Gosh, I thought that was going to be a post about the American Revolution. On Dec 18, 1:21 pm, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > The First War on TerrorWhat the fight against anarchism tells us about the > fight against radical IslamBrian Dohertyfrom theJanuary 2011issueThe World > That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret > Agents, by Alex Butterworth, Pantheon Books, 482 pages, $30In the late 19th > century, as today, a terrorist cabal detonated bombs in the heart of the > Western world. Judged by the number of successful attacks on politicians and > royalty, that force was more directly threatening to the inner circles of > power than today’s radical Islam. > This episodic violence, loosely associated with the extremist wing of the > anarchist movement, lasted roughly from 1880 to 1910. It claimed the lives of > only about 150 private citizens but also killed a president, a police chief, > a prime minister, a czar, a king, and an empress. Yet the wave of terror > eventually receded. No one has lived in mortal fear of bomb-throwing, > dagger-clutching anarchists for nearly a century. Will citizens in 2110 view > radical Islamic terrorism as a similar historical curiosity, useful mostly > for colorful storytelling? > I don’t know, and neither does Alex Butterworth, author ofThe World That > Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret > Agents.The book is a detailed chronicle both of the anarchistsintellectuals > and peaceful activists as well as terroristsand of the cops and spies who set > out to nab and crush them. It is irresistible, while contemplating this > history in 2011, to look for analogies that might illuminate the current war > on terror. > Butterworth, an English historian, brings up that comparison casually in the > introduction. It feels like a last-minute addition to give a long tale of > days gone by a ripped-from-the-headlines promotional hook. The author himself > never returns to the idea. But perhaps the rest of us should. > The anarchists were considerably more precise in their attacks on political > leaders, implying, perhaps, that they were more efficient, clever, or at > least focused than today’s more civilian-oriented terrorists. Although their > plots never approached the scale of 9/11, they did outdo the Islamists when > it came to the number of successful fatal attacks within Western cities. > Might smarter, more effective intelligence and policing in the 21st century > explain the difference? Butterworth provides stories and data relevant to > that question but no decisive answers. He does not, after all, have access to > a century’s worth of delayed revelations about our current twilight struggle. > Still, the first war on terror does offer tantalizing hints about what we > face when confronting organized nonstate international killers. > Butterworth’s walk through the oft-told tale of 19th-century anarchism > includes plenty of familiar material. Peter Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin, > the Communards and thenarodniki, the First and Second Internationalsall get > plenty of attention. (So do many tangential stories, some interesting and > some not, about the historical milieu in which they lived.) The freshest and > most relevant parts of the book are Butterworth’s tales of cops and spies at > war with anarchist radicals. The most valuable player in this battle against > the international anarchist terror conspiracywhich didn’t actually exist, in > the sense of one organization centrally planning attacks across national > lineswas the Russians’ man in Paris, Peter Rachkovsky. > Rachkovsky started as a possibly sincere, possibly duplicitous mover in St. > Petersburg’s radical underground in the late 1870s, after having been > dismissed (for leniency toward political exiles) from a job as a prosecutor > for the czar’s government. He ended up running the show for the Okhrana, the > Russian secret police, in Paris, where so many radicals considered dangerous > to the czarist regime had immigrated. > From 1885 until 1902, Rachkovsky was responsible for keeping anarchists under > surveillance and on the runand also, in many cases, financed and supplied > with ideas. Butterworth notes that “prominent among his early initiatives > were provocations designed to lure credulous émigrés into the most heinous > crimes of which they may never have otherwise conceived.” Rachkovsky’s aim > was to entrap his targets into committing acts that would help ensure that > his job seemed of vital importance to the czar. This guaranteed him a solid > berth in Paris that was lucrative both in salary and prestigeand, > Butterworth’s research leads him to strongly suspect, in opportunities for > corrupt under-the-radar dealings with a French government doing heavy > business with Russia. > Rachkovsky wasn’t the first cop to use agents provocateurs among the French > radicals. Louis Andrieux, the French prefect of police during the early > 1880s, had been frustrated that all his spying on the anarchists failed to > uncover a crime worthy of his time and attention, so he decided that “it was > necessary that the act was accomplished for repression to be possible.” > Rachkovsky’s bosses in Russia and his hosts in Paris both feared the > radicals, allowing the Russian agent to tighten the ties between the two > nations. He succeeded so well that Butterworth argues he was partly to blame > for the Russo-French alliance that helped make World War I such a bloody mess. > The British government, by contrast, initially resisted czarist efforts to > capture Russia’s radical émigrés. In 1890 Vladimir Burtsev, wanted by the > czarist police, boarded a British boat bound from Constantinople to London. > When the ship found itself surrounded by Turkish police vessels with Russians > on board, the captain refused their demand to hand over the fugitive, > announcing: “This is English territory. And I am a gentleman!” But soon even > Britain’s Special Branch ended up playing the spy and provocateur game. > Although Butterworth warns today’s governments and spymasters that future > historians will “have access to the material necessary to hold those leaders > to account for any deceptions they may have practiced,” his own research into > the century-old fight indicates that that won’t necessarily be so. The > current keepers of the Special Branch’s archives, which could shed light on > the history of police behavior toward the radicals of the time, keep access > to the relevant records “tenaciously guarded” even now. > It would be comforting to assume that one of the reasons the radical > anarchists were able to gin up more consistent bombing action in the West > than radical Islam does today was because their idealsstorming the bastions > of illegitimate power, winning a better deal for the working man, crafting a > future without any coercive authoritywere more inherently inspiring than > Shariah or a new Caliphate. These anarcho-radical movements werehugein the > late 19th century. Star anarchist figures such as Kropotkin and Errico > Malatesta could get tens of thousands, sometimes more than 100,000, fans to > show up whenever they arrived in town. The number of people who subscribed to > the anarchist movement’s many publications was in the tens of thousands in > France alone. But the active participants in anarchist congresses numbered > less than 1,000, and while many of those activists and intellectuals excused > the violence, others opposed it. The number of people actively involved in > planning and executing terror plots seems to be no more than a few dozen. > Terror then and terror now both hoped to inspire popular insurrection; both > failed. Although anarchists referred to their violent actions as “propaganda > by deed,” acts such as blowing up cafés or opera houses were really far more > successful propagandaagainstanarchism than for it. Similarly, there is scant > evidence that even the spectacularly destructive strike of 9/11 did much to > help Al Qaeda recruit smart, useful, self-destructive folk willing to wage > constant war on the decadent West. Suicide attacks in the name of jihad are > only about 30 years old; they arose from modern circumstances and could > disappear as those circumstances change. > To the powers of the time, the anarchist threat was not to be downplayed or > doubted. After the anarchist-linked Leon Czolgosz assassinated U.S. President > William McKinley, McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt, issued a > pronouncement that presaged George W. Bush’s rhetoric about the post-9/11 > threat of radical Islam: “When compared with the suppression of anarchy, > every other question sinks into insignificance.” Collaborations of national > secret police agencies created an ad hoc global force to fight the > nonexistent global anarchist conspiracy, and the very advocacy of anarchist > ideas was outlawed in most of the West. > As history has shown, Roosevelt was wrong about the significance of the > anarchist threat. So was George W. Bush when he used the jihadist threat as > an excuse for policies that may have done far more to damage America and > elsewhere than they did to prevent attacks. > The legacy of the secret police war against anarchists is ongoing and ugly. > Both the CIA and the KGB learned from the techniques of the Okhrana, and the > authorities today still cling to the notion that policing terror sometimes > means encouraging it. Many of the alleged terrorists captured over the past > several years were influenced, and in some cases provided materials by, > police informants, including the Miami Seven, the accused Rockford, Illinois, > shopping mall bomber Derrick Shareef, and Sami Samir Hassoun, who was charged > with conspiring to bomb a nightclub near a Dave Matthews concert in Chicago. > Likewise, Butterworth concludes from his scattered documentary record that > provocateurs were close to the planning and/or financing of many > headline-making anarchist bomb plots, and that the staff of the British > radical magazineCommonwealmay have consisted entirely of informants, > unbeknownst to each other. (Even today, with unprecedented access to police > files, Butterworth is often unsure who was reporting back to the cops.) The > French grande dame of anarchy, Louise Michel, once joked, “We love to have > [agents provocateurs] in the party, because they always propose the most > revolutionary motions.” In his fanciful 1908 novelThe Man Who Was Thursday, > inspired by the milieu of anarcho-skullduggery that Butterworth chronicles, > G.K. Chesterton describes a convocation of anarchist conspirators in which > all of the plotters turn out to be cops sent to infiltrate the group. > Anarchists may have been relatively effective at decapitating power, but they > were not a mortal threat to Western civilization, and neither are the > Islamists. They do not warrant the suppression of civil liberties or the huge > cost, in lives and money, of the wars waged by Bush and Barack Obama. > Cracking down on supposed terror threats, whether through mass arrests in the > late 19th century or drone air attacks in the 21st, can create martyrs and > encourage counterattacks. Many acts of anarchist terror were explicitly > conceived to avenge comrades caught and killed or brutalized by Western > governments. Sometimes the blowback is more long term, harder to predict, and > more terrifying. The 1887 hanging of Alexander Ulyanov, a member of the > Russian terror group People’s Will, inspired his younger brother to become > the revolutionary known as Lenin. > Butterworth’s most important lesson for our current war on terror is buried > in the middle of the book. Discussing the British police reaction to a > bombing campaignthis one not by anarchists but by Irish nationalistshe > comments that “the threat may have been smaller than those responsible for > its policing liked to maintain.” That haunting thought should help guide > American voters and politicians as they consider the future of the Second War > on International Terror.Senior Editor Brian Doherty is author ofThis is > Burning Man(BenBella),Radicals for Capitalism(PublicAffairs) andGun Control > on Trial(Cato > Institute).http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/17/the-first-war-on-terror/singlepage
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