Paper 2: Rise to Power Is Not Consolidation of Power
Halfway through a Paper 2 mock, a candidate has 45 minutes left for one essay. They choose the authoritarian states question: 'Compare and contrast the rise to power of two authoritarian leaders, each from a different region.' They select Hitler (Europe) and Mao (Asia), and their plan is: (1) Hitler became chancellor in January 1933 and used the Enabling Act and the Night of the Long Knives to remove opposition; (2) Mao launched the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution to control China; (3) both used propaganda and terror; conclusion: they were similar. They have detailed notes on both leaders' consolidation of power, including the Enabling Act, the Night of the Long Knives, the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The teacher's comment is blunt: 'This plan answers a different question. It is about maintaining power, not rising to it.'
1. Diagnose the mismatch and rebuild the plan around three comparative criteria that fit the question.
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Diagnosis: The command is 'compare and contrast the rise to power'. That means the period before the leader holds power, and it means both similarities and differences. The plan's evidence belongs to consolidation: the Enabling Act (March 1933), the Night of the Long Knives (June 1934), the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956–57), the Great Leap Forward (1958–62) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). These may explain how power was kept, not how it was won. The conclusion ('both used propaganda and terror') is also a similarity-only summary, so it fails the 'contrast' part of the command. Selecting Hitler and Mao does satisfy 'each from a different region' (Europe and Asia).
Rebuilt plan: Use three criteria that work across both cases. (1) Response to crisis and opportunity: Hitler exploited the Depression and the breakdown of Weimar coalitions after 1930; Mao exploited the Japanese invasion and the KMT's weaknesses after 1937. (2) Organisation and coalition-building: Hitler rebuilt the NSDAP after 1925 and pursued electoral and backstairs intrigue; Mao built a rural party-army base and a United Front. (3) Ideology and propaganda: Hitler's racial nationalism and mass rallies; Mao's peasant revolution and Yan'an reorganisation. For each criterion, state a similarity and a difference. For example, both leaders turned crisis into opportunity, but Hitler's route ran through elections and presidential appointment, while Mao's ran through armed rural struggle and civil war. The conclusion should weigh which factor best explains the rise, not simply list similarities.
2. Write one comparative paragraph on 'response to crisis' and explain why it is stronger than two separate accounts.
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Paragraph: Both Hitler and Mao rose to power by converting a crisis into an opportunity, but the crisis and the route differed. In Germany, the Depression after 1929 destroyed the centre of Weimar politics: unemployment reached over six million, the Nazis became the largest party by July 1932, and Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933 through an elite bargain rather than a coup. In China, the crisis was war and state collapse: the Japanese invasion after 1937 weakened the KMT and gave the CCP room to expand its rural base, while the civil war after 1945 allowed Mao to win militarily. The similarity is that neither man rose in a stable polity; the difference is that Hitler's opportunity was electoral and institutional, whereas Mao's was military and rural.
Why stronger: A separate-account paragraph would describe Hitler, then describe Mao, and leave the examiner to infer the comparison. This paragraph names the criterion in the topic sentence, gives evidence for both cases, and makes the similarity and difference explicit. That is what 'compare and contrast' rewards; it also builds towards a judgement about which crisis was more decisive.