The final result of any social conflict is determined by the balancing of forces involved. Violence itself can never succeed against a stronger adversary, so those who desire to bring about social change or revolution by violence have to begin with the process of education to build a group large enough to overcome the violent forces which are likely to be arrayed against them. Even a violent revolution must be preceded by much non-violent educational preparation. But even when the group using violence has become large enough to overcome the physical force arrayed against it, its victory rests upon the coercion of its opponents rather than upon their conversion. Though defeated, the opponents still entertain their old concepts and look forward to the day of retribution, or to the counter-revolution. A social order so established rests upon a very unstable foundation. Revolutionaries have attempted in such circumstances to "liquidate" all the opposition, but it is doubtful that they have ever been completely successful in doing so. The ruthless use of violence in the process of liquidation has usually alienated third parties against the regime that uses it, and thus augmented the group that might support the counter-revolution. Advocates of non-violence must start in the same way as the violent revolutionaries to build their forces through persuasion and education. They must assess properly the attitude of the third party and carry on educational work with this group until it is certain that it will not go over to the other side at the moment of action. By the time a revolutionary or reforming group was large enough to use violence successfully, and to weather the storm of the counter-revolution or reaction, it would already have won to its side so large a portion of the community that it could probably succeed without the use of violence. This would certainly be true in a country like the United States. We must ask the question as to whether the energy consumed in the use of violence might not bring better results if it were expended upon additional education and persuasion, without involving the destruction of human life, human values, and property which violence inevitably entails. Even most of the ardent advocates of war and violent revolution admit that violence is only an undesirable necessity for the achievement of desirable ends. Non-violent methods pursued with the same commitment and vigor would be just as likely to succeed in the immediate situation as violence, without bringing in their train the tremendous human suffering attendant upon violence. More important is the fact that a social order based upon consent is more stable than one based upon coercion. If we are interested in the long range results of action, non-violence is much more likely to bring about the new society than is violence, because it fosters rather than destroys the sense of community upon which any new social order must be founded.