“Jacobinism strove to perpetuate a fleeting, quasi-egalitarian climax of the revolution, which was incompatible with the fundamental trend of the time. This was foredoomed Utopia: history would have had to stop in its course in order to save Jacobinism. The conflict between Jacobinism and its age explains the Jacobin mentality and method of action. Robespierre and his friends had their metaphysical idea of Truth, their Verité; but they could not trust that their Verité would win the hearts and the minds of the people. With morbid suspicion they looked round and saw enemies creeping from every crevice. They had to draw a sharp dividing line between themselves and the rest of the world, and they drew it with the edge of a guillotine. His political instinct suggested to Robespierre that only through a permanent state of siege could he prolong the ephemeral climax of the revolution. ‘They spared no human hecatomb to build the pedestal for their Truth. The counterpart to their absolute faith in a metaphysical idea was their absolute distrust of living people.'” (Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1954)