Abstract. Fuzziness and nebulosity of the term "terrorism", the lack of its overall international legal definition is in large part a consequence of its political rather than theoretical nature and origin. The author makes an attempt to determine a set of criteria for terrorism as definite tactics related to violence, which probably will not claim the coverage of all existing and future variants, but will help to differ terrorism from other types of violence that it is being confused with at most, and which may variously manifest themselves in specific national, socio-political and sociocultural contexts.