History Main / ReignOfTerror

** To be more precise, both the Reds and the Whites engaged in large-scale terror and repression. It's estimated that at least 50,000 people died in the red terror and forced resettlement after the war, while the white terror claimed even more lives.

* ''DoctorWho'' did an episode set during TheFrenchRevolution that was actually titled "ReignOfTerror".

* The [[HonorHarrington Honorverse]] has the Committee of Public Safety taking over the Peoples Republic of Haven which is modeled exactly on the historical French government.

* Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship: A similar number of torture and forced dissappeance victims.

This trope is for the aftermath of a revolution or rebellion, when the former leaders of the uprising find themselves in power and may become tyrants themselves, while the ideals that led to the revolution are forgotten by the populace and buried under bloody infighting between former allies.

Contrast with FullCircleRevolution which has virtually no change in the way things are governed after the revolution. These revolutions are compatible -- in that a revolution can produce no real change even after ruthlessly slaughtering large chunks of the population, and indeed, after all this slaughter, people may be quite content to merely get back to the old ways. The Empire variant is CrushingThePopulace where you make sure no one will oppose you through sheer brutality. See also UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans.

** Not to mention that the guy they were mad at, King George III, was a bit out of reach.

* China's "CulturalRevolution" was basically a delayed version of this. Mao had been in power for a decade, but his disastrous "Great Leap Forward" had led the country to famine and ruin, cost him credibility and power, and caused "revisionists" to back the country away from socialist economics. In response, Mao spearheaded a populist "revolution" which would purge the Chinese leadership, see much of the remaining wealthy and middle class murdered (and sometimes raped or even in rare cases ''[[EatTheRich eaten]]''), halt education for nearly a decade and see China's "intellectuals" (i.e. people with education greater than middle school) sent to rural labor camps, set the countryside in to violent factional chaos in the name of revolution without direction as each group tried to one-up the other on loyalty to Mao, and which would destroy ''millennia'' of Chinese literature, shrines, and other cultural treasures in an attempt to replace old values with communist ones.

* ''{{Revenant}}'' provides a variant. The Central 46 were always the ruling power of the Soul Society; they just had a change in assembly after Aizen's defeat, but they end up imposing several strict laws upon the populous and the military. Their goal was to create their own DragonInChief in the form of the new Captain-Commander, so they gave him administrative and executive powers, which led to him expanding the military and eventually overturning the Central 46 as a power, reducing them into little more than a PropagandaMachine. However, since it was during a time of war, the new Captain-Commander's methods to win the war [[UrbanSegregation started]] [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou getting]] [[StateSec rather]]... [[GladiatorGames questionable]], but he still kept a [[VillainWithGoodPublicity good amount of support, even popularity among the populous]].

* {{Gundam}} has used something like that. it did not really occur after a revolution but after a war/reshaping of the world order. In the UC timeline the special forces Titans were established (who have become a prime example for a oppressive military in anime), and later in the A.D. timeline an even straighter example were the A-Laws which pretty much ruled the earth with an iron fist behnd the scenes (and behind them, the innovators).

* The Norsefire party in ''VForVendetta'' engineered this, first through fearmongering and inducing xenophobia in the populace, then by the spread of a horrific virus to throw everything into a panic, and then, when they had gained power, by means of a Gestapo-like organisation devoted to removing any citizens who posed the slightest threat to the government. The whole plot is a [[SatireParodyPastiche pastiche]] of the [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi reign]].

* China's "Cultural Revolution" was basically a delayed version of this. Mao had been in power for a decade, but his disastrous "Great Leap Forward" had led the country to famine and ruin, cost him credibility and power, and caused "revisionists" to back the country away from socialist economics. In response, Mao spearheaded a populist "revolution" which would purge the Chinese leadership, see much of the remaining wealthy and middle class murdered (and sometimes raped or even in rare cases ''[[EatTheRich eaten]]''), halt education for nearly a decade and see China's "intellectuals" (i.e. people with education greater than middle school) sent to rural labor camps, set the countryside in to violent factional chaos in the name of revolution without direction as each group tried to one-up the other on loyalty to Mao, and which would destroy ''millennia'' of Chinese literature, shrines, and other cultural treasures in an attempt to replace old values with communist ones.

** But they did eliminate pre-existing institutions and they were different from their former British masters. If, as some modern revisionists claim, the American revolutionaries were just a bunch of wealthy Englishmen who only cared about their property and paying less taxes then their best bet, after throwing off the London yoke, would to have been to copy the British constitutional set-up of 1689 (ie a Parliamentary system attached to a symbolic "crown" personified by a monarchy from which all authority is derived) which had proved extremely stable. Instead they not only created a republic (which was mocked in Europe since it was regarded as "common knowledge" at the time that genuine republics on anything beyond a city-sized scale were unstable and unworkable), but also instituted an untried federal system giving the thirteen colonies considerable autonomy and basically built an entire political system from the ground up - states assemblies and leaders, national congress, senate and presidency. About the only thing left from the days of British rule was the legal system which was, and is, based on English Common Law. Washington et al might well have been rich and white but they were clearly radicals who believed in what they were doing.

Contrast with FullCircleRevolution which has virtually no change in the way things are governed after the revolution. These revolutions are compatible -- in that a revolution can produce no real change even after ruthlessly slaughtering large chunks of the population, and indeed, after all this slaughter, people may be quite content to merely get back to the old ways. The Empire variant is CrushingThePopulace where you make sure no one will oppose you through sheer brutality.

Contrast with FullCircleRevolution which has virtually no change in the way things are governed after the revolution. These revolutions are compatible -- in that a revolution can produce no real change even after ruthlessly slaughtering large chunks of the population, and indeed, after all this slaughter, people may be quite content to merely get back to the old ways. The Empire variant is CrushingThePopulance where your make sure no one will oppose you through sheer brutality.

Contrast TheThermidor which has virtually no change in the way things are governed after the revolution. They are compatible -- as indeed they were in RealLife, since Thermidor also comes from the French Revolution -- in that the revolution can produce no real change even after ruthlessly slaughtering large chunks of the population, and indeed, after all this slaughter, people may be quite content to merely get back to the old ways. The Empire variant is CrushingThePopulance where your make sure no one will oppose you through sheer brutality.

* Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England from 1653 to 1658, was also this. Though his reign didn't contain much actual terrorizing as such, not that wasn't already in place before he took over anyway. Indeed, while he and his supporters took over for the reasons above and even had a brief period of direct military rule the actual Protectorate was notably unbloody compared to the preceding years, the infighting between allies being so one sided in 1653, what with the army still being just the one faction at this point. They even drifted back into pre-war forms, sort of a cross between this trope and TheThermidor.

* LookToTheWest has a close analogue in its own version of TheFrenchRevolution, led by Jean-Baptiste Robespierre. He proclaims the "doctrine of continuous warfare", by which the Republic must be in a continuous state of war in order to terrify its people into submission. When [[TheThermidor eventually overthrown]] by Jean de Lisieux, he is replaced by a regime which specifically rejects terror tactics and even the death penalty, but instead embraces TwoPlusTortureMakesFive.

[[caption-width-right:224:The first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.-- Robespierre]]

Well, as soon as LesCollaborateurs have been judged, condemned and executed, of course. And we need to take care of all the enemies and reactionaries within us who still wish to undermine the new regime. And I'm afraid those people who fought for the revolution along with me have just been revealed to be [[WeAREStrugglingTogether traitors as well]]! I have no choice, I have to seize more powers to deal with all the dangers which threaten our ideals, create a [[SecretPolice special force]] charged to [[WitchHunt investigate those who would betray the revolution]] and [[KangarooCourt an extraordinary jury to condemn them quickly]].

** The French Revolution, being the TropeNamer.
** The Russian Revolution, at least the third one.
** Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England from 1653 to 1658, was also this. Though his reign didn't contain much actual terrorizing as such, not that wasn't already in place before he took over anyway. Indeed, while he and his supporters took over for the reasons above and even had a brief period of direct military rule the actual Protectorate was notably unbloody compared to the preceding years, the infighting between allies being so one sided in 1653, what with the army still being just the one faction at this point. They even drifted back into pre-war forms, sort of a cross between this trope and TheThermidor.
*** Played very much straight in Ireland, where Cromwell is still remembered as unholy terror, though again, Cromwell was not actually reigning in Ireland at the time he was there. What he was doing was carrying out the Rump's will to ensure the Irish (who most English despised) would never be in a position to cause trouble ever again and take revenge for wildly inflated tales (with some substance) of Protestant massacres by the revolting Irish in the 1640s. Cromwell explained his tactics as trying to prevent an effusion of blood by scaring them into submission basically. It didn't work immediately, and this trope is really the only recourse once you've started down that path. Ireland suffered greatly, and while it must be remembered that some of the massacres committed by Cromwell's men are ''also'' inflated and taken out of context, said massacres were not the only reason he was reviled by the Irish. More galling to them was his confiscation of all land owned by Catholics East of the Shannon River, and his [[TheExile banishment of them]] to lands West of the Shannon, saying that they could go "To Hell or Connaught."
** The American Revolution, however, was an interesting subversion (mostly). The first U.S. government was too weak, so the Founding Fathers had to create a system where the government was strong, but would not abuse its power. And then they ''did it'', thus creating one of the very few revolutions where (almost) everyone behaved themselves after they'd gained power. The exceptions:
*** Those elements of the population who remained loyal to the British suffered heavy persecution during and after the war, often being attacked in the street and having their property taken away. A fair number of them decided to leave the new USA, with most heading to the northern colonies of what is now Canada.
*** Pro-British native populations, for whom the revolution, and even the coming decades, and for that matter most of the past and following century, would often be a Reign of Terror.

**** Not to mention that the guy they were mad at, King George III, was a bit out of reach.
*** But they did eliminate pre-existing institutions and they were different from their former British masters. If, as some modern revisionists claim, the American revolutionaries were just a bunch of wealthy Englishmen who only cared about their property and paying less taxes then their best bet, after throwing off the London yoke, would to have been to copy the British constitutional set-up of 1689 (ie a Parliamentary system attached to a symbolic "crown" personified by a monarchy from which all authority is derived) which had proved extremely stable. Instead they not only created a republic (which was mocked in Europe since it was regarded as "common knowledge" at the time that genuine republics on anything beyond a city-sized scale were unstable and unworkable), but also instituted an untried federal system giving the thirteen colonies considerable autonomy and basically built an entire political system from the ground up - states assemblies and leaders, national congress, senate and presidency. About the only thing left from the days of British rule was the legal system which was, and is, based on English Common Law. Washington et al might well have been rich and white but they were clearly radicals who believed in what they were doing.

* One country that Kino visits in ''KinosJourney'' replaced a tyrant king with the rule of majority. First the people voted to kill the king and his family, then his supporters and their family. Then anyone who disagreed with the majority. The country is left with one man after he and his wife voted to kill the third man, and then the wife died of an unrelated illness. (Though I bet having a doctor would have helped.)

Contrast TheThermidor which has virtually no change in the way things are governed after the revolution. They are compatible -- as indeed they were in RealLife, since Thermidor also comes from the French Revolution -- in that the revolution can produce no real change even after ruthlessly slaughtering large chunks of the population, and indeed, after all this slaughter, people may be quite content to merely get back to the old ways.

**** But they did eliminate pre-existing institutions and they were different from their former British masters. If, as some modern revisionists claim, the American revolutionaries were just a bunch of wealthy Englishmen who only cared about their property and paying less taxes then their best bet, after throwing off the British yoke, would to have been to copy the British constitutional set-up of 1689 (ie a Parliamentary system attached to a symbolic "crown" personified by a monarchy from which all authority is derived) which had proved extremely stable. Instead they not only created a republic (which was mocked in Europe since it was regarded as "common knowledge" at the time that republics on anything beyond a city-sized scale were unstable and unworkable), instituted an untried Federal system giving the thirteen colonies considerable autonomy and basically built an entire political system from the ground up - states assemblies and leaders, national congress, senate and presidency. About the only thing left from the days of British rule was the legal system which was, and is, based on English Common Law. Washington et al might well have been rich and white but they were clearly radicals who believed in what they were doing - a common trait of many rich people down the ages.

*** Played very much straight in Ireland, where Cromwell is still remembered as unholy terror, though again, Cromwell was not actually reigning in Ireland at the time he was there. What he was doing was carrying out the Rump's will to ensure the Irish (who most English despised) would never be in a position to cause trouble ever again and take revenge for wildly inflated tales (with some substance) of Protestant massacres by the revolting Irish in the 1640s. Cromwell explained his tactics as trying to prevent an effusion of blood by scaring them into submission basically. It didn't work immediately, and this trope is really the only recourse once you've started down that path. Ireland suffered greatly, and while it must be remembered that some of the massacres committed by Cromwell's men are ''also'' inflated and taken out of context, said massacres were not the only reason he was reviled by the Irish. More galling to them was his confiscation of all land owned by Catholics East of the Shannon River, and his [[TheExile banishment of them]] to lands West of the Shannon, saying that they could go "To Hell or Connaught".

**** Not to mention that the guy they were mad at was a bit out of reach.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Reign_of_Terror.jpg
[[caption-width:224:The first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror.� -- Robespierre]]
-->''You must make an example of these people: (1) Hang (I mean hang publicly, so that people see it) at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers. (2) Publish their names. (3) Seize all their grain. (4) Single out the hostages per my instructions in yesterday's telegram.''\\

-- Vladimir Lenin