The Origins Of Revolutionary Terror

Revolutions announce themselves in the language of historical necessity and virtue, yet they are typically propelled by anything but noble motives. Among the most corrosive is envy—the intimate, humiliating awareness of another’s superior influence, charisma, or legitimacy. In the charged atmosphere of revolutionary upheaval, where institutions are weak and moral claims are absolute, such envy rarely appears in its naked form. Instead, it is transmuted into ideological accusation, recoded as vigilance, and ultimately enacted as persecution. The result is a recurrent pattern: “Like Saturn, the revolution devours its own children” (Jacques Mallet du Pan, 1793). This is due less to...