as delinquency and need not concern us here. But if violence is
directed towards political ends, it may be anything but anarchic;
terrorists, if they aim at success, must be highly organised or they
will be betrayed and defeated. This kind of frustration, erupting in
violence for political ends, is the basic subject-matter of this book.

What, then, is frustration? For my purpose, it is simply the
inability to do something one badly wants to do, through cir-
cumstances beyond one's control. It does not help at all to adopt
a high moral tone about frustrations, and to pronounce one
frustrated desire to be more worthy of sympathy than another.
It does not matter whether an ambition is laudable; what matters
is that it exists. What matters even more is to discover it.

This quest is, however, far from easy. Most true rebels--
leaders of violent uprisings--are not easily accessible while their
struggle lasts. After it is over, they become less interesting: the
revolutionary of yesterday is the conservative of tomorrow. Those
who do seek publicity may be physically remote from normal
communications, like Fidel Castro. Some may be less communica-
tive than others, even if they are disposed to receive visitors.
Those who are disposed to talk may tend to exaggerate their own
exploits or difficulties.

I have met a number of rebels, including some of the central
figures of this book. I have, for instance, interviewed Ho Chi
Minh of Vietnam, Ferhat Abbas of Algeria and Sumitro of Indo-
nesia; Sjafruddin, who became Prime Minister of the Indonesian
revolutionary Government, I met at a cocktail party in Jakarta in
1952. But among these, only Sumitro and Abbas were in context,
that is in rebellion. Ho had driven the French from his domain
two and a half years earlier; Sjafruddin was still Governor of the
Bank Indonesia, far in thought, I feel certain, from planning
dissidence. I have also met a host of minor rebels, from whom I
learned something of the mentality of rebels, of their toughness,
their courage, above all their intransigence. The true rebel does
not compromise, though often the practical politician fighting in
the same cause will compromise above his head: Menachem
Beigin, leader of the terrorist group Irgun Zvai Leumi, never

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