable to authoritarian takeover. Weitz notes that the Republic’s reliance on emergency decrees under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution eroded democratic norms and set a precedent for authoritarian governance that Hitler would later exploit.
The economic dislocation following the Great Depression further magnified existing social divisions and discredited mainstream political parties. By 1932, unemployment in Germany had reached six million, with industrial output declining by over 40 per cent since 1929. The agrarian crisis, which had begun earlier in the 1920s, continued to impoverish rural communities, while middle-class shopkeepers and artisans faced extinction in the face of department store competition and inflationary pressures. These disparate grievances were channelled into support for radical alternatives, with the Nazi Party achieving electoral breakthroughs in rural Protestant areas and among the lower middle class, groups that felt abandoned by both traditional conservatism and Marxist socialism. Richard Hamilton’s statistical analysis of Nazi voting patterns reveals that support for the NSDAP was highest in regions characterised by economic insecurity, low unionisation, and Protestant religious affiliation, suggesting that social divisions provided a crucial demographic base for Hitler’s ascent. The Nazis’ appeal lay in their ability to synthesise disparate grievances into a cohesive narrative of national renewal, blaming Jews, communists, and the political establishment for Germany’s decline.
However, the Nazi Party’s consolidation of power cannot be attributed solely to social division; it also depended on strategic manipulation of institutional mechanisms and elite accommodation. Following the July 1932 elections, in which the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag but lacked a governing majority, Hitler initially refused a subordinate role in a coalition government. His persistence appeared politically suicidal until conservative elites, alarmed by the growing influence of the Communist Party and hoping to harness Nazi popularity to preserve the existing social order, persuaded President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. This decision reflected a fatal miscalculation by traditional power brokers, including Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, who believed they could contain Hitler within a presidential cabinet. As Ian Kershaw has argued, the Nazi seizure of power was not inevitable but was contingent upon elite complicity and the collapse of constitutional norms. Kershaw emphasises that Hitler’s appointment represented a conscious decision by conservative elites to sacrifice democracy in favour of authoritarian stability, viewing the Nazis as a bulwark against Bolshevism. Thus, while social division created conditions conducive to extremism, the actual transition to dictatorship required the active participation of established institutions.
The role of social division in Argentina’s descent into authoritarianism under Juan Domingo Perón between 1943 and 1946 exhibits different dynamics, highlighting the importance of contingent political factors alongside structural inequality. Argentina in the early twentieth century was among the wealthiest nations in the world, benefiting from agricultural exports and foreign investment, but its society was deeply divided along lines of class, ethnicity, and regional development. The oligarchic landowning elite, concentrated in Buenos Aires and the Pampas, dominated political life and excluded the burgeoning urban working class from meaningful representation. Labour migration from Europe, particularly Italy and Spain, had created a large industrial proletariat concentrated in Buenos Aires and Rosario, who faced poor working conditions, inadequate housing, and exclusion from the political process. Political scientist Guillermo O’Donnell has characterised this configuration as “populist exclusion,” in which the state relied on clientelist networks to co-opt selected sectors while denying broader democratic participation. The failure of traditional parties such as the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and the Conservative Party to address working-class grievances created a political vacuum that Perón skillfully exploited after his rise to power as Minister of Labour in 1943.
Perón’s political strategy was predicated on the systematic incorporation of organised labour into the state apparatus while simultaneously suppressing opposition through authoritarian methods. His appointment as President in 1946 followed a carefully orchestrated campaign that portrayed him as the champion of the descamisados (shirtless ones), a term he used to symbolise the dignity of the working class. Perón’s reforms, including the establishment of a labour court, wage increases, and paid holidays, earned him widespread support among industrial workers, who became the core constituency of his populist movement. Yet these gains were accompanied by the erosion of civil liberties, censorship of the press, and the persecution of political opponents, particularly members of the Communist Party and conservative factions. Tulio Halperin Donghi, a prominent Argentine historian, argues that Perón’s rise exemplifies the paradox of populism in Latin America, whereby the empowerment of marginalised groups occurred through the centralisation of executive power and the weakening of institutional checks. Halperin contends that social division provided the emotional and ideological fuel for Peronism but that its institutionalisation required the active manipulation of state structures and the construction of a cult of personality around the leader.
The consolidation of Peronist rule also depended on the strategic use of nationalist and anti-imperialist rhetoric to obscure internal divisions and consolidate legitimacy. Perón positioned himself as the defender of Argentine sovereignty against foreign economic domination, particularly from Britain and the United States, whose influence in the Argentine economy had long been resented by nationalist sectors. His nationalisation of the British-owned railways in 1947 and the promotion of import-substitution industrialisation were framed as acts of national redemption, appealing to both working-class solidarity and middle-class aspirations for modernisation. At the same time, Perón sought to neutralise elite resistance through selective concessions, such as maintaining agricultural export subsidies that benefited large landowners. This dual strategy of empowering the masses while co-opting elites allowed Perón to maintain a tenuous balance between populism and authoritarianism. Yet the social divisions that had once facilitated his rise also contained the seeds of future instability, as the exclusion of conservative sectors and the radicalisation of labour militancy eventually provoked a military coup in 1955. David Rock, a leading historian of Argentina, has described Peronism as a “revolution from above,” arguing that its achievements in social welfare were undercut by its repressive political practices and failure to institutionalise democratic participation. Rock emphasises that while social division created the conditions for mass mobilisation, the authoritarian trajectory of the regime was determined by the choices of its leader and the limitations of its social base.
Comparative analysis of Nazi Germany and Peronist Argentina reveals that social division functioned as a necessary but insufficient condition for the emergence of authoritarianism. In both cases, entrenched inequalities and fragmented societies created opportunities for charismatic leaders to present themselves as solutions to national crises. However, the consolidation of authoritarian rule required additional factors, including institutional decay, elite accommodation, and the construction of coercive apparatuses capable of suppressing dissent. In Germany, the interaction of economic collapse and elite miscalculation enabled Hitler to dismantle democratic institutions with relative ease, whereas in Argentina, Perón’s ability to balance populist appeals with state repression allowed him to maintain power for a decade. The divergent outcomes highlight the importance of context-specific variables, even as social division remains a recurring theme in the origins of twentieth-century authoritarianism. The extent to which social division can be considered the most significant factor thus varies depending on the interplay of structural pressures and political agency within each national setting.
