The World That Never Was

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 a seat on the Commune council, assisted Rigault with the police and security of the Commune, and signed the orders for the execution of hostages. Executed by firing squad at Satory, November 1871.

Figner, Vera
. Born 1852. Returned to Russia in 1875 from medical studies in Zurich, becoming a committed revolutionary and member of the executive committee of the People’s Will, involved in plots against tsar. Attempted to revive the organisation after assassination of tsar, but
betrayed by Degaev and imprisoned in the Schlüsselburg Fortress until 1905. Participated in the Jury of Honour in 1908 and was celebrated in St Petersburg in 1917. Died Moscow during Second World War.

Flourens, Emile
. Born 1841. Younger brother of Gustave, served as minister for foreign affairs 1886–88.

Flourens, Gustave
. Born 1838. Radical journalist and revolutionary adventurer during the Second Empire, active in Cretan rising, led insurrections against Government of National Defence in winter of 1870 and was killed while leading the great sortie towards Versailles in early days of the Commune.

Frey, William
. Born 1839. Mathematical prodigy, in 1867 renounced successful career as geodetic surveyor for communal life in America. Following collapse of colony in Kansas, returned to London to establish a positivist cult. His arguments with Lavrov fascinated émigré nihilists in 1887.

Freycinet, Charles de
. Born 1828. Served as chief of Gambetta’s military cabinet in Tours in 1870. Opportunist republican, he led three ministries in 1880s and early 1890s.

Gallifet, Marquis de
. Born 1830. Made his military reputation during 1867 French intervention in Mexico, confirmed by heroism at Sedan. Ruthless Versaillais commander during Bloody Week. Briefly minister of war 1899. Died 1909.

Gambetta, Léon
. Born 1838. Son of a grocer from Cahors, he was an eloquent republican lawyer in opposition to the Second Empire in the late 1860s. Chosen while minister of interior for the Government of National Defence to escape Paris by balloon and organise Tours relief force. Disenchanted by the National Defence but took no part in the Commune and became powerful voice of opposition to MacMahon’s presidency. His long-awaited premiership began in late 1881 but lasted barely two months. Died 1882 following an accident with a revolver.