Some of the 20th century’s harshest oppressors were removed through nonviolent conflicts.

In Chile, General Augusto Pinochet tortured and killed thousands of dissidents, but a nonviolent movement developed a way to topple him.

The apartheid regime in South Africa made public assemblies in black townships illegal and threatened or even assassinated nonviolent organizers, but the indigenous nonviolent resistance was still able to shatter the regime’s internal and international support.

In the Philippines, over 70 opposition workers were killed before the 1986 election, but people still successfully organized and nonviolently dislodged dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power soon afterwards.

And the Solidarity movement in Poland opened up oppositional space where little had previously existed, both before and after the communist regime imposed martial law.

One of the key reasons why these and other nonviolent movements were effective against their brutal adversaries is because they undermined the reliable support that many of the key groups in society—including the state’s security forces—had provided to the oppressive regime. Once a nonviolent movement is able to do this, a society can become ungovernable for the existing regime, and a transition to new rulers or a new system can begin.

Those who do not understand that nonviolent conflict works in this way tend to dismiss its achievements, but millions—who no longer live under dictatorships, or under other oppressive systems dissolved by nonviolent strategies—would not agree.

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