Beatrice de Graaf: “Red, White, and Blood: White Terror and Great Fear, 1789-2021”

““White terror” has always been the twin brother of “revolutionary” or “red terror.” Modern history since the French Revolution has witnessed an effervescent parade of rebellions, insurrections, insurgencies, and proper coups – but they almost always came in pairs, as, for example, with revolutionary terror (against sitting feudal, authoritarian regimes) and white terror, counter-revolutionary violence, directed against the alleged revolutionary (or socialist, after 1917) activists and dissidents. Applying this dichotomy of terror to the current wave of insurrection (in the United States and elsewhere) helps us to put its dynamics in a broader historical context.”