why is Robespierre an example of "The benality of evil"? our teacher wants us to understand why the French Revolution came to be... why genocide in their(hitler, stalin, robespierre ect...) eyes could be justifiable...
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Robespierre believed in ideal of civic virtue and form of a government where all citizens are required to participate in the common good. People who do not participate, less who oppose it, are traitors who should suffer under the blade of the national razor - guillotine. Robespierre had strong emphasis on the good of the people who are corrupted by the society, therefore, it is the role of the patriots to terrorize them to the good of the society and the ideal civic republic. He came up with oxymoron combination, virtue and terror: "terror without virtue is disastrous, virtue without terror is powerless. Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue...". He believed that through the use of the terror, he will create a virtue. He justified the deaths of the innocent people as a necessary price to achieve the ideal. He was known to be incorruptible and between April and July 1794, also invincible. Napoleon had said, that he was not ultimately the worst human being ever, but a person who through his visions and ideals refused to see the individual. Robespierre is considered as architect of the state sponsored terror, mass murder, totalitarian government, and total war. While many of these characteristics are valid, Robespierre did not create Reign of Terror, Committee of Public Safety, or Revolutionary Tribunal. He came into collective dictatorship in July 27, 1793 when all these institutions of government oppression were already in place for some time. He as spokesman for the committee and leader of the most influential political club became the representative of the bloody phase of the Revolution. During this time, he pushed for more blood and expansion of power for the Revolutionary Tribunal that was feeding hundreds of people into the scaffold. In his eyes, all these people were traitors of the revolution, humanity, virtue, corrupted, decayed. He felt no remorse as said that "pity is treason". When Maximilien was confronted about possible innocent people perishing in the guillotine he either said. "who knows if they were innocent" or "my power was not sufficient to save a suspect" [in time when he was the most powerful revolutionary in all of France]. He believed that he makes service to the state and the revolution and said that he is rejuvenating France at the guillotine. Anyone who disagreed with him was labeled as a traitor and was condemned to death. Also needs to be remembered that Committee was collective dictatorship and all its members justified the need for purges and signed numerous death warrants. The study of the work of the committees often points out to Carnot as a person who was the most pragmatic to sign more death warrants than Robespierre. Also it was Carnot who approved his removal (or was consulted). Robespierre was never man of action, but orator, and speech was his main weapon. He was able to deceive people with nice vision of great France in the future. He was shaking hands with little French girls in the public and the same hand he signed death warrants for others. He disliked intellectuals or journalists. One of his speeches said "The paid journalists who mislead the people every day by shameless distortions" as the main obstacle to national enlightenment. As solution he proposed "That we ought to proscribe these writers as the most dangerous enemies of the country and to circulate an abundance of good literature." As other dictators after him, they took nice motto about civic equality, fatherland, equality, and justice, and paved it with the heads of the countless victims.




























