THE PLURAL form is important. Activist citizens rarely if ever confront a single opponent, a unified hierarchy of professional politicians and bureaucrats, or an all-powerful Establishment—any more than any of these confront a conspiracy of citizens. It is easier to take aim if one resolutely disbelieves in plurality, but much harder to score a hit. In fact, the movement, whatever its character, faces a variety of enemies, who usually have considerable difficulty coordinating their resistance. They are inhibited by old rivalries, or they disagree, much as activists do, about strategy and tactics, or they see a chance for a little easy blackmail. It might be that all of them would band together if the movement posed a truly major threat. But even the history of revolutionary struggle does not reveal that kind of unity, and, in any case, the movement does not often pose an equally major threat to all established groups. Indeed, it sometimes offers opportunities, above all, to leading politicians, who have often been known to desert their traditional allies (aristocrats, bishops, landowners, industrialists, managers) in exchange for mass support.
Instead of presupposing enmity, on the basis of this or that ideological vision, activists must always be on the lookout for secret allies. Because the conventional system is itself competitive, every intervention is bound to have different effects on groups differently situated within it, on parties and individuals, for example, in and out of office. A massive demonstration may discredit the mayor or governor and win private applause from an opposition that would never organize demonstrations. A referendum campaign may increase the size of the election-day poll and help whatever party draws support from passive majorities. A growing movement is itself a candidate for alliances and coalitions undreamt of by its militants. These are not stable ties, to be sure, but they should never be spurned before the possibilities they open are carefully studied.
No one should be called an enemy until he has earned the title. Movement leaders, of course, must calculate their chances of winning support here or there in the society as realistically as they can. But their public stance should be open as long as openness is at all safe. They need to win support from people whose first response is worried, unsure, or hostile, and they can only do that if they avoid labeling those people on the basis of their first response. Some enemies are implacable, but that is no reason to set out to make implacable enemies.
Even if it does not seek out enemies, however, a movement may find itself fundamentally at odds with conventional moral or political standards, or with established social interests. Then it is forced to make the best of its embattled state, and since its every action is an affront or a threat to large numbers of men and women, the available options are limited. It is a great temptation, at such moments, to blame the people who are affronted and threatened. Who else is responsible for the isolation and failure of the movement? But just as seventeenth-century pamphleteers always attacked not the king but the king’s advisers, so today one must attack not the people but the people’s leaders. For the rest, the tasks of an isolated band of activists are obviously educational: it must put its case, doing whatever is necessary to attract some notice, but never insulting those who turn away unconvinced. It must look and sound more winning than it is.