The Spies Who Came in from the Heat: The International Surveillance of the Anarchists in London

Abstract

From the second half of the nineteenth century European governments perceived anarchism as an international threat and regarded the surveillance of colonies established by anarchist refugees as of great importance. The article investigates the service of ‘International Police’ that the Italian Ministry of Interior and the Italian embassies set up for this purpose. By taking as a case study the colony of Italian anarchists who settled in London from 1870 to 1914, it analyses in detail the organizational structure of this intelligence service and it reconstructs the main incidents which informers and spies were involved in. The article examines also the ambivalent attitude of the British police in regard to the surveillance of foreign revolutionaries and the repercussions that these intelligence activities had on the relationship between Italian and British authorities.