A story related by Vaclav Havel, leader of the “velvet revolution” in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, illustrates the importance of moral capital in dissident politics. Under interrogation during his first period of imprisonment, Havel foolishly mentioned his intention to resign as spokesman of the Czechoslovakian freedom movement known as Charter 77. His reason was personal disagreement with other leaders, but news of Havel's “betrayal” was immediately broadcast by the communist government in order to discredit him and his cause. Havel described his shame and humiliation on his release, and how, in an attempt to restore his credibility, he flung himself “almost hysterically” into the movement. After two years he was, to his great delight, reimprisoned for six weeks – good weeks indeed, he wrote, each one “another small step toward my ‘rehabilitation’.” A later four-year term of imprisonment put the final seal on his dissident credentials.

The central importance of moral capital to dissidents has, in a sense, already been demonstrated in the case of de Gaulle, who could be described as an eternal political dissident. His whole career was characterized by dissident stances – first against the Third Republic, then against the Vichy regime, then against the Fourth Republic. Even as head of his own Fifth Republic, he acted on the world stage as a kind of international dissident at large.