General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMaximilien de Robespierre to America:
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
"The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies."
frazzled
(18,402 posts)I mean, really, I'm sure you can find lots of stuff that Robespierre said that we could agree with. His methods, however, left a lot to be desired. I'm not willing to kill people in the name of ideology. And I'm not into a revisionist rehabilitation of Robespierre. This is laughable.
September 5: The Reign of Terror begins when Robespierre declares Terror "the order of the day." This marks the beginning of almost two years of repressing perceived enemies of the Revolution. It will claim an estimated 18,500-40,000 lives before its end in July 1794.
http://www.pbs.org/marieantoinette/timeline/reign.html
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)frazzled
(18,402 posts)The Terror did not do a thing to alleviate hunger, cold, and heartbreak for the impoverished of France. What it did was to help lead to a restoration of the monarchy and then usher in Empire and then return to monarchy again (with a tiny brief sliver of respite with a Republic for a couple of years). This went on for 100 years until a real republican democracy actually came about. But let's not pretend that poverty was eradicated in France after the Terror. And that doesn't mean you have to be supporting the previous depredations in order to say that.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)My placing them here was not intended as any sort of endorsement of Robespierre or of the Reign of Terror. I'm not ignorant of history.