Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution is a 2009 documentary broadcast on BBC Two in July 2009. In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" - claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence. This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee of Public Safety - the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France. Contesting Robespierre's legacy are Slavoj Žižek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who
Reflections on the Revolution in France of Man" (1791) by Thomas Paine. Nonetheless, Burke's work became popular with reactionaries such as King George III and the Savoyard philosopher Joseph de Maistre. Historically, "Reflections on the Revolution in France" became the founding philosophic opus of Conservatism when some of Burke's predictions occurred: the Reign of Terror under the new French Republic executed thousands, (including many nuns and clergy) from 1793 to 1794 to purge so-called counter-revolutionary elements of society. That, in turn, led to the political reaction of Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte's government, which appeared to some to be a military dictatorship. Burke had predicted the rise of