Europe During the Interwar Period Practice Test

A secondary historian writing about Europe between 1919 and 1939 argues that mass politics expanded after World War I but became unstable when coalition governments struggled to manage postwar debt, inflation, and then the Great Depression; in several states, leaders used emergency decrees, paramilitary intimidation, and propaganda to claim they alone could restore order and national pride. Which development best supports the historian’s argument about how economic crisis reshaped politics in the interwar years?

A historian of interwar Italy writes that postwar frustration, fear of socialism, and economic dislocation enabled Mussolini’s Fascists to present themselves as defenders of order; once in power, they curtailed civil liberties, undermined parliament, and cultivated a cult of leadership while maintaining alliances with industrial elites. Which feature most closely aligns with this description of fascist consolidation?