Or perhaps the carrot and stick, pressuring the dictatorship to tolerate the expansion of civil society. That was the formula in the Polish Velvet Revolution. No-one gives up power faced with the spectre of a guillotine. People from the regime must have some guarantees of safety. Otherwise they will defend their power to the end, drowning the country in blood.
Negotiation brings disappointment, bitterness, a sense of injustice and unpaid debts.
Negotiations are possible when democratic resistance is strong enough for the dictatorship not to destroy it, and while the dictatorship itself is strong enough for the democratic opposition not to overthrow it overnight. The country has its chance in the weakness of both sides. Adam Michnik is editor in chief of Gazeta Wyborcza , the leading Polish daily.