History Main / ReignOfTerror

* The Egyptian novel, ''The Thief and the Dogs'' has this as the setting's backstory. Said Mahran (the main character) was a JustLikeRobinHood thief fighting against the colonialist European government during the revolutions of the 1950's. [[ItGotWorse Unfortunately for him,]] his closest allies in the movement, Ilish Sidra and Rauf Ilwan, basically seize power for themselves. The result? Egypt is no better off than it was before (really the only difference is the totalitarian leaders are Egyptian instead of Euroean) and Said is out for revenge as the book starts.

Finally, LaResistance has won, the revolution has occurred and the tyrannous PresidentEvil has been deposed. This should be the end of TheEmpire, the establishment of a new era of freedom, peace, prosperity and equality.

This trope is for the aftermath of a revolution or rebellion, when the former leaders of the uprising [[HeWhoFightsMonsters 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.

* In ''TheTwilightZone'' 1961 episode "The Mirror" a South American revolutionary overthrows a dictator. The dictator tells him that his mirror "shows him his enemies." The revolutionary, looking in it through the course of the episode sees his former compatriots and kills them off. He's finally left alone, and just sees himself in the mirror; then, realizing the significance, he kills himself.

* Arguably began in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' when the God-Emperor unified Terra, but has since become a permanent state of affairs.

Named after the Reign of Terror in TheFrenchRevolution, when the guillotine was used and overused against many people. Although it was a short period, lasting for less than a year from 1793-1794 during a revolution that lasted 15 years, it is perhaps the most remembered part of the revolution. The fledgling republic which had been declared about a year earlier was being attacked by both foreign enemies and rebellions within France. The guillotine became the [[IconicItem symbol of this period]] as it was used for many public executions that took place in this period. In Paris people where subjected to a revolutionary tribunal, and then either jailed or executed.

MaximilienRobespierre, who was one the more powerful members of the Committee Of Public Safety which held de facto executive power within the republic famously defended the ReignOfTerror as not being incompatible with the idea of a republic and a necessary step in creating his vision of a Utopia. In the same speech Robespierre outlines without naming names who he considered to be hindrances to the republic. This includes moderates like Georges Danton, ironically one of the people who started Reign Of Terror. Also on his list of enemies where extremists trying to take the revolution to far like journalist Hebert. The ReignOfTerror ended when Robespierre a long with other members of the political faction called the Mountain where executed.

Named after the Reign of Terror in TheFrenchRevolution, when the guillotine was used and overused against many people. Although it was a short period, lasting for less than a year from 1793-1794 during a revolution that lasted 25 years, it is perhaps the most remembered part of the revolution. The fledgling republic which had been declared about a year earlier was being attacked by both foreign enemies and rebellions within France. The guillotine became the [[IconicItem symbol of this period]] as it was used for many public executions that took place in this period. In Paris people where subjected to a revolutionary tribunal, and then either jailed or executed.

Named after the Reign of Terror in TheFrenchRevolution, when the guillotine was used and overused against many people. Although it was a short period, lasting for less than a year from 1793-1794 during a revolution that lasted 25 years, it is perhaps the most remembered part of the revolution. The fledgling republic which had been declared about a year earlier was being attacked by both foreign enemies and rebellions within France. The guillotine became the IconicItem for the public executions that took place in this period.

-------

Named after the Reign of Terror in TheFrenchRevolution, when the guillotine was used and overused against many people.

Compare and 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.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* TruthInTelevision, alas.
* Averted in the VelvetRevolution.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution French Revolution]], being the TropeNamer.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution Iranian Revolution]]. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini]] executed many opposition leaders and supported the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis hostage takers]].
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution Russian Revolution]], at least the RedOctober one.
** To be more precise, both the Reds and the Whites engaged in large-scale terror and repression, especially during the Russian Civil War. Interestingly, the majority of the deaths were incidental, as both the Red and White Armies 'conscripted' men and grain from the villages, leaving them with no one to till the fields and no food to eat. The majority of the deaths were caused by starvation, diseases related to starvation and [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty cannibalism.]]
* 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 a FullCircleRevolution.
** 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."
*** Some of Cromwell's massacres were ''not'' blown out of proportion, however - it is estimated that Cromwell's troops killed roughly 3,500 people (soldiers and civilians) at both Drogheda and Wexford after the battles there. Fortunately, he was persuaded not to do so after the Siege of Clonmel; being impressed (and one would imagine, exasperated) that he lost some 2,000 men in the fight there. Coincidentally, Clonmel is this troper's hometown.
*** It's also worth noting that Cromwell is also credited, by the very same land seizures and exilment of Irish folk to the Western province (historically the poorest one in terms of agriculture), to have single handedly started the rapid decline of Irish Gaelic Civilization. When we think of War of the Three Kingdoms period Ireland, we imagine them to be basically the same as Anglicized Scots only they speak Irish. The truth was native Irish Culture at the time was incredibly sophisticated and vetted, with styles of dress, societal norms and other minutae that legitimized it being called a 'Civilization' rather then just a culture. By destroying so many lives, confiscating lands and effectively forcing the Gaelic Nobility into banishing themselves to the continent as well as encted further repressive measures he is een by many as the start of the decay decline and possibly the eventual destruction of any cultural link modern Irish have with their ancient ancestors besides language. So basically as far as the Irish are concerned, Cromwell was a mass murdering monster who then went ahead and made things worse when the blood stopped being spilled.
* 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.
*** The American Revolution was not as violent as other revolutions due to the fact that the founding fathers [[NotSoDifferent were not that different]], either ideologically or socially, from their former British masters. They were both wealthy white men, after all. As such, they had little interest in eliminating any pre-existing institutions (or persons associated with said institutions) that existed during colonial times (except for the monarchy).
*** Not to mention that the guy they were mad at, King George III, was a bit out of reach.
*** Most British institutions were out of reach, including Parliament.
*** The colonies had practiced a large degree of self-governance for many years before the revolution, so they didn't have to build everything from scratch once the British were gone. This made everything a lot more stable.
** Most of the indigenous Indian population had sided with the British, so the new country struck back at them, forming the first step of the United States' lovely treatment of Native Americans.
* 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 Maoist 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.
* Cuba.
* Argentina during the National Reorganization Process: 30,000 victims of torture, unlawful arrest, forced dissappearance.
* Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship: A similar number of torture and forced disappeance victims. Among the people working for the government were former [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]].

[[AC:FanFiction]]
* ''{{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, removing the harsher laws of the Soul Society 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 achieve victory [[UrbanSegregation started]] [[BigBrotherIsWatching getting]] [[StateSec rather]]... [[GladiatorGames questionable]], but he still kept a [[VillainWithGoodPublicity good amount of support, even popularity among the populous]].

* 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 Maoist 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.

->''"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."''\\
''P.S. Find tougher people.''
-->--'''Vladimir Lenin'''

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution Iranian Revolution]]. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini]] executed many opposition leaders and supported the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis hostage takers]].

* The French Revolution, being the TropeNamer.
* The Russian Revolution, at least the RedOctober one.

-->--''Vladimir Lenin'''

--'''Vladimir Lenin'''

-->--'''Vladimir Lenin'''

[[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. --[[MaximilienRobespierre Robespierre]]]]

--'''Robespierre'''

->''Terror is nothing more than justice. Swift, incorruptible justice.''\\
-->'''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.''\\

-->--'''Robespiierre'''

* ''BattlestarGalactica'' "Collaborators"

* As did ''TheTimeTunnel'' .

It's all for the sake of our freedom so direly gained, of course.

This trope is for the aftermath of a revolution or rebellion, when the former leaders of the uprising [[HeWhoFightsMonsters 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.

Often a consequence of TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized.

Compare and 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.

->''Terror is nothing more than justice. Swift, incorruptible justice''\\

->''Terror is nothing more than justic. Swift, incorruptible justice''\\

** Which teaches us all the FantasticAesop "Don't look into cursed mirrors".

** Better than anyone else's reign of terror at the moment, save the Tau whose ignorance of psykers would spell doom for any psychically active species(like humans) run by them.

* ''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 [[FullCircleRevolution 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.

* Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship: A similar number of torture and forced dissappeance victims. Among the people working for the government were [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]].

* In the Woody Allan film, ''Film/{{Bananas}}'', the rebels overthrow the evil Central American dictatorship. Then the new leader goes batshit insane and starts his ReignOfTerror. So the rebels get Woody to be leader instead. HilarityEnsues.

* In the Woody Allan film, ''Bananas'', the rebels overthrow the evil Central American dictatorship. Then the new leader goes batshit insane and starts his ReignOfTerror. So the rebels get Woody to be leader instead. HilarityEnsues.

* The rule of The Citizen in [[{{Mistborn}} The Hero of Ages]] has become this, leading to some of our heroes to attempt a FullCircleRevolution. [[spoiler: What they don't realize is that both sides are being influenced by the BigBad.]]

[[AC:RolePlayingGames]]
* Given that it was blatantly based on TheFrenchRevolution, it's not surprising that this ends up happening to the country of Montaigne in ''7th Sea's'' metaplot.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* 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 [[FullCircleRevolution 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.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* Arguably began in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' when the God-Emperor unified Terra, but has since become a permanent state of affairs.
** Better than anyone else's reign of terror at the moment, save the Tau whose ignorance of psykers would spell doom for any psychically active species(like humans) run by them.

[[AC:{{Television}}]]
* In ''TheTwilightZone'' 1961 episode "The Mirror" a South American revolutionary overthrows a dictator. The dictator tells him that his mirror "shows him his enemies." The revolutionary, looking in it through the course of the episode sees his former compatriots and kills them off. He's finally left alone, and just sees himself in the mirror; then, realizing the significance, he kills himself.
** Which teaches us all the FantasticAesop "Don't look into cursed mirrors".
*** Or as the writers probably intended, "paranoia is self-destructive" and "it's LonelyAtTheTop".
*** It's left up to the audience to decide whether the mirror was really cursed or if it was all part of the dictator's paranoia.
* ''BattlestarGalactica'' "Collaborators"
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' did an episode set during TheFrenchRevolution that was actually titled "ReignOfTerror".
* As did ''TheTimeTunnel'' .

<<|PoliticsTropes|>>
<<|HelpHelpThisIndexIsBeingRepressed|>>

''P.S. Find tougher people.''\\
--Vladimir Lenin