The programme begins with a description of the Two Concepts of Liberty and Berlin's opinion that, since it lacked coercion, negative liberty was the safest of the two concepts. Curtis then explains how many political groups that sought their vision of freedom ended up using violence to achieve it. For example, the French revolutionaries wished to overthrow a monarchical system which they viewed as antithetical to freedom, but in doing so they ended up with the Reign of Terror. Similarly, the Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia, who sought to overthrow the established order and replace it with a society in which everyone is equal, ended up creating a totalitarian regime which used violence to achieve its objectives.