The Rise of “Barbarism” ~ The 1918 Police Strike ~ The Secret Service Committee

Maurice Dobb, the Cambridge economics don and communist, described the October Revolution as ranking in world history ‘more prominently than even the French Revolution’: to some it was ‘the dawn of a new era’ but to others ‘the first stirring of the Great Red Dragon of the Apocalypse’. However, the impact of the revolution on Anglo-Russian relations must be gauged within the context of the First World War, of which historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote ‘smoothed the way for democracy – one of the few things to be said in its favour’.

This chapter examines how the war affected British society and culture, helping to identify and understand what influenced official perceptions of subversion between 1917 and 1929. The war unsettled even those charged with preserving order, the usually conservative police forces. The first symptoms of unrest, in the form of a London police strike in August 1918, led to a reorganisation of British security and intelligence the following year to stop the Bolshevik “cancer” spreading.

By November 1917, the main agencies tackling Bolshevik subversion on British shores were the Special Branch of the London Metropolitan Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and MI5, later known as the Security Service. Most foreign intelligence came via MI1(c)(later the Secret Intelligence Service, SIS, and later still MI6) and, from November 1919 on, GCCS. Both Special Branch and MI5 expanded during the war. Special Branch grew from 114 staff to 700 between the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914 and the Armistice on 11 November 1918. In this time, MI5 grew from nine officers, three detectives and seven clerks to 844 personnel. Special Branch and MI5 initially concentrated on preventing German sabotage and espionage. By 1916–17, however, concern shifted to Pacifism and potential domestic unrest.