Alex Butterworth
The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents
A very compelling read charting the, mainly European, anarchist movement of the mid to late 19th century. There is loads of intrigue both within the various anarchist factions and with state police. Seems that most of the atrocities laid at the door of "anarchists" were either directly executed by agent provocateurs in the pay, or indeed part of, the various European police agencies or the anarchists involved were highly influenced by infiltrators wanting to see atrocities committed. These state agents were either motivated by their own greed for money or power, or possibly genuinely thought that the ends (discrediting anarchism) justified the means (killing mainly innocent people). Obviously some in the anarchist movement advocated violence and this was an ongoing point of disagreement. And as the movement had a violent image in the media it attracted violent people - much like football and hooligans. It's humbling to read how dedicated many were and what deprivations of freedom, safety and security they had to endure. The story is pretty optimistic going into the Paris Communards and solidarity of other nations' workers, including German, when under siege by the Prussians. With the subsequent unravelling of the gains made and crack down by security forces the movement splintered and made progress where it could. Britain, as ever, gave sanctuary to many exiled or under threat of arrest from the continent. Whether this was to further British interests is debatable although what does come out is that most other nations' files on how the security forces infiltrated and provoked violent anarchist behaviour have been opened up the Met Police still keep their records secret or redacted when published. Probably because they are still using the same methods to incite violence from within organisations as came out regarding their deep under cover officers in the 1970s and 80s green, peace and animal liberation movements and no doubt still are doing so today. Who knows whether they are inciting so-called muslim terrorist acts. Past experience would suggest that it's not unlikely.
The story ends of course with the Russian Revolution which many thought would lead to an individually liberated communist / soviet / socialist / anarchist society built around small self governing communes. Of course the Bolsheviks, who come in for a lot of criticism, won out by killing or imprisoning all opposition and implemented Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat although without any appetite to allow the state to wither away, in fact the opposite. The 20th century battles were thereby set with state control and little individual freedom on the one side and free market and seemingly individual freedom on the other. Although whether capitalism in the west is really a free market is very debatable. More like using state control to force workers to toe the capitalist line and to be available as cheap labour when required and dumped when not. With a large state controlled security service with supporting vested interest media machine to stop individual freedom from threatening the power and money of those gaining most from "the system". The roots of mid century fascism are also documented.
By the end of the book, 1930s, the anarchist movement is in decline and the future does not look bright but as is shown throughout, the flame of individual freedom will never die and the struggle continues either under that name or within other liberal and socialist movements. As an aside, I was rather dismissive of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (see blog) but it's mentioned a few times here as a thinly veiled documentation of what was happening in London with the ex-pat revolutionaries. So maybe my accusation that the plot was barely believable and lazy characterisation was unjustified. Having read this book you'd believe that anything went in those dark days. And how about now...?
