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Tools totalitarian
leaders use to gain
and maintain power
Propaganda
Definition: One sided (biased)
information intended to persuade
Dictators use propaganda to make
people believe that government is
working for them.
Police Terror & Fear
 Dictators create a police force that helps to
keep them in power.
 When people are afraid of the police, they
cannot act out against the government
(aka: the dictator)
 Dictators kill anyone who opposes them
or tries to challenge their authority
Religious and Ethnic Persecution
 Blaming and discriminating against a
minority group for their religious beliefs
or their ethnicity
 Totalitarian rulers tend to blame
minority groups for the country’s
problems to take away the attention
from their mistakes and actions.
Progress & Improvements
Sometimes dictators are able to
improve peoples’ daily lives, which
makes people loyal to the dictator
Ideology Indoctrination
 Often, dictators put in place a new type
of government or new ideas.
 Totalitarian rules persuade people to
believe in the new way of thinking by
controlling the media and what is
taught at schools, and this makes them
loyal to the dictator.
Censorship
 Controlling what people can say, and what
people can hear.
 Censorship allows rulers to keep rivals from
building support, to hide problems in a
country, to silence opposition, and to
convince the public that the ruler is
effective.
Dictator Him/Herself
Dictators often have charismatic
(likeable) personalities.
They are good at giving speeches
and convincing people to follow
them.