Contrary to Alinsky's suggestion that Gandhi started his famous nonviolent 1930 Civil Disobedience movement, focussing on the iniquitous British tax on salt, because he did not have the arms or the willing fighters to do otherwise, the truth is almost the exact opposite. Gandhi felt forced into commencing a nonviolent campaign for the very reason that terrorism and armed violence against the imperialists was on the increase in the country. It is the primary means to this important end. Now, a physical struggle inevitably arouses in the minds of those directly and even indirectly concerned in it emotions of hatred, fear, rage and resentment. In the heat of conflict all scruples are thrown to the winds, and all the habits of forbearance and humaneness, slowly and laboriously formed during generations of civilized living, are forgotten.
Nothing matters any more except victory.
Gandhi had a complete answer for critics who doubted the efficacy of his methods against the likes of Hitler, who know no pity. Unarmed men, women and children offering nonviolent resistance without any bitterness in them will be a novel experience for them. They have the same soul as I have. Even if psychological simulation experiments tended strongly to reject Gandhi's underlying premise it still would not have worried him. For I have lost nothing worth.