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Robespierre's Justification of the Use of Terror
Editor's Note: Maximilien Robespierre was the leader of the Committee of Public Safety. The group governed France during the most violent part of theFrench Revolution. Robespierre was a leader in the revolution fighting for a Republic in France. However, after gaining power, Robespierre became a strict and powerful ruler, creating a Reign of Terror in France andputting nearly 300 people to death. He made the following speech in 1794 to explain why he used terror in governing the people of France.
To establish and support democracy, to achieve the the peaceful existence of constitutional laws, we must end the war of liberty against those who rule without representation and move safely through this revolution. That is the aim of the revolutionary system that you have put into place. Your conduct, then, should also be determined by the difficult situation in which the French Republic is placed. And the plan of your government must result from the spirit of revolution combined with the general principles of democracy.
Now, what is the central principle of the democratic or popular government — that is, the essential spring which makes it move? It is virtue.I am speaking of the public desire to do good which effected so many intellects in Greece and Rome and which ought to produce much more surprising ones in France. I am speaking of that virtue which is nothing other than the love of country and of its laws.
Virtue can be considered in relation to the people and in relation to the government. It is necessary in both. When only the government lacks virtue, the people still can be good. But when the people itself is unethical, freedom is already lost...
From all this let us understand a great truth: A popular government will have confidence in the people and will be hard on itself. Our entire theory would end here if you had only to guide the French Republic through calm waters. These are difficult times, and the revolution imposes on you another task.
This sincere way in which the French revolution came to be, the greatness of its goal, is precisely what causes both our strength and our weakness. It causes our strength because it gives us the rise of truth over dishonesty. It also places the rights of the public over private citizens. It causes our weakness because it rallies all vicious men against us.
Men who in their hearts considered taking freedom from the people should be punished. All those who intend to let people live without the things they need deserve punishment. This includes those who have rejected freedom. It includes those who have embraced the revolution as their life's work and the people as their enemy. We have therefore seen many determined or greedy men leave our cause. They have left us along the way because they did not begin the journey with the same destination in view.
One might say the two opposing sides in this struggle are fighting in this great period of human history to once and for all fix the fate of the world. France is the scene of this fearful combat. Without the fight, all the tyrants surround you. Within the fight, all the friends of oppressiontry to take over. They will try to take power until you have no more hope.We must kill the enemies both inside and outside of the Republic or we will die with the Republic. Now in this situation, you should plan to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.
If the source of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the sources of popular government in revolution are both virtue and terror. Terror is fatal without virtue. And virtue is powerless without terror.Terror is nothing other than justice — prompt, severe, inflexible.It therefore flows from virtue. It is not so much a special principle as it is a result of democracy being applied to our country's most urgent needs.
It has been said that terror is the principle of dictatorial government. Does your government therefore resemble a dictatorship? Yes. Just as the sword gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty, the henchmen of tyranny have weapons. Let the oppressor govern his brutalized subjects by terror. He is right, as an oppressor. Use terror to quiet the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty's dictatorship against tyranny...
Society owes protection only to peaceful citizens. The only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For the Republic, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers, or even enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny — is it not unbreakable? Are the enemies within not on the same side as the enemies without? The killers who tear our country apart, the people who pay off honest citizens, the traitors who sell them are all responsible. So are the crooked supporters hired to disgrace the people's cause and kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil disharmony. Are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?