WHEN WE THINK of to a despotic system or of revolutionary actions against such an order, of deeds which have marked and brought about so many turning points in history, many different images appear before our minds' eyes. Nations in Europe and Asia which have been doomed to go through the experience of modern totalitarianism and the victims who escaped the dreadful machinery of its jails and concentration camps, will hold very different views from those of us who have always enjoyed the blessings of a lawful order. To many, the word resistance or rebellion still provokes the memory of the classical revolutions of past centuries, of vague images of barricades, of fighters armed with breechloaders and of waving flags as has been depicted in the famous painting by Delacroix.' This romantic image is not valid today. The totalitarian state of our times, comparable to a powerful gangster team equipped with the latest techniques of mass control and holding in its hands more power than any other system before in history, is immensely more difficult to oppose than the despotisms of former centuries.2 The modern police state can not be fought with the weapons of our grandfathers. The barricades of the past could easily be rolled down by tanks while open would be rapidly suppressed with machine guns and heavy arms. The rebel of our times, always facing the danger of being abducted bei Nacht und Nebel (by night and fog), confronted with death in an unknown cellar under the torture of the NKVD 3 or the Gestapo, has to tackle an opponent who does not know either religious or ethical ties and is equipped with all the latest psychological techniques to destroy a man's personality. If he dies, he is not adorned with the glory of martyrdom and rarely, if ever, does history remember his name. The complete control of mass media and all means of communication plus a vast and all-pervasive spy system reaching into private homes and families, makes it extremely difficult for the opponents of the regime even to make contact and all the more difficult to organize resistance. If spontaneous riots against a totalitarian state do occur they are always ineffectual. This fact is shown by the permanent peasant unrest in Soviet Russia which, when outbreaks of active opposition occur, is always suppressed within a