Re Guy Bowman. Might be an idea to pool all the information that has been found to avoid duplication ? Geoff Brown in his introduction to "The Industrial Syndicalist" (pub Spokesman Books 1974) in a footnote on p.26 states that Guy Bowman was advertising himself as a speaker as General Secretary of the Industrial Syndicalist Education League, in issues of Labour Leader (the paper of the ILP, at that time edited by Fenner Brockway - a staunch antiwar campaigner. The offices of the paper got busted in August 1915, but continued publication.) Guy Bowman appears to have been born in 1872 in St Johns Wood, London. And was living in West ham in the 1911 Census. His address given in the reprint of The Industrial Syndicalist is 4 Maude Terrace, Walthamstow, (1910 - 1911) (from online pictures it looks like the house still exists and is a comfortable middle class dwelling ?) Wikipedia has an article on ISEL : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Syndicalist_Education_League . Not found any record of his death in the on-line genealogy records. (I don't have accounts with any so only have access to summaries. (It looks like Guy Bowman got married in Kensington in 1906.) Hope that helps.

In correspondence with Alexander Berkman in the 1930s, Maxim Chernyak, then living in Buenos Aires, claimed that in Paris he unwittingly "worked with an agent of the G.P.U." named Alexander Tchernakoff/Konstantin Federoff, who was "the inciator [sic] of the platform...Fool Arschinoff is a victime [sic] of a agent of the G.P.U." These accusations seemed to have caused controversy within the Russian-speaking movement in the US and elsewhere, and Chernyak demanded that his claims be investigated by a committee including Luigi Fabbri, Simon Radovistzki, Santillan, and others. The correspondence with Berkman is in English and in Folder 17 of the Berkman papers at the IISH.

Bowman
Thanks for that.The Walthamstow address is also given in his publication of Mann's "From Single Tax to Syndicalism" (1913).In his inrtroduction to Mann's book Bowman writes "that he had heard Herve ("My Country Right or Wrong" talk on anti-patriotism and anti-militarism at the International Freethought Congress, Paris 1905.I have a scrap of paper from years ago that says Bowman was a journalist at some time.If so he could have been covering the Congress for a paper-or just attending?

Krivitsky
Yes.I had heard about Chernyak's statement but have never been able to pin Federoff down as being in Spain.It's a name for further searching,though.Do you have anymore info on him?

Regarding Konstantin Fedoroff, he seems to have been living in South America at the same time as Max Chernyak. Chernyak created a terrific hue and cry about Fedoroff, but I'm not sure anyone took him seriously. Fedoroff was a member of the Uruguayan branch of Delo Truda at least until 1947 because in that year the journal Delo Truda - Probuzhdenie published a letter from him.

Ahh.Thanks,Malcolm.Once senses that the world of Russian anarchist exiles was somewhat vicious and tawdry at times with rather extreme claims being thrown around a little too easily.Certainly Berkman complains quite regularly in letters to Emma Goldman and others about being called on to intervene in some of the quarrels storming around the Russian anarchists in Paris.I presume,then,that Federoff was in Uruguay during the Spanish conflict?

Personally I have long had my suspicions about Alexander Schapirio (author of the 'Confidential Report' for the IWMA/AIT on the CNT - 16 December 1932-26 February 1933) - one of the last of the Russian anarchists to leave Russia. I have a vague recollection that he had been employed in some capacity in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, but I may be completely wrong. Can't find my notes on the subject...

Regarding suspicions about Shapiro, I think, it may be the case of "extreme claims being thrown around a little too easily" if he is called a spy. He was employed at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefly, but left Russia in 1922. Yelensky was still there and employed with the same Ministry, Sandomirsky, too. That doesn't make them GPU spies, though. The topic of cooperation with the Bolshies should be approached carefully - there were dozens of various degrees and each case should be studied individually.

What particularly aroused my suspicions was, primarily, the nature and bias of Schapiro's 'confidential' report on the CNT (Defence Groups) in 1932-1933. To me it bears all the hallmarks of a professional 'Intelligence' assessment. I might be completely wrong - and I have not seen any evidence that he was in Barcelona in 1936-1937, but nor have I seen any evidence that he didn't visit Barcelona during that time. He certainly had all the connections (and shared the prejudices of) with the 'prominent leaders' of the Regional and National Committees, more so than most other Russians. Yelensky by the way was in the States, not in Paris...

Again, regarding Fedoroff, there's not much information to go on other than that he emigrated to South America and belonged to the Delo Truda support group there. Incredibly it seems that Fedoroff and Chernyak were in this group at the same time. Chernyak was in chronic poor health and nothing more is heard of him after about 1931. The Russian historian K. Limanov and the Ukrainian historian A. Dubovik have been researching Fedoroff's background and consider it unproven that he was a GPU agent.

Thanks,Malcolm

Re: Krivitsky: given that the events of May were triggered spontaneously by an act(s) of provocation by the PSUC (i.e. the attempted seizure of the Telephone Exchange) and that the key players on the streets were the rank and file activists from the barrio committees/Defence Committees/Groups (such as the Friends of Durruti Group) over whom the 'prominent leaders' of the Regional and National Committees of the CNT held little or no sway, it's unlikely that any Paris-based Russian outsider would have had any influence either. It sounds to me as though Krivitsky is exaggerating his own and his unidentified agent's influence (or, more likely, his unknown agent — if indeed there was one! — was exaggerating to satisfy his Kremlin masters), which, as I say, is unlikely to have been great among the rank-and-file barrio activists who wouldn't be known to him, and they certainly wouldn't defer to him; in fact it would almost certainly have aroused suspicions as to the game he was playing

Krivitsky's accusation provoked an immediate reaction from Russian anarchist-emigrants. In the April - May 1939 (No. 106) issue of "Delo truda," Krivitsky was challenged by the editors to name the Soviet agent, a challenge which was never answered. Russian historian Dmitry Rublev recently proposed as a candidate the Russo-Danish journalist Mikhail Mikhailovich Brendsted (1890 - after 1955). Brendsted was active in underground anarchist circles in the USSR in the 1920s, but was allowed to go abroad in 1930. He settled in Paris, wrote for the anarchist press, and went to Spain during the Civil War. He is known to have been a Soviet agent at least from 1936, but was always regarded with suspicion by Russian anarchist emigrants in France and Spain.