Societal antagonism toward a party can equip it for later political competition

Evidence

Second, the longstanding resistance to communism in countries such as Poland was said to have eliminated the successor parties as political competitors in a freely elected party system. After all, the party was widely repudiated by the populace, and the imposition of the communist regime in Poland was likened to “placing a saddle on a cow,” in Josef Stalin’s rustic phrasing. However, this public antagonism had a very different effect on the party itself. The more the party had to respond to an antagonistic society, the more it could develop experience with policy innovation, negotiation, and justification. Tracing the transmission of a given legacy and its effects on specific actors thus holds surprising conclusions. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 140

Categorization

• XREF: Contradicts the naïve assumption that popular repudiation eliminates a party; parallels how communist successor parties in Poland turned adversarial pressure into adaptive organizational skills. — connects to: Dominant ideology recruits the dominated by neutralizing rival ideologies’ antagonism; Governmental coercion increases rather than suppresses political conflict — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4330; Strategic equivocation on divisive issues can hold an electoral coalition together. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 212 (+1 more)
• STORYSTEM: A compelling counterintuitive logic: hardship-as-tuition could anchor a fictional elite/party that grows stronger precisely because it was hated and forced to adapt.

Broader Connections

• Dominant ideology recruits the dominated by neutralizing rival ideologies’ antagonism #complicates (0.80)
• Governmental coercion increases rather than suppresses political conflict #complicates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4330