Counter-measures

Abstract

We should shed no tears for tyrants or brutal and repressive rulers who are confronted by revolutionary terrorism: they reap the whirlwind of their own terror. In such regimes it is justifiable, however, to ask to what extent the innocent are likely to suffer by the revolutionaries’ terror, and whether the revolutionary movement has any reasonable chance of success. As we have noted, by definition totalitarian regimes suppress all effective opposition within their boundaries and are entirely unimpeded by any judicial or humanitarian constraints. The present writer has remarked elsewhere: ‘the sacrifice and heroic courage of those who rose in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis was tragic proof that even the most determined and desperate attempt by an urban-based liberation movement could not hold out against the superior technology and firing power of a ruthless occupying force which was prepared to liquidate all who stood in its way’ ([151] p. 138). Rural-based movements in ideal terrain stand a rather better chance of survival. But for autocracies and totalitarian regimes the only ‘problems’ of counter-measures against terrorism are those concerned with secret police or military techniques.