In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" – claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence.

This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee of Public Safety – the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France.

The drama, based on original sources, follows the life-and-death politics of the committee during "Year Two" of the new Republic.

It was a year which gave birth to key features of the modern age: the thought crime; the belief that calculated acts of violence can perfect humanity; the notion that the interests of "mankind" can be placed above those of "man"; the use of policemen to enforce morals; and the use of denunciation as a political tool.

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