The World That Never Was A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents

603 Pages·2011·4.1 MB·English

by  Butterworth Alex

Also by Alex Butterworth
Pompeii: The Living City

FOR MATILDA AND THOMAS
Contents
Dramatis Personae
Timeline
Introduction
Prologue: This Thing of Darkness
1 A Distant Horizon
2 Communards
3 From Prince to Anarchist
4 Around the World in 280 Days
5 To the People
6 Forward!
7 Propaganda by Deed
8 Spies and Tsaricides
9 Inconvenient Guests
10 Voices in the Fog
11 The Holy Brotherhood
12 A Great New Tide
13 The Making of the Martyrs
14 Decadence and Degeneration
15 The Revolution is Postponed
16 Deep Cover
17 The Russian Memorandum
18 Dynamite in the City of Light
19 Wicked Laws
20 The Mysteries of Bourdin and the Baron
21 A Time of Harmony
22 Conspiracy Theories
23 Agents Unmasked
24 War and Revolution
25 Coda
Photo Inserts
List of Illustrations
Notes on Sources
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Dramatis Personae
Anderson, Sir Robert. Born 1841 in Dublin, son of Crown Solicitor,
became leading anti-Fenian in Ireland then at Scotland Yard, before
being displaced to Home Office. Recalled as assistant commissioner.
Published apocalyptic interpretations of Bible. Died 1918.
Andrieux, Louis. Born 1840. Republican lawyer involved in
suppression of Lyons commune, then Opportunist deputy. Appointed
prefect of police in 1880, he served less than two years, later flirting
with Boulangism. Senator from 1903, died 1931. Louis Aragon,
Dadaist, communist and founding exponent of surrealism, was his
illegitimate son.
Aveling, Eleanor Marx, known as ‘Tussy’. Born 1855. Youngest
daughter of Karl Marx, secretary to father, and socialist activist in her
own right. With SDF, Socialist League and Independent Labour Party,
she galvanised support for the Haymarket Martyrs. Died by suicide
1898, using Prussic acid supplied by partner Edward Aveling.
Azef, Evno. Born 1869. Recruited by Okhrana while an impoverished
student in 1893, made a career as agent and double agent, rising in
Socialist Revolutionary Party to effective leadership of its Fighting
Organisation, with role in provoking assassinations. Exposed by
Burtsev in 1908. Died Berlin, 1918.
Bakunin, Michael. Born 1814. Russian revolutionary. Involved in
1848 uprising in Paris and 1849 insurrection in Dresden. Escaped from
Siberian exile in 1861, established commune in Lyons in 1870,
challenged Marx’s dominance of the International, becoming an
inspiration to a younger generation of anarchists until his death in
1876.
Berkman, Alexander. Born 1870 in Lithuania, emigrated to US in
1888 where worked as typesetter for Most and became lover of Emma
Goldman, before fourteen years’ imprisonment for attempted
assassination of industrialist Frick. Deported to Russia in 1917, left for
Germany in 1921, then France, where he died in 1936.
Bint, Henri. Ex-officer of the Sûreté hired as a French agent of the
Holy Brotherhood in 1882, then employed by the Paris Okhrana office
throughout Rachkovsky’s tenure as its director. A participant in the
celebrated raid on the People’s Will Swiss printing works, Charlotte
Bullier, honeypot bait, may have been cousin. Would later claim to
have hired Golovinsky to forge Protocols. After Bolshevik Revolution,
worked for Cheka.
Bourdin, Martial. Born 1868. French anarchist, lived in America
before London Charlotte Street colony, where his sister had married
incendiary English anarchist H. B. Samuels. Close to Emile Henry, he
died from wounds in Greenwich Park on 15 February 1894, when a
bomb he was carrying accidentally exploded.
Brocher, Gustave. Born 1850. Raised as Fourierist, became priest but
after Commune went to teach in Russia. In London from 1875 involved
with Lavrov’s Forward! and Most’s Freiheit, he organised the 1881
anarchist London Congress, joined Socialist League as anarchist and
adopted five orphans of the Commune. Died 1930.
Burtsev, Vladimir. Born 1862. Joined People’s Will following tsar’s
assassination, imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress, then active
abroad as increasingly prominent militant anti-tsarist and in counter-
intelligence. After imprisonment in Britain, exposed leading Okhrana
agents, but opposed Bolsheviks after 1917 revolution. Died 1942.
Cafiero, Carlo. Born 1846 into aristocratic Italian family and known as
‘Count’, recruited by Marx to convert Italy to the cause but was won
over to Bakunin’s vision of anarchistic socialism. Funded Bakunin’s
folly of the villa La Baronata as a revolutionary base. Mentally ill from
1882, he lived until 1892 in and out of lunatic asylums.
Carpenter, Edward. Born 1844. Studied theology at Cambridge,
discovered his homosexuality, gave up the cloth, taught in working
communities, settling on smallholding at Millthorpe near Sheffield.
Leading socialist figure and campaigner against discrimination for
sexual orientation. Died 1929.
Caserio, Sante Geronimo. Born 1873 in Italy, lived southern France.
Executed 1894 for assassination of President Sadi Carnot.
Chaikovksy, Nicholas. Born 1851. Studied as a mathematician in St
Petersburg, where he galvanised circle of radical propagandists in early
1870s. After crisis of faith, returned to England from America to
continue propaganda campaign. Involved in gunrunning to Russia but
later opposed Bolsheviks. Died 1926.
Charles, Fred. Born Fred Charles Slaughter. Member of Socialist
League, travelled to Zurich in attempt to secure Neve’s release,
attended 1889 Paris Congress, then resident in Sheffield and Walsall,
where involved in bomb plot. Sentenced to ten years in prison. Later
worked at Ruskin College, Oxford, and joined Whiteway Colony in
Cotswolds.
Clemenceau, Georges. Born 1841. Moderate mayor of Montmartre in
1871. Held ministerial posts in 1880s, was compromised in the
Panama scandal but pro-Dreyfus as newspaper editor. As minister of
interior and president of the Council in 1906 repressed strikes;
returned to latter position in 1917 after eight years out of government.
Died 1929.
Coulon, Auguste. Member of Dublin Socialist League in 1886, moved
to London where recruited as informant for Special Branch and
possibly other police services. Involved in provoking the Walsall bomb
affair, and would later claim to be working for the ‘International
Police’.
Creaghe, Dr John O’Dwyer. Born 1841, medical education in Boston,
emigrated to Buenos Aires in 1874, where a leading anarchist.
Returned to Sheffield in 1890 for a year where spread incendiary ideas
before returning to Argentina.
Cyon, Elie de. Born 1842. Leading Russian physiologist in St
Petersburg, his virulent conservatism outraged students and forced his
move to Paris where he was refused position at Sorbonne but
naturalised. Broker of international deals for Russia, his French
citizenship was revoked for double-dealing with Germany. Died 1912.
Czolgosz, Leon. Born 1873. Son of Polish immigrants, worked as
rabbit trapper and wire-winder until inspired by Bresci to assassinate
President McKinley. Executed 1901.
Dave, Victor. Belgian anarchist active in Socialist League and involved
in long-standing dispute with Peukert, each holding the other to be a
police informant.
Degaev, Sergei. Born 1857. Army captain expelled for his radicalism,
whose brother had been involved in attempt on tsar’s life, he betrayed
Vera Figner to Colonel Sudeikin, whom he subsequently murdered.
Lived out his life in America as Alexander Pell, academic
mathematician.
Durnovo, Peter. Born 1845. Russian director of police from 1884 to
1893, then briefly interior minister from 1905, having served as
assistant minister for five years previously. Died 1915.
Encausse, Gérard, latterly known as ‘Papus’. Born 1865. Assisted
Charcot with hypnosis experiments at La Salpêtrière while involved in
esoteric research, becoming Gnostic bishop and mystic. Wrote against
Witte and Rachkovsky in 1901 as ‘Niet’ and influenced Imperial
Russian family against them. Died 1916.
Evalenko, Aleksandr. Volunteered services to Okhrana in Russia and
emigrated to New York, where infiltrated Society of Friends of Russian
Freedom as ‘Sergeyev’, destroying the movement from within.
Returned to London to continue work there.
Fénéon, Félix. Born 1861. Art critic, impresario and anarchist with
day job at French War Ministry, he championed work of Seurat and
Signac, among others, coining term Neo-Impressionism. Friend of
Emile Henry, charged with concealing explosive material, acquitted at
Trial of Thirty. Editor of Revue Blanche.
Ferré, Théophile. Born 1846. A militant Blanquist and member of the
Montmartre Vigilance Committee during Paris siege, he was elected to