Red List: MI5 and British Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century

by David Caute

In the popular imagination MI5, or the Security Service, is known chiefly as the branch of the British state responsible for chasing down those who endanger national security-from Nazi fifth columnists to Soviet spies and today's domestic extremists. Yet, working from official documents released to the National Archives,distinguished historian Caute discovers that suspicion also fell on those who merely exercised their civil liberties, posing no threat to national security. In reality, this 'other history' of the Security Service, was dictated not only by the consistent anti-Communist and Imperial aims of the British state but also by the political prejudices of MI5's personnel. The guiding notions were 'Defence of the Realm' and 'subversion.'

Caute here exposes the massive state operation to track the activities and affiliations of a range of journalists, academics, scientists, filmmakers, writers actors and musicians, who the Security Service classified as a threat to national security. Guilt by association was paramount. Letters were opened, phones were intercepted, private homes were bugged and citizens were placed under physical surveillance by Special Branch agents.

Among the targets of surveillance are found 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. More than 200 victims are listed here but further MI5 files will be released to the National Archives.

417 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 10, 2022

Reviews

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

For me this is a one star read, but I feel guilty about the first rating for a book being one star, especially if it might be due to my expectations for the content. Once some other people have reviewed it I will re-add my rating.

Most important recommendation: If you are going to read this book, choose physical or ebook over audiobook. As the book is less a commentary on this MI5 surveillance, as I had initially assumed, and instead more of a Cliff Notes of what actual documents are available, there is a lot of reading out of alphanumeric codes to identify individual records, which you will not remember if you want to actually go and look up the records in question.

And actually wanting to look up the records in question is probably the main reason you would want this.

The closest comparison I can think of is - in 2010, Wikileaks dumped huge numbers of diplomatic cables, which were mostly a slog to trudge through, and so in light of that people who had already done some of that work would highlight, organise, and quote specific cables you might be interested in reading on a certain topic. This has a similar energy, just a 15 hour recital of lists of people who were being surveilled and a couple of comments on what they did or what MI5 wrote about them.

Not recommended.

[Mel Stead]

Reviewed in the November 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard:

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