Those watched included journalists,
academics, scientists, filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians and, in some
cases, the ordinary public. Caute lists more than 200 victims, but the figures
will be much higher as more files are released to the National Archives.
MI5 spied on such prominent
figures as Arthur Ransome, Paul Robeson, J.B. Priestley, Kingsley Amis, George
Orwell, Doris Lessing, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender, Dorothy Hodgkin,
Jacob Bronowski, John Berger, Benjamin Britten, Christopher Hill, Eric
Hobsbawm, Kingsley Martin, Michael Redgrave, Joan Littlewood, Joseph Losey,
Michael Foot and Harriet Harman.
So wide-ranging was the
surveillance that even Winston Churchill's cousin Clare Sheridan who was
sympathetic to the Russian revolution, was investigated. According to writer Alan
Judd, she was never a Communist, but "she got herself to Russia, lived in
the Kremlin and sculpted busts of Soviet leaders, including Trotsky, Zinoviev,
Dzerzhinsky and Lenin himself. She subsequently had a relationship with the
pro-communist Charlie Chaplin and survived attempted rape by Mussolini. She
travelled the world broadcasting anti-British views and was monitored by MI5
until they concluded that she was neither a spy nor a security threat but
merely 'extraordinarily indiscreet' and had a passion for international
mischief-making'. She was later reconciled with her cousin, spent time at
Chartwell during the second world war and converted to Catholicism."[1]
MI5 was set up in 1909 and was
tasked to look into "activities designed to undermine or overthrow parliamentary
democracy by political, violent or industrial means". MI5 came into its
own during the first world war. Its use of the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA)
against perceived revolutionaries, pacifists, democratic socialists, and anti-war
activists. Members of the Independent Labour Party, such as Fenner Brockwaycame
in for special scrutiny.
MI5's task became especially
acute when in 1917, the Bolshevik revolution occurred, which threatened to
escalate into a worldwide revolution. The spectre of the socialist revolution haunts
the secret service even today.
As Caute shows in his book,
most people investigated and labelled subversive were no such thing. One such
figure mentioned by Caute is the writer Arthur Ransome who, although was
sympathetic to the Russian revolution and interviewed both Vladimir Lenin and
Leon Trotsky, was never a revolutionary as this quote from his book Six Weeks
in Russia shows, "I should have liked to explain what was the appeal of
the revolution to men like Colonel Robins and myself, both of us men far
removed in origin and upbringing from the revolutionary and socialist movements
in our own countries. Of course, no one who was able, as we were able, to watch
the men of the revolution at close quarters could believe for a moment that
they were the merely paid agents of the very power which, more than all the
others, represented the stronghold they had set out to destroy. We knew the
injustice being done to these men to urge us in their defence. But there was
more to it than that. There was a feeling, from which we could never escape, of
the creative effort of the revolution."[2]
In the post-war period,
Caute's book shows that the CPGB (Communist Party of Great Britain) took up a
large part of MI5's spying activity. All its leading cadre and large numbers of
the CPHG (Communist Party Historians Group) were under constant surveillance. Caute
believes the CPGB was not revolutionary and harboured no plans to overthrow
capitalism.
According to the Trotskyists
of the Socialist Labour League, who opposed Stalinism from the left, they were "a
group of embittered doctrinaires without roots or perspectives or the ability
to learn from their mistakes; a coterie of well-meaning university Dons and
writers who have something to say on every subject except the class struggle
taking place under their noses; not a party paying lip-service to Marxism but
dominated by whichever faction happens to be in control in Moscow.[3]
Caute's study of the
Communist Party Historians Group highlights a historian's difficulty in using
and writing about these documents. It is not just a question of saying how and
why people were spied upon, but any study must place the spy's actions in the social
and political context of the time. As Madeleine Davis writes:
"The release of MI5
files on Thompson and Hilton added to those of prominent party intellectuals
already available, provides a fresh set of primary sources for and a renewed
opportunity to consider these issues in their context, while the Thompson
material has extra significance given the continued embargo on his papers.14
These files present problems as sources for historians interested in the human
subjects of surveillance rather than its techniques and policy contexts. The
secret, partial and incomplete nature of the material, retention or redaction
of documents, and the difficulty in many cases of cross-checking against other
sources limits their usefulness.
Although some triangulation
is possible against the CPGB's archive, awareness among prominent communists of
extensive surveillance provoked counter-measures, including selective record
keeping. It reinforced a culture of secrecy and mistrust. Thus while the volume
of MI5 personal files now available has started to generate a significant
literature drawing on both sets of primary sources, 15 investigation of the
motives of those involved in the 1956 crisis needs also to draw on a
substantial specialist secondary literature. Especially relevant is work
emerging from the 'biographical turn' in communist historiography and work that
examines both the CPGB's cultural analysis and the party's internal culture to
illuminate the complex and contradictory reality of Zhdanovism's implementation
and contestation in the British party."[4]
In the Chapter, The BBC Toes
the Line Caute shows that MI5's vetting of BBC staff was well-known, but the
spy agency's surveillance of independent television was not so much. In 1969,
MI5 agents were particularly interested in Granada TV's World In Action. Although
not a Trotskyist, one of the high-profile journalists, John Pilger, had a large
dossier on him. MI5 concluded that there was "no evidence of a
conspiracy" at the programme and reported that any interest from the
Communist Party of Great Britain had "diminished." As one file
claims. "Communists are less influential than Trotskyists, who, however,
are too disunited to be able to execute a joint plan."
Caute's view of Trotskyism
neatly dovetails that of MI5. Although a significant amount of time was spent
by MI5 infiltrating many Psuedo left groups claiming to be Trotskyists, Caute,
like MI5, thought the Trotskyist movement to be disunited. Perhaps this
explains Caute's ideologically light-minded attitude towards state penetration
of the Trotskyist movement and certainly accounts for its lack of coverage in
his book.
In March 2000, an article appeared
on the WSWS.ORG called Was there a high-level MI5 agent in the British Workers
Revolutionary Party?. Caute does not mention anything about this grave matter.
As the article's author David North explains: "A former agent for the
British Security Service (known as MI5) has alleged in a sworn statement that
the agency received reports from a high-level spy inside the Workers
Revolutionary Party during the late 1960s. The ex-agent, David Shayler, is
currently living in exile in France, where he has fled to escape prosecution
for his exposure of state secrets. In his February 18 affidavit, Shayler
asserts that the spy provided MI5 with reports of financial support given by
John Lennon to the WRP. Shayler recounts that he was shown portions of an MI5
file relating to the agency's surveillance of Lennon, whose socialist and
anti-imperialist sentiments angered the British ruling class. The affidavit
states that the material "concerned Lennon's support for the Workers
Revolutionary Party (WRP), a Trotskyist organisation. According to the file, a
source in the WRP had reported that Lennon gave tens of thousands of pounds
sterling to the WRP in the late 1960s and also provided some funds to the Irish
Republican Army at around the same time."[5]
If David Caute has any
information, he must publicise it. As North points out, all those committed to
democratic rights in Britain and internationally must call for the
identification of the MI5 agent inside the SLL/WRP. This is important not only
to expose the individual (or individuals) involved but to educate a new
generation of socialists about the dangers posed by state infiltration and
provocation.
[1] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/people-of-little-interest-mi5-s-view-of-left-wing-intellectuals/
[2] Six Weeks in Russia in 1919 Paperback
– 10 Sept. 2010
[3] Cited in Gerry Healy and His
Place in the History of the Fourth International, David North (1991), Labor
Publications, p. 30.
[4] Edward Thompson, MI5 and the Reasoner controversy: negotiating“Communist principle” in the crisis of 1956
[5] Was there a high-level MI5 agent in
the British Workers Revolutionary Party?. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/03/lenn-m02.html
