“Every revolution must have on its side some of the powerful of the existing regime,” Josef Skála said during a seminar on the followers of Karl Marx. Josef Skála is a communist historian who knows the history of those Marxist revolutions as well as anyone.
This is absolutely crucial knowledge for any social change. Behind great social changes there is always a power coalition. Not a coalition of the pure or a coalition of the trusted, but a coalition of those who stand for very similar change. In that sense, political defection is abhorrent on the one hand, but on the other hand, there is no success without political defectors.
However, this also requires the ability to define interests very precisely and to understand which of those interests are decisive and where compromise is possible. And also the ability to build alliances and coalitions – not alliances within one group of people, but between different groups.