National Archives:Authorities were so fearful of the rise of communism during the 1920s and 1930s that government officials and police went to see Russian movies to assess their propaganda value, according to Department of Justice files made available for the first time yesterday.
The files show that while the threat was treated seriously, with attention paid to possible links with the IRA, it was eventually concluded that the predominantly Catholic Irish would not be interested in class struggle.
The interest in Russian films was sparked when the Metropolitan Police special branch in London revealed that it had intercepted a letter to a communist activist in Moscow discussing the possibilities of using these films as propaganda tools.
It was concerned that "certain noxious films" may arrive in Britain via Dublin.
Following this, Scotland Yard sent synopses of some of these films. These included Sergei Eisenstein's The Armoured Cruiser Potemkin, which received a glowing review. "This is the most dramatic and important film that has been turned in Russia. It is pure Bolshevik propaganda, very powerful and convincing, and amazingly well produced."
It concluded that "any display of the film would be highly undesirable". Today, the film, now better known as Battleship Potemkin, is considered one of the high points in cinema history.
Particular attention was paid to the activities of a wealthy Etonian Herbert Ward, who put on two films - The End of St Petersburg and Snapshots of Russia - at the Sackville Picture House on Dublin's O'Connell Street.
Both were approved by the official censor. However, government representatives and gardaí felt it necessary to see the films themselves, with a subsequent report describing them as "harmless".
However, it warned: "No doubt Ward, encouraged by this success, will import further Soviet pictures, and these pictures will probably strike bolder and bolder notes in an effort to popularise communist ideas in the Free State."
A great deal of energy was put into tracking the movements of communist activists such as Jim Larkin jnr and the republican Peadar O'Donnell, including their trips to Berlin and Moscow.
The paranoia proved fruitful for one individual. In 1931 the Irish Legation in Berlin paid 50 marks to a Persian man in return for his "information" that three communist agents had landed secretly in Cobh. It was later concluded this had not happened.
It emerged that two days later the same man had walked into the British embassy in Germany and offered to spy on British communists on its behalf. Officials there declined the offer.
Irish authorities expressed concern at possible links between the communist movement and the IRA, although these later eased. The released files also contain notes from a military intelligence source who betrayed his anti-Semitism while claiming left-wing elements in Fianna Fáil may have been communist sympathisers.
"Frank Aiken, Frank Kearney, Eamon Cooney, Briscoe the Jew, and Senator Seamus Robinson are amongst the members of this left wing," it claimed, adding that they "at least approve to some extent the extensive views and activities of the Militant National plus Communist Section".
By 1933, however, a report noted that "there is little danger of communism making any deep impression, owing to the deep religious convictions of the people". It concluded: "The activities of the communist groups in Saorstát do not call for any special legislation at present."
