Excerpts - Vaclav Havel

Seldom in recent times, it seems, has a social system offered scope so openly and so brazenly to people willing to support any thing at any time, as long as it brings them some advantage: to unprincipled and spineless men prepared to do anything in their craving for power and personal gain; to born lackeys, ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbours' and their own honour for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power.

In view of this, it is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied, more than ever before, by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans and men of dubious record, in short, by typical collaborators, men, that is, with a special gift for persuading themselves that their dirty work is a way of rescuing something, or, at least, of preventing still worse men from stepping into their shoes. p 8


In democratic societies with a traditional parliamentary system of government, political opposition is understood as a political force on the level of actuual power (most frequently a party or coalition of parties) which is not a part of the government.
It offers an alternative political programme, it has ambitions to govern, and it is recognised and respected by the government in power as a natural element in the political life of the country. It seeks to spread its influence by political means, and competes for power on the basis of agree-upon legal regulations.

In addition to this form of opposition, there exists the phenomenon of the 'extra parliamentary opposition', which again consists of forces organised more or less on the level of actual power, but which operate outside the rules created by the system, and which employ different means than are usual within that framework.

In classical dictatorships, the term opposition is understood to mean the political forces which have also come out with an alternative political programme. They operate either legally or on the outer limits of legality, but in any case they cannot compete for power within the limits of some agreed-upon regulations. Or the term opposition may be applied to forces preparing for a violent confrontation with the ruling power, or who feel themselves to be in this state of confrontation already, such as various guerilla groups or liberation movements. pp 72-73

From - Living in Truth Faber and Faber 1986