V.J. Chalupa

On Post-Modern Politics

CHAPTER 14

ABOUT POWER

The state is the locus of several political organizations with different ideas how to better the situation of some group of people, and all of them strive to gain the maximum share of the one and same means -- of the direction of public affairs. In following this goal, each organization's goal is in competition or conflict with the same goal of other organizations -- a political contest or conflict takes place. The determining factor for actions of a political organization is its relationship to the power of the state and not the relationship towards other political organizations; the relation to the state is primary and the relations to other political organizations are secondary, contingent upon the primary relationship. The main type of political struggle is indirect, for two reasons: in the way of a direct struggle stands the power of the state, and also, the destruction of competing political organizations is easier after gaining the possession of state power rather than before it. Nevertheless, sometimes it assumes the form of a direct physical confrontation, when a political organization attacks physically other organizations: invades or disrupts their meetings, terrorizes its supporters, destroys their means (premises, print shops, displays), liquidates their leaders.

For the political struggle it is important whether the political organizations elects to influence the state through the intermediary of its adherents as individuals, or to share in its management as a subject of will. A political organization can select the former option which can be described as not truly political: it does not approach the state as a subject of will, but influences it through personal contacts with individuals who are public officials, to proceed in the performance of their function in accordance with its program. This method pursues the achievement of a political goal, but without possessing a share of the state's power as its means. The truly political way to power of a political organization is to strive for a share in the legislative power. Both ways are not mutually exclusive; a political organization may try, and often tries, to implement its ultimate goal by both ways simultaneously.

To the basic features of a political organization described in Chapter 3 additional organs and elements are added, as needed in the effort to obtain a share in the direction of public affairs: a political organization creates its organs and adjusts its structure to its primary objective of gaining a share in the state's power. The various forms of the political struggle as described systematically in this Chapter are in reality variously combined and related as required by efficiency and utility.

A political organization striving to attain or increase its share in the directing of the state, has two options: to strive to attain this goal within the framework of the legal order, i.e., legally, or  illegally by violating or uprooting it. After evaluation of opportunities and/or obstacles represented by the form of government, the nature of its own program, abilities of members and sympathizers, character of the rulers and of competitors, and of distribution of power in society, a political organization opts for the legal or illegal way or their combination according to principles of economy. Among these elements, the structure of the state has the decisive influence on the operations and thus also on the structure of a political organization.

The Legal Way To Power

In an Autocracy

The only legal way of influencing an autocratic state open to a political organization is to convince the holders of state power that the implementation of the political organization's program will serve their own interest and/or the interest of their object of care.

Under an autocratic regime, organizational forms of a political organization must remain rudimental. Its political movement lives and grows under the guise of a non-political (philosophical, religious, labor, etc.) movement and is organized in non-political organizations (universities, learned societies, churches, trade unions). Members of the political movement use such existing institutions or create organizations appropriate for the situation: clubs, associations, circles and organizations which perform, to a limited extent, the basic functions of a political organizations: there they debate and create the political program, spread its ideology, organize adherents and influence lawgivers.

In an autocracy, the non-political way of strengthening the movement takes precedence over openly political activities. Such an approach enables political life and political thinking to outlive even long unsuccessful periods because they are nourished intellectually from these outwardly nonpolitical organizations. Nevertheless,  a prolonged period of vain efforts results in abandonment of the legal way to power in favor of illegal struggle.

When a lawless state is in a pressing need of obtaining some concessions from its competitors who are interested in weakening it internally, this may create a favorable situation for its internal opposition to step, under the protection of the foreign powers, openly into the political arena by utilizing the inner contradiction of the regime: the contradiction of the will of the state expressed by the constitution, law and international obligations, and the factual, normatively illegal, situation and the behavior of the agents of the rulers. While professing devotion to the state, opponents or dissidents appeal to the courts to obtain the justice and protection due them under the law. The situation of such individuals is extremely precarious; nevertheless, if their rights are protected by international treaties and if the state(s) contracting and dealing with the lawless state, make the observance of such treaties a condition for concluding any further (especially economic or security) agreements, the lawless state may be forced to observe or restore the legal status over the factual prevailing illegality. Such concession represents a compromising of its basic premise: the superiority of the will of the ruling political organization over its state. Ultimately, such a state must either revert to the era of repression which would weaken it further, or to engage in a retreat which must end in the victory of the will of the state over all its subjects, i.e., also the ruling political organization, and to provide legal security also for its opposition.

In a Democracy -- Political Parties

In a democratic state where citizens share in the decisions concerning the legislative power, a political organization that decided in favor of a legal way, has to strive for gaining the maximum possible number of voters because the size of its share of the state's power depends on votes cast for its program and its candidates.  The necessity to obtain as many votes as possible gave rise to a special type of political organization: political organizations structured for attracting publicly sympathizers are political parties. The political party which receives in elections enough votes so that its representatives, alone or in conjunction with those of other parties, can enact laws and take over the direction of the executive power, implements its program through the power of the state, i.e., it  governs, while the other political parties which also have their representatives in legislative organs, but not all the attributes  (especially the number of elected candidates) to share in the formation of the state's will, criticize its governing, constitute the opposition. After a time determined by the law, the governing and opposition parties undergo again elections which ascertain whom the voters entrust to implement their right to co-determine the creation of the state's will for the next period.

Political parties are well developed organizations, with specialized organs for each of their functions. The highest organ of volition of a party is usually the party convention, the highest organ for its will's execution is its central committee headed by a presidium; organs for channeling its will are usually formed by its representatives in legislative organs of the state (parliamentary clubs or caucuses) and by special commissions which deal with the various sectors of the state's administration and prepare the papers and instructions for the Party's public activities.

Party members are usually so numerous that the party needs to be articulated according to their sundry sources of coherence; it creates territorial organization (local, district, state) according to members' residence; women's, youth, students' agricultural, workers', enterprise organizations according to other characteristics enabling the party to gain and influence members and fellow travellers. Their role is to represent within the party specific interest groups and find additional members and voters among these groups. Around political parties cluster organizations pursuing technical goals: economic (trade unions, cooperatives, enterprises, mutual insurance companies) or cultural (educational, social, gymnastic, publishing). Associated organizations too have in addition to pursuing their technical objectives the task of widening the political movement and the membership basis of the party and are sometimes represented in its territorial and central organs by delegates whose number corresponds to the importance of each such group.

The acquisition of adherents is done through evoking among citizens the feelings of dissatisfaction with the existing situation and a desire to correct it, i.e., through modifying the contents of their purpose of happiness so as to insert or preserve in it demands that are in accordance with the party's program. Because among the most powerful human feelings are anger, fear, hate and envy, the party's propaganda appeals primarily to them. Its contents and character depend on whether the political party in question shared successfully in the legislation and government or not. Government parties try to maintain or extend their share in the direction of public affairs by warning against the harm which would be wrought by the victory of the opposition parties, and point to the benefits which their participation in the government brought for the groups in their care as well as for the entire society. The failures of the government are attributed to invincible external obstacles or interference by the opposition and, if there was a coalition government, to non-cooperation of some coalition partners, and the government parties promise to continue in their beneficial policies provided the voters entrust them again with the management of public affairs. Opposition parties, to the contrary, strive for a share in the government by calling attention to the harm caused by the governing parties, be it a real harm or a harm only from the viewpoint of their party programs, they stress mistakes of the government and they attribute to the government parties all failures for which they are responsible as well that for which they have no responsibility, simultaneously assuring the voters that they would take better care of their needs and interests if the legislative and executive powers were given to the opposition. Personal criticism (attacks) on competing parties' leaders form a part of each party's propaganda. The intensity of a party's propaganda is contingent on its program: whether it is committed to the preservation or displacement of the democratic regime. In the latter case, the party is free to use much sharper, mendacious and irresponsible criticism as well as much wide-ranging promises, because, once democracy is destroyed, the party cannot be held responsible by the voters anymore.

A part of political life in the democratic regime is that various political parties submit their programs and candidates to the voters who make their choices and according to their choices cast their votes giving their mandates to those whom they consider best and whom they trust the most as to the fulfillment of their pre-election promises. Political parties, also those representing pressure groups, must justify their political programs as thoroughly as possible, because a program supported by good, convincing arguments has a better chance to be accepted than a program lacking a rationale.  They also must expand their program so as to appear beneficial to the greatest number of citizens. Political parties compete not only to cause their demands to prevail, but also to inculcate their ideology to the widest possible number of citizens. In consequence each political party tends to monopolize the intellectual life of the entire polity. Ideologies of political parties turn into an intellectual system encompassing, explaining and directing all facets of life, and in the interest of their power position parties obstruct the spreading and application of ideas differing from their ideology.

Politics as Profession -- Politicians and the Apparat. 

Political parties' extent, complexity and multitude of tasks make a far-reaching division of labor unavoidable. In every political organization, certain functions must be performed by people who devote their time either outright for a salary or for some other economic benefit provided by the political organization. In a political organization appear two groups of persons whose common characteristic is the performance of a political function as profession: some are paid directly by the political party -- political secretaries and other employees, here all summed up by the term "apparat" (to distinguish them from the apparatus of other institutions), some are paid from the public treasury for performance of functions they hold thanks to a political party -- professional politicians.

The apparat performs mostly work of a mechanical nature, and because political parties seldom have enough means to reward them adequately, the group of secretaries is frequently recruited from those who have manifested extraordinary zeal in voluntary work for the party and who consider even a secretary's paycheck an improvement of their social and economic situation. The apparat of a political party thus becomes a gathering point of persons dynamic, practical and devoted to the political party as an institution, not as a bearer of its particular program. Secretaries are the party's employees, but their position is ordinarily so important that the function of secretary is commonly linked with the membership in a party organ which creates the will of the party and is the starting point for acquiring a legislative function or an economically advantageous position in institutions under the party's influence. For political secretaries, their party's well-being becomes the primary objective which separates them from those who see the party as a instrument for the betterment of society; they put their party above all other institutions and its success above all other values. Therefore, they identify themselves with the political party and their interests with the party's interests and vice versa and arrogate to themselves decisions concerning the party's actions -- which in view of the concentration of factual power in the hands of the party apparat is not difficult.  

Of key importance for the evolution of a political party is the position assumed by the group of professional politicians. The emergence of political professionalism represents a significant milestone in the development of a political organization: a group of people for whom the participation in the directing of public affairs has become a profession, i.e., the main source of income. In the life of politicians, political activities absorb a greater part of their purpose of happiness than in the life of other subjects of volition who participate in politics to the extent that increases their happiness. For politicians, political activities are also their only or main way to provide, for themselves and their families, means for the implementation of all other objectives derived from the purpose of happiness. In practice, this signifies that their private interests (family relationships, need of recreation and entertainment, wealth and personal power, affluence and comfort) conflict constantly with the one and only interest of their political organization, namely to attain or keep a share in the direction of public affairs as a means of betterment of the circumstances of its object of care. The psychological escape from this conflict is the identification of the group of professional politicians with their party: they identify their interests with the interest of their political party. Professional politicians who, out of their innermost motivation and to the detriment of their own and their family's private interests strive for the betterment of their party's object of care, are an exception. (Max Weber distinguishes between politicians who live for politics and those who make a living out of politics.)

Managerization of Political Parties.

The fusion of their private interests with the interest of their political party induces the professional politicians to concentrate, by more or less organized action, the decision making process within the party de facto in their own hands. The group of professional politicians transforms itself in a group of people who are factually beyond the control, responsibility and recall by the membership -- a group of political managers. The power of this group is not based on the statutes nor mandate of members; they hold functions determining the preparation and execution of important activities (in a political party with a democratic constitution, they are informing the membership, directing the party's press, nominating committees and election committees). Professional politicians have one important interest in common with the apparat: their financial and personal success depends on the success of the party; this makes them allies in the managerization process especially where the ranks of professional politics are filled from the ranks  of the apparat. (Cf. also Chapter 7 on managerism.)

In the struggle for votes, political parties which exhibit ideological and action unity of members have an advantage over parties internally disunited and those whose membership is inactive. Competition between parties forces all of them to gradually tighten party discipline, i.e., they require from their membership greater obedience to the highest organs of the party. This brings about the curtailing of the freedom of action of lower organs and centralization of power in the hands of its highest organ. The rights of members, of the convention and of the central committee members become increasingly empty formalities and the party leadership imposes its will not through elected organs which could display their own and different opinions, but directly through the hierarchically organized system of party secretaries and apparat answering directly to the presidium disbursing their salaries. The financial dependence cements the obedience of the secretaries to the presidium, usually through the party's general secretary, and makes the apparat on all levels largely independent from the corresponding elected organs. Rather than serving the territorial elective committee, its secretary actually instructs it as to what to do and to believe on the basis of directives received from the general secretary. The office of general secretary becomes the most powerful office in the party.

The authority to accept or expel members is one way through which the leadership of a political party controls it. Persons who are actually or potentially dangerous to the extant leaders are refused membership or, as happens more often, expelled. The leadership takes care that the right of accepting and expelling members be reserved, in the last instance, to higher organs of the party, the reasons for stripping of membership are formulated so widely as to be almost arbitrary: acting against the interest of the party, violation of party discipline, harming the good name of the party, betraying party  principles or the program.

Another way of controlling the party is choosing of candidates for elections. If left to the parties, it becomes usually the domain of the apparat and of professional politicians who, by using various electoral, nominating, recommending and propaganda committees and provisions of automatic candidacy of incumbents and other high party functionaries determine the selection of candidates for positions in the state's legislative, executive and judicial bodies.

The interests of professional politicians and the party apparat diverge in one important point: the source of their income is different. Income of professional politicians depends on their positions in the organs of the state, the income of party bureaucrats depends on their position within the party. Although both groups contribute to the process of managerization, under different circumstances they have a different level of influence. In a situation that requires emphasis on the program and ideology of the party, i.e., in a system of proportional representation, the decisive role falls to the apparat; in a situation that emphasizes the importance of personality, i.e., in a system of majority representation, the decisive role falls to professional politicians. Their role is enhanced up to such a level that the politicians are able to replace the apparat by hired experts in managing elections whose links with the political party are temporary, pecuniary and occasional; their goal is not to implement the party's program, but to elect the candidate or candidates who hired them, and the pre-election program is fully subordinated to this goal. In this instance, the importance of the party's members is even smaller than in political parties with a permanent organization and bureaucracy, because structures through which the membership could express its will, do not exist during the periods between elections. Between elections, the political party subsists actually only in its elected representatives and has no inner life involving members.

Economic enterprises owned by a political party contribute to its managerization. They provide a basis of economic security to the party managerial groups and also limit the membership's importance for the financing of the party -- membership fees and contributions become less important and the ownership of economic enterprises enables the party's leadership to offer financial rewards to supporters and thus strengthen their dependence.

Managerization has far-reaching consequences for a political organization. Thanks to its accumulation of power, the dominant managerial group alone exchanges and supplements its members. Because the personal and private interests of its members merged, in their minds, with the interests of the political organization -- and vice versa -- and because they perceive any menace to their persons as a menace to the political organization, the managerial group exhibits distrust and resistance towards independent party members who evidence a potential to exceed the level of the managers and endanger their position. This, in turn, lowers the personal and intellectual quality of the managerial group -- and of the entire organization they dominate. The objective of the party is degraded to a means of holding on to their power; this causes ideological  opportunism: obstinacy combined with ideological somersaults. The leadership of the party increases its independence from the party delegates, members and voters, its election becomes a formality orchestrated by the apparat and the membership's influence on its outcome is minimal.

The growing role of ideology in the political struggle, the centralization of political parties and the tightening of party discipline under the guidance of professional politicians and party bureaucrats results in an intellectual stagnation of political life. The introduction of new political ideas inside of established political parties runs into two hurdles:

1.  The position of the political party among the public is based on a certain cadre of members and voters gained by its program and ideology. Any change in its program represents a danger that the party could lose a part of proven adherents of its old program in an exchange for an uncertain hope that at least the same number of new voters will be gained from the ranks of sympathizers with the program's innovations. Adherents of the old ideology can be considered safe because the ideology of a modern political party represents a more or less complete world view or attitude, and people change that only rarely. Political parties also fear their opponents could take advantage of any significant changes to describe them as proof that the party's program and/or ideology was wrong and changes are a sign of vacillation and uncertainty. Therefore party leaders try to avoid them and prefer to reduce inevitable changes to secondary additions or minor adjustments of the old program .

2. A more important obstacle to the introduction of innovations in a party's program are its managerial groups. Their members acquired power as bearers and representatives of certain principles and resulting demands. Acknowledgement and recognition of new ideas would be accompanied by ceding power at least partly to the bearers of new ideas. Because the political managers identify the party with themselves and because they consider the program as a means to electoral success and not the goal of the party, it degenerates, in their minds and expressions, into slogans and is understood as slogans aimed at gaining voters. They therefore consider it superfluous, if not harmful, to exchange the well established slogans for new ones, if they cannot expect that the change will bring quick and substantive profit to their interests which, in their eyes, are the same as the interest of the party.

Impact of Electoral Systems

The development of the character of political parties depends to a large extent on legal provisions regulating political parties, especially on the electoral system.

The system of majority representation is not favorable to the ideologization of political life (for reasons listed in the section on electoral systems, Chapter 13). The forfeiture of votes cast in favor of the losing party underscores the need for party discipline: the splintering of votes of adherents of the same political movement results in electoral loss for the movement and in victory of its most radical opponents. Therefore candidates as well as voters of the same general orientation overlook less important differences in the interest of their most important demands. Such strengthening of party discipline resulting from the majority system represents education in political maturity and growth of self-discipline rather than strengthening of centralizing tendencies inside the party and opportunity for its managerization and the growth of its apparat.  This system which renders a candidate dependent ultimately on the voters of his district, has on the contrary rather decentralizing tendencies and weakens the influence of the party 's central organs. Their support (especially financial support) is of course not insignificant, but the local influences are more important. The candidate's persona and his direct contacts with local party organs and members and the voters' local organizations (cultural, ethnic, religious, sports) delays or obstructs the centralization of professional politicians: their opponents have too great an opportunity to appeal to their constituencies (local party functionaries, members or voters). This does not mean that centralizing tendencies and emergence of political professionalism are non-existent; only that they cannot easily prevail. Competition among politicians of the same party is moderated by their common interests which are reducible to one denominator: they wish to be re-elected. Such common interests include increase of their financial remuneration, increase of the number of employees paid from public monies, postage privileges, restaurants, recreation facilities, paid trips abroad, immunity and a number of minor fringe benefits and privileges.

The majority electoral system diminishes the role of party bureaucracy, but not of parties themselves; candidates of established political parties enjoying their parties' financial, organizational and publicity support have a decisive advantage over independent candidates and over candidates of new parties; experience shows that electoral victories of the latter are indeed exceptional. Therefore, the system favors emergence of a few large political parties of which a mere two are usually represented in the legislature. Only the emergence of radically new problems requiring new responses brings success to a new, third party which is rooted in a new ideological, religious, national etc. movement.  In that case, the third party has a chance to survive the pressure of the system, and once it obtains victory in some election districts and if it truly reacts to deeply felt needs of society, the mechanism of the majority electoral system begins to work to its advantage to replace speedily one of the traditional parties; thus the situation reverts to the two-party system. The majority system inhibits the quick success of transitional political movements, but accelerates the success of movements which express lasting needs of the electorate.

The proportional electoral system exhibits many opposite tendencies. It does not admit the forfeiture of any votes so that the decisive role belongs to stable blocks of party members and voters and the fluctuating votes have a small effect on the outcome of elections. Political parties therefore concentrate on securing reliable cadres of voters who will cast votes for their party regardless of circumstances, rather than trying to gain the votes of independents. To achieve this reliability, they must produce marked material advantages for voters as members of a certain group, and this group egoism must be morally justified by the program of the party to cement the loyalty of members and voters. This brings to the forefront ideologies explaining the program as a way toward the betterment of the situation for the society as a whole. Because no vote for a party is lost, no matter in which part of the state it is cast, political parties have a tendency to become state-wide, i.e., to formulate their programs exclusively so that it gains for the party the votes of all members of its object of care regardless of their territorial distribution. The result is the creation of parties representing economic interest groups whose group egoism is translated into generally beneficial ideologies, but in actual practice is not moderated by solidarity with other interest groups which are similarly organized.

The interest group it represents fights for its material advantages against other similarly organized groups, and this means on the political scene a shift towards centralization and towards a key role for the party apparat. In order to gain members state-wide, a permanent bureaucracy is needed to which the elected candidates are obligated and without whose support they have no chance to succeed. The creation of the will of the state passes from elected representatives to political secretaries and local organizations are of limited importance in the party.

The proportional electoral system results in the formation of a great number of small, disciplined, economically oriented political parties dominated by the party apparat.

The necessity of forming coalition governments further enhances the power of the political managers. The decisions under what conditions and with which partners a party will join a coalition, what its legislative program will be and which team will represent it in the government is completely in the hands of professional politicians and of the apparat and beyond the reach of party members or voters. Proportional representation not only fails to impede the transformation of political parties into centralized, ideologically monolithic managerial structures, it facilitates the process (while the majority representation includes a number of elements which counteract it). It lacks the necessary incubation and crystallization period imposed by the majority representation on new political parties, and therefore opens the door to radical and autocratic political parties and their progress by recording their electoral successes, no matter how ephemeral, and transforming them into political power.

Summary

By their extensive organizational, propaganda and power structures, political parties dominate largely the contents of public life; new ideas can survive this preponderance only with great difficulty. The result: political programs, arguments and actions lag, to an astonishing extent, behind the development of society and of ideas. The lagging of politics behind the life of society is an obvious indication that a layer of political managers inserted itself between the state and the people who, in a democracy, is the source of the state's will. This layer is the reason why the actions of the state, in spite of its democratic system,  do not reflect the political will of its citizens. This gap between politics and the people grows in proportion to the growth of the power of the party's professional politicians and of its apparat. 

Political managerism not only impedes the will of the voters, but discredits democracy itself, because it is unable to fulfill its main mission: that those who are subject to laws, share in their formulation. Democracy no longer bridges the gulf between those who rule and those who are ruled. The citizen is forced to conclude that he cannot influence the conduct of public affairs and through elections to change their direction. In times of crisis, the public increasingly believes that by losing democracy it does not, after all, lose too much because in the public's experience democracy does not guarantee the directing of public affairs according to the will of the people. Political apathy of citizens facilitates, by feedback, the consolidation and expansion of the power of the sundry managerial centers and prepares the way towards the acceptance and support of the public for radical and anti-democratic ideas, ideologies and political parties. Democracy is reduced to noisy and hectic pre-election campaigns for which attractive programs are being invented by the same parties and politicians who have had the opportunity and ability to perform them in the past period and failed. The perception of democracy as the "government by the people" is lost and the situation is ready for its liquidation (cf. subsections Managerism, Totalitarianism and Decentralized Totalitarianism in Chapter 7). Therefore, the development of political parties is, for democracy, a question of life and death.

The Illegal Way To Power

The principle of an illegal way to power is the effort to change the existing legal order or its part (usually its highest norm, i.e., the constitution) in a manner contrary to valid legal provisions.  A political organization chooses this way if convinced it cannot attain the wanted share on the state's power within the framework of the law either by convincing the ruling political organization or penetrating it in an autocratic system or by obtaining the desired participation through elections in a democratic system, or else if it concludes that it achieves its goal faster by illegal methods.

Influencing the Rulers

By using the non-political way the political organization, without sharing in the directing of public affairs, endeavors to influence individuals who perform the tasks of state organs, to act in performance of their functions in accordance with its political program. This is the method usable in an autocracy, but also in a democracy (e.g., Alger Hiss as adviser to President Roosevelt). 

These methods can be also illegal. It is illegal if a political organization influences holders of public functions to comply with its goals in exchange for providing them with means of achieving their personal goals of happiness. Such acts constitute corruption. Everyone is held to be corruptible; the question is to find the right good he is willing to accept in exchange for pursuing, in his official behavior, the purpose of the corrupting subject rather than the purpose of his function. Most common is the corruption by money followed by corruption of sexual favors. Persons not corruptible by these means can be "bought" by material goods such as a paid travel or vacation, or free use of facilities (cars, air planes, premises). For those who cannot be seduced by these more ordinary bribes, there are goods that have for them a special significance: a stamp collector can be corrupted by the offer of a rare stamp; an art lover by the gift of an exquisite art object; a collector of rare books by the donation of a unique edition. Immaterial goods can be also a medium of corruption: granting of honors and titles, introduction to influential individuals or organizations, profitable insider information, granting favors to the target's family members. These methods of corruption are not an exclusive property of political organizations; they are used also by other subjects of volition: individuals as well as organizations.

A special way of influencing a public official by furthering his goal of happiness is the promise that the political organization will refrain from harming values dear to him (life, health, reputation, property, family members), or threatening to harm them if he does not submit to its demands -- extortion. An execution of such threats constitutes terror; terror can be used also as a deterrence from actions damaging the goals of the illegally acting organization. Terror can be applied discriminately, i.e., against the property of a specific person and his family (bombing, arson), against health or life or indiscriminately against persons and properties which the illegally acting organization considers as values dear to the state: life and health of any citizen, parts of the state's infrastructure or economic and administrative structure (airports, bridges, communication networks, police stations or other public buildings, banks, malls, hotels).

Fighting the System

While these methods harm the state and may possibly force some concessions to the illegal organization's program (but more likely achieve the opposite: application of more violence against the opposition - see below), they are incapable of wrestle the (legislative, executive and judicial) power from the state. But such transfer of power is necessary if the opposition rejects the entire system and/or the structure of society even in the absence of its own ideal of a better system or society. Such a radical rejection is termed dissent and the actions resulting from it are resistance. This  political  manner of  illegally achieving a political goal requires that the resistance must confront the state power directly, in defiance of the valid legal order, and overcome, by nonviolent or violent means, the power of the state's apparatus which protects the law, and the power of the ruling political organization or organizations which, by supporting the legal order, protect their position. This method's aim is to overthrow the state by force, and the above mentioned nonpolitical illegal activities make sense only if they merge into such a confrontation.

Nonviolent confrontations with the government consist of civil disobedience: the refusal to obey the state. It can assume the form of passive disobedience when the movement of resistance ignores the state's normgiving power and its members refuse to comply with their duties. The best known form of passive disobedience is the refusal to perform the military service, but there may be others: the refusal to pay taxes, to perform certain religious rituals, to speak the official language of the state. Active disobedience consists of acts violating the norms of the state without utilizing force. Such are sit-ins in private (restaurants, businesses, abortion clinics)  and public locations (school buildings, court houses), blocking traffic or access to certain locations (military installations, nuclear power plants) or interfering with legal activities (logging operations, fishing operations, urban development, industrialization, mining in ecologically sensitive areas), manifestations, demonstrations and protests without required permits. The basic idea of these methods is to overwhelm the executive and/or judicial branches of the government by sheer numbers of violators so that the punishment becomes technically impossible or too onerous for the state and evokes wider and wider sympathy of the public.

The success of nonviolent resistance depends on four conditions: (1) the movement must be massive, (2) a large part of the public must support its aims or condemn the reaction of the government, (3) the state apparatus must include powerful sympathizers with the movement, and (4) the state must refrain from utilizing all of its means against the resistance. If any of these conditions is lacking, the nonviolent resistance fails (17). Chances that nonviolent resistance will attain its goal are much better in a democracy than in a modern autocratic state.

Violent resistance demands that  the resistance organization acquire organs which are capable of fighting successfully the government (which is the legal embodiment of the state), i.e., the executive branch of the state, possibly reinforced by semi-military organs of the ruling political organization(s).

The resistance which decides to seize power by overthrowing the existing government, acquires its own fighting force either by taking it over ready-made or by building it from its members and fellow-travellers..

The most suitable instrument for seizing power in a state is that part of the state's executive power which is intended and equipped to apply force, especially the military. From the state's standpoint, such an attempt to seize power constitutes insurrection. This way to seize power is facilitated if a political organization already has a share in the government, a share which authorizes its adherents to give orders to the relevant parts of the state apparatus, especially if its adherents hold the ministry of defense (the military and its intelligence services) or the ministry of the interior (police, especially secret police). If a legitimate superior uses the state's executive power for an illegal overthrow of the government, he is performing a putsch. (This method is the preferred way to power of managerial and totalitarian political movements - see above Chapter 7.)

In a similar approach, the political organization substitutes its own objective of seizing power for objectives of organizations structured so that they are capable of changing quickly into a fighting mode, i.e., are organized like the army or police on the basis of discipline and obedience: trade unions, militias, para-military organizations, nationwide physical education associations, hunting and rifle associations. The political organization concentrates on influencing their leadership which, by using its position of authority, maneuvers the membership into a fight with the forces of the government. Negotiations between the leadership of the illegally acting political organization with the leadership of the pertinent parts of the state apparatus or other organizations constitutes conspiracy.

For the overthrow of an existing government, a political organization may solicit and/or obtain the support of another state which supplements by its own means whatever is lacking in the fighting force of the insurgent organization (in this connection see Chapter 12, section on covert war). A domestic overthrow of government is then connected with foreign interference. From the standpoint of the affected state, such negotiations of a political organization with a foreign power constitute treason.

If a political organization attempts to seize power by a violent action of its own members, it engages in a revolution.  (For a detailed description of this strategy of gradual intensification through the steps of dissention, provocation, confrontation and uprising in a democracy see Chapter 7, section on Managerism). Because the state can organize its executive branch better than any other, and especially an illegal, political organization, an uprising or a revolution will succeed only during periods when the state's power is weakened by war, foreign intervention, economic collapse, weakness of the ruling political organizations, or political apathy of the population.

Confrontations strengthen the revolution. The intervention of the state's coercive organs, in view of their (actual or alleged) brutality increase the disgust with politics existing anyway in a large part of the population, and this weakens the state, because, in the final conflict only the forces pro and con count; the others are without significance. Moreover, brutality committed by state organs evokes sympathies with its victims abroad and can even lead to international pressure on the government to cease violations of human rights of the insurgents. Because no such restraints apply to them, their position is strengthened. (About the influence of foreign policy on domestic conflicts see Chapter 12, subsection on covert war.)

The ultimate goal of the revolutionary organization is to transform local clashes into a general conflict with the state's power, i.e., an uprising, an insurrection which escalates into a civil war and, if successful, results in a violent and unconstitutional seizure of power. A violent seizure of power results in a dictatorship whose oppressiveness increases in proportion to the intensity of the defense of the fallen order, even if the revolution intends to install democracy. One reason is the need to offset the damage to the state's legitimacy and authority inflicted by the revolution, another reason is the impossibility to demand from those who brought great sacrifices for the installation of the new order, that they share power with others, and especially with their enemies. The goal of the period of dictatorship is to replace the defeated legal order by a new legal order, because otherwise the revolution's victory is not consolidated and protected.

Measures and countermeasures

Measures of the resistance

Until the resistance movement is ready to confront the state openly, it is constrained to conduct its activities in hiding: secrecy is the best protection against discovery and liquidation. Secrecy depends on the responsibility and discipline of members; it means that each person involved in illegal actions does not disclose his membership, participation or knowledge of the illegal organization to anyone not equally involved. This principle allows for no exception, and in view of possible consequences of indiscretion it would appear that this requirement is so obvious that its violation would be only an exception. Experience shows that the opposite is the rule. A member of the resistance very often feels empowered to share his membership, participation or knowledge of various aspects of the resistance with a person or persons who can, in his opinion, be absolutely relied upon not to pass on the secret to anybody: a member of his family, a close friend or, mostly, a sentimental relation of the opposite sex. This expectation is unreasonable -- the person breaking secrecy expects from the person to whom he divulges a secret, to be more responsible and disciplined that he himself. This assumption is baseless: the recipient of a secret information feels as empowered to divulge it to other "utterly reliable" persons as the sharer of the information. Once a secret is known to more than three persons it ceases to be a secret; the spread of its knowledge is then unstoppable (18).

The need to counteract this inclination of human nature to share secrets produces a number of organizational countermeasures of which the most radical is the execution of resistance members guilty or suspected of violating the principle of secrecy. This measure is taken mostly by guerilla groups. Generally used methods are, in the first place, the utilization of cover names and building an organization consisting of separated small groups. In order to create a more extensive network, such small groups are connected only vertically, not horizontally, in a way which prevents members of one group to know members or activities of another group: messages are passed up to and down from the higher levels of organization between persons not knowing each other's identity, through blind drops or radio contact without any individuals meeting (the so-called spider configuration). In order to prevent infiltration, these measures are reinforced by introduction of code words. Communications take place either at pre-arranged times and places, with alternative locations and times pre-arranged, in case that the original arrangements cannot be met, or, for events of emergency, by agreed upon signs or signals, such as an object displayed at a certain location, innocuous letters or postcards with coded messages, telephone calls pretending to be a wrong connection, even ordinary phrases pronounced by a passer-by. It is preferable that persons who arranged communications, are excluded from further illegal activities or removed from the jurisdiction of the state, i.e., sent to the exile. Similarly, the command centers of the resistance should be whenever possible located abroad in spite of the difficulties which arise with regard to communications with the domestic resistance.

In all communications, the need-to-know principle is to be observed. For resistance members isolated from each other and from information about progress or misfortunes of the movement it is most tempting to talk about one's or one's group's activities and exploits in meetings with members of another group. Especially dangerous are any written lists of names and addresses of members. They should not be maintained by, nor given to, even  higher organs of the resistance. The same principle applies to any written records; frequently, underground organizations succumb to the temptation to preserve for history records of their activities which must be kept secret in the present. (18)

Illegality calls also for securing the contents of written communications from discovery. The common means towards this goal are ciphers (19). Once the language of the message is known, modern deciphering methods (computers) will break any code provided they have sufficient material. Relatively short messages couched in changing codes are still safe. Messages, coded or plain, can be also secured by invisible writing (most common: lemon juice which becomes visible through application of heat by ironing) placed between lines of an innocuous letter or printed matter, or used to point out the letters of the hidden message by marking them invisibly with a dot or underscoring.

An underground organization is safest if its very existence is unknown to the security organs of the government, but this would mean inactivity, because every activity leaves traces. The organization must therefore weigh the benefits from its actions (harm caused to the government) against the increased risk of discovery and obliteration. This applies primarily to underground organizations whose objective is to create a branched-out network of cells for the purpose of creating an underground political party, a skeleton for a massive uprising at a propitious moment, or a network for gathering information exchangeable for support by a foreign government. If discovered in their preparatory stage, their discovery is identical with liquidation. To avoid obvious actions like public demonstrations, terrorist acts, widespread distribution of anti-government pamphlets is a condition of their survival. Such activities are proper for a well established resistance consisting of mutually isolated small groups loosely connected by a communication system which prevents tracing their connection with other groups and, mainly, their coordination through a common central organ. Each group then pursues its own closely limited activities within the overall framework and purpose of the organization so that, if discovered, its connection with a wider undertaking can be hidden, denied or at least not obvious. Such an organization has a chance of surviving partial discovery and destruction and can renew itself after the danger has passed especially if the coordinating body is at least partly located out of reach of the state's organs, i.e., abroad. Once such a structure is established, it needs some way by which its members are encouraged to withstand the effects of the government's propaganda and the pressure of its security organs. The safest way is through regular broadcasts from abroad; if this is impossible, they have to be replaced by an underground publication. While edited centrally, it should be reproduced in a decentralized way; a copy is delivered through the communications system to the leaders of individual sub-groups which then arrange for preparing an appropriate number of copies and distribute them according to local conditions among members only, among sympathizers or anonymously among the public. Once an underground organization reaches this stage, it develops specialized organs: for editing its newspaper, for its printing, for connection with its exponents abroad, for security, for collating and editing information, for enforcement of discipline and for an open and armed confrontation with the government, when the situation is ripe. If the dissident movement is strong enough, it can create a duplicate organization as a "sleeper," inactive until and if the main organization is liquidated which, in a well organized totalitarian state, cannot be averted indefinitely.

Countermeasures of the government.

The countermeasures of the government consist of (1)  discovering the existence of an organized resistance, (2) in ascertaining its size, potential and activities, (3) in destroying it. These tasks are entrusted to specialized parts of the government's security apparatus, namely the secret police and counter-intelligence agencies. In all these activities, secret services routinely employ means which are illegal under the national laws and in violation of international agreements on human rights.

Ad 1: To discover undercover activities, the security services rely on receiving information. Autocratic states maintain for this purpose ubiquitous networks of informers prying even into details of private lives of the population (see Chapter 7), democracies rely on awareness of civic duties of their citizens. In addition, security services build their own networks of individuals. They are recruited by means similar to those described above in the subsection on influencing the rulers.

Ad 2: To ascertain size, the potential and activities of an identified or suspected resistance organization, security organs first infiltrate it and then penetrate it. Infiltration is done by placing in the locus of identified non-conforming actions an agent who observes the environment and on occasion expresses opinions assumed to be identical with those of the dissenters; when finding agreement, he finally voices the need to "do something about it" in the hope that his collocutor either is a member of a resistance group and will introduce him to it, or know about a resistance group and will disclose his knowledge. If the target does not report these feelers to the authorities, this is considered as an indication that dissent exists in the suspected locus, and the target which failed to report the (from the point of the government) criminal behavior, can be arrested, interrogated or blackmailed for criminal neglect. This procedure is repeated until the suspicion proves to be groundless or it succeeds: the agent then gets in touch with the resistance and participates in its activities. In order to penetrate the organization further, he exhibits above average, but not excessive zeal supplemented often with offers of facilities the resistance needs and which are put at his disposal by his superiors for the purpose of gaining confidence and progressing on the levels of command. Such facilities can be access to a copier for printing the underground's newspaper, knowledge of ways of crossing the border, contacts with foreign embassies or visitors, procuring official documents or liaison with other resistance groups. The agent's progress is supported by the arsenal of modern technology: listening and observing devices, tracking of contacts with other members of the group or of liaison with other groups. Once the infiltrator is established, he can be changed into a provocateur: he uses the trust and influence gained in the group to push it in the direction of more obvious, more risky and more severely punishable actions. A variation on this theme is the creation, by security agents, of controlled underground groups which subsequently seek contact with genuine resistance organizations with the ultimate goal of finding the centers of the underground and its communications with abroad.

When the agent's possibilities are considered exhausted, the information gathering shifts to a different level: identified members of the resistance are arrested and subjected to interrogation. It is at this stage that the most flagrant violations of law occur. Exceptionally, cruelties and torture are defended by the interrogators with a crisis situation threatening the lives of third parties; such as knowledge of the placing of a bomb to explode shortly in an airplane, a business mall or a building, which a prisoner refuses to divulge. These situations are rare; most illegal activities are a routine part of interrogations. They consist in breaking the prisoner's spirit, in physical exhaustion, in brutalities, by utilization of technology able to produce insufferable and prolonged pain without endangering the prisoner's life, in utilization of conscience altering drugs (such as scopolamin or amytal) which weaken resistance and ability to withhold information, combined with lie detectors, and other psychiatric treatments. When, in addition to these methods the prisoner is confronted face to face with other arrested members of the group including the infiltrator, and their genuine or faked confessions, preserving secrecy or withholding information is impossible. (20)

Ad 3. To destroy the resistance, the government either executes or incarcerates its members with or without trial and imprisons actual or potential sympathizers in concentration (re-educational, forced labor, rehabilitation) camps. All of them are designed to inoculate their inmates with such a fear and despair, as to dissuade them from any new attempts at resistance, and some of them are simply extermination camps.

Once the resistance reaches the dimensions of planned terror or guerilla warfare, it is almost impossible to eradicate by the means described above, if it has the support of a significant portion of the population. The irregular armed units of the resistance cannot withstand open battle with regular military forces of the government; but military forces cannot extirpate the resistance without first depriving it of the support of the population, and such an operation cannot be executed without state-sponsored or state-performed terrorism on a large scale. (21) All such methods are illegal even if adopted by a state's legitimate government, and international human rights organizations can extend some protection to the victims.   

Interaction

The interaction between the resistance and the state is by definition hostile: the resistance pursues the aim of destroying the government, the government pursues the aim of destroying the resistance. Nevertheless, there are important variations within the framework of hostility. Because, generally speaking, without significant foreign help from a foreign state resistance cannot prevail, any variation from unmitigated hostility is in the favor of the resistance.

One form of a relaxation of hostility on the part of the government is described under Ad 2 of the preceding section: during the period of infiltration and penetration of an underground organization, government forces permit resistance activities to go on unhindered, and even support them. The underground organization can during this period inflict to the government significant damage not repairable by its subsequent liquidation (escape of important political leaders across the border, dissemination of publications with long term ideological impact on the readers, transfer of unique information on breakthroughs in military technology, transfer of important politically damaging information about the government's illegal measures of persecution to international media).

A relaxation of pressure on resistance organizations pursuing a certain program or tactics can result from a political decision of the government to concentrate on groups pursuing a different program;  instructions to concentrate on organizations planning terrorist activities means that less or no attention is temporarily paid to organizations concentrating on the ideological  side of the conflict. In a situation when terrorist acts could not dislodge the regime, spreading the ideological movement which feeds the resistance and feeds politically relevant information to states unfriendly to the government, is in its long term consequences more dangerous to the regime than a few terrorist acts. In certain situations, the government collaborates with selected resistance groups for political reasons (22).

The survival potential of the resistance is strongly increased if it can infiltrate the security forces of the government by gaining the help of some of its members. The motivation of such a help can be ideological (sympathy with the program of the resistance, revulsion at actions of the government), economic (bribery), or pragmatic (seeking an alibi for the eventuality of a victory of the resistance); also inter-service rivalry -- desire to deny a resounding success to another service or another sector of the same service. The main contribution of such a collaborator is warning of infiltration or of impending arrests combined possibly with assistance in the escape of contacts from the resistance, sometimes to protect himself from discovery during his contacts arrest and interrogation. A practical way of protecting such a collaboration is for the secret service collaborator to list his contact as his agent and infiltrator; the weakness of such arrangement is that ultimately the secret service member must show some pay-off from his so-called agent which is done at the expense of some members of the resistance.

A most important contribution to the resistance is to gain the cooperation of a group of dissenters within the security apparatus motivated either ideologically or practically. Such a group can, not only warn the resistance about danger, but utilize the vast means at the disposal of a secret service to provide its counterpart in the resistance with otherwise unattainable facilities -- false documents, secure ways for couriers to and from abroad, transportation (official cars), arms, escape routes for endangered key members of the resistance. As the scope of cooperation grows, the dissenters within the security apparatus cover their activities by pretending that the supported underground organization or group of organizations are under their control; this part of the resistance thus becomes a "protected" organization, protected from inroads by other secret service sections or organizations and generally exempt from arrests. The scope of activities of such "protected" organization is much wider and the benefits for the resistance much greater than they would be otherwise. Here, too, the drawback is that the dissenters must produce results from their cooperation with the resistance, such results can be faked to a certain extent, but there is always the danger that the co-conspirators in the security apparatus will, when under suspicion or in difficulties, produce palpable results at the expense of the underground. This drawback is only partly offset by the certainty that the "protected" organization will not be wiped out completely and will be revived again as long as its nucleus is preserved at least abroad.

Summary

Experience has shown that underground organizations, even with foreign support, have failed to overthrow totalitarian regimes; dissidents who at the right  international constellation openly challenged the illegal nature of lawless regimes, succeeded provided they acted at a propitious stage of internal development, i.e., the stage of mature totalitarianism in its oppressive phase. This occurred in the Soviet sphere of power; it failed in an earlier phase of totalitarianism when the managerial center still was ready to re-ignite the phase of suppression, like in China and Vietnam, and the regimes were not as critically dependent on Western concessions as was the Soviet Union. However, the process has not yet ended and a final judgement is pending.