Abstract
The term state terrorism is of topical interest since the 1970s. Originally, it was used by the USSR during the Cold War era to describe the Operation Condor in South America. This strategy of massive repression of left-winged insurrectionary movements, led by the most authoritarian regimes of the region, involved a wide-spread use of intelligence services, assassinations and torture. The origins of state terrorism go back centuries ago. The French Revolution and the period of terror that followed from June 1793 to July 1794, initially with Maximilien Robespierre, gave birth to the word terrorism. Although quite marked by its context, his definition of the revolutionary process gives many clues concerning any terrorist's intellectual path: "If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible...?
