If I am not mistaken the term “terror” became current in political terminology during the French Revolution. The revolutionaries began cutting off heads with the guillotine in order to instil fear. Thenceforward the word “terror” came to define the acts of revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries, of fighters for freedom and oppressors. It all depends on who uses the term. It frequently happens that it is used by both sides in their mutual exchange of compliments.

The historical and linguistic origins of the political term “terror” prove that it cannot be applied to a revolutionary war of liberation. A revolution may give birth to what we call “terror”, as happened in France. Terror may at times be its herald, as happened in Russia. But the revolution itself is not terror, and terror is not the revolution. A revolution, or a revolutionary war, does not aim at instilling fear. Its object is to overthrow a regime and to set up a new regime in its place. In a revolutionary war both sides use force. Tyranny is armed. Otherwise it would be liquidated overnight. Fighters for freedom must arm; otherwise they would be crushed overnight. Certainly the use of force also wakens fear. Tyrannous rulers begin to fear for their positions, or their lives, or both. And consequently they try to sow fear among those they rule. But the instilling of fear is not an aim in itself. The sole aim on the one side is the overthrow of armed tyranny; on the other side it is the perpetuation of that tyranny.

Menachem Begin, The Revolt (revised edition), trans.Samuel Katz, Futura Publications, London, 1980, pp. 100-101.