The work carried out a historiographic reconstruction of the conceptual justification of the terrorist war in Russia of the post-reform period. The concept of a terrorist war is seen as an alternative to the concept of the Russian liberation movement. On the basis of historical evidence of the «Russian Right», objective preconditions for the formation of the concept of a terrorist war are analyzed. It is shown that the Black-Hundred literature contained the basic definitions of revolutionary terror as a total war aimed at the destruction of the Russian national state. The psychodiagnostic characteristics of terrorists by Russian psychiatrists are given. The historiographic works of modern authors of the patriotic direction are reviewed, in which the concept of a terrorist war developed in black-hundred journalism has been rethought and supplemented. The author analyzed the statistical data and historical evidence of contemporaries about the leading role of revolutionary Jewry in a terrorist war. The reveals the issue of the formation of active participants and leaders of terrorist organizations from the the Jewish Pale, as well as the problem of sponsorship and ideological support of anti-Russian terror by the special services of Western countries. The author raised a topic concerning the ways and methods of resistance of the Russian people to revolutionary gangs. Given the main characteristics of the concept of a terrorist war as an anti-Russian, anti-state, criminal activity. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that the concept of the Russian liberation movement is palliative, ideologically one-sided, Russophobic and does not reflect the objective processes of anti-Russian terror. Conversely, the concept of a terrorist war allows researchers to uncover historically accurate facts and approach an objective study of the causes and specifics of the phenomenology of terrorism in Russia.