[O]né cannot separate violence from the very existence of the state (as the apparatus of class domination): from the standpoint of the'subordinated and oppressed, the very existence of a state is a fact of violence (in the same sense in which, for example, Robespierre said, in his justification of the regicide, that one does not have to prove that the king committed any specific crimes, since the very existence of the king is a crime, an offense against the freedom of the people). In this strict sense, every violence of the oppressed against the ruling class and its state is ultimately ‘defensive’. If we do not concede this point, we voles no lens ‘normalize’ the state and accept that its violence is merely a matter of contingent excesses (to be dealt with through democratic reforms).

In Defence of the Terror: Liberty or Death in the French Revolution