June: Anarchist Intelligence and Security Services

The document outlining the proposed anarchist intelligence service, the Servicio de Información y Coordinación (SIC), is a masterpiece of Leninist demagogery:

“Every revolutionary party or organization has, unfailingly, to wage bitter struggles, sometimes against visible enemies, sometimes against others working in the shadows. Thus the triumph of its precepts and the full implementation of its hegemony (these being the aspirations which motivate it and give it meaning) should be the result of the solid and continuing task of annihilating the opposition.” The document explores the need for “disciplined organization” and ‘consistent, steely political conduct’ and “jettisoning archaic norms” so as to face up to “modern methods of political contention”.

The draft was approved by the national committees of the three branches of the libertarian movement and a Servicio Nacional de Coordinación (National Co-ordination Agency) was set up to brief the leadership of the anarchist movement on “secret” matters relating to the military and political progress of the war.

In principle, the structure the Information and Co-ordination Service (SIC) was divided in four sub-sections: Military, Internal Security, Public Services and Information. These were answerable to “Subsection One” or the Secretariat, which, co-ordinated by an “accountable” comrade who would keep the national committees of the organizations represented well briefed.

Little has been written about the anarchist secret services because the majority of the reports in the CNT archives in the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam are either in code or signed by “nommes de guerre”. Many of the reports are of a highly dramatic nature, some relate to irregularities in the activities of Prieto’s Weapons Purchasing Commission in Paris, while others deal with ‘Confidential Intelligence’ on the current political and diplomatic situation.