Edexcel GCSE History key terms

Moving or trading goods illegally, for example to avoid customs duties or evade restrictions on trade.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: a civil rights organisation involved in direct action and voter registration which moved towards Black Power under Stokely Carmichael.

An illegal act that some people regard as acceptable or relatively harmless. This public attitude does not make the act lawful.

The ranking of people in society according to their status, power and wealth.

The policy of concentrating on building socialism within the USSR rather than making its success depend on revolutions abroad.

Dubček’s aim of retaining socialism while allowing greater freedom and improving people’s quality of life.

A campaign in early-1960s China intended to restore communist ideological commitment in the Communist Party, government and society.

An official Soviet artistic approach that presented an idealised view of socialism, glorifying workers, achievements and political leaders.

The organisation of people into groups with different levels of wealth, power, status and freedom.

Beliefs and expectations held by people or groups, which can encourage acceptance of change or resistance to it.

Blocks of earth held together by grass and its roots, used by some Plains settlers as a building material.

An independent Polish trade union led by Lech Wałęsa that used strikes and organised opposition to challenge communist rule.

Colonial protest groups that opposed British policies and helped organise resistance, including calls for boycotts.

A person who entered land before the authorised starting time of an Oklahoma land run to gain an unfair advantage in claiming it.

A ruler’s authority over a territory. Elizabeth’s intervention in the Netherlands challenged Philip II’s authority there.

A council of workers’, soldiers’ or peasants’ representatives; soviets were supposed to provide the basis of revolutionary government.

An order issued by the Petrograd Soviet to the Petrograd garrison in March 1917. It required obedience to orders from the Duma’s Military Commission only when they did not contradict Soviet orders and placed weapons under soldiers’ committee control.

A farm owned and run directly by the state, where agricultural workers received government wages.

A German revolutionary communist group led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, associated with the January 1919 uprising in Berlin.

The development of officers or units with training and expertise for particular kinds of police work.

Medical care provided by professionals with advanced expertise in a particular disease, body system or type of treatment.

An area in which a powerful country exercises substantial influence over other countries’ affairs.

Financial and political backing for an undertaking, such as providing the resources and royal approval needed for an expedition.

The theory that microorganisms arose spontaneously from decaying matter, rather than coming from existing microorganisms.

The Schutzstaffel: the Nazi state's elite guard, led by Heinrich Himmler, which controlled the concentration camp system and played a central role in repression.

The false claim that Germany’s army had been betrayed by civilians at home rather than defeated through the war.

A campaign begun in 1935 that celebrated workers credited with exceptionally high output and encouraged others to copy them, named after coal miner Alexei Stakhanov.