To advocates of radical change—and this came to include the public in revolt—the death of revolution resembled a blow to the head. They, too, lost their strategic vision, became disoriented, blind to the big picture. Absent the goal-line of revolution, radicals found themselves able to mobilize only on a “case-by-case” basis, against some immediately felt injustice.18 Rather than defeat or overthrow the government, they sought to control its actions toward the specific case that engaged their energies. And they did so by pure force of negation.
