The International Conference of Rome for the
Social Defense Against Anarchists was held
between November 24 and December 21, 1898
following the assassination of Empress Elisabeth
of Austria by Luigi Lucheni on the promenade
of Lake Geneva on September 10, 1898.
Fifty-four delegates attended from 21 different
countries.
Every participating government agreed to set
up special organizations for the surveillance
of those suspected of anarchism, defined as
"any act that used violent means to destroy
the organization of society" although that
definition was mere propaganda.
In fact, anarchism is a political ideology
which emerged from the nineteenth century
socialist movement, advocating the abolition
of hierarchical class society and its replacement
with a self-consciously anti-hierarchical
socialist society.
While it has historically included violent
tendencies (such as insurrectionist anarchism
with its advocation of "propaganda by the
deed"), it also includes non-violent elements,
with the bulk of the movement taking a more
moderate position on the use of violence for
revolutionary purposes between these two extremes.
The other resolutions drafted in the final
protocol included the introduction of legislation
in the participating governments to prohibit
the illegitimate possession and use of explosives,
membership in anarchist organizations, the
distribution of anarchist propaganda, and
the rendering of assistance to anarchists.
It was also agreed that governments should
try to limit press coverage of anarchist activities,
and that the death penalty should be mandatory
punishment for all assassinations of heads
of state.
The authorities used the opportunity to organize
an international system of exchange among
the national police agencies, using the portrait
parlé method of criminal identification.
This was developed from the bertillonage system
invented by Alphonse Bertillon and involved
the classification of criminal suspects on
the basis of numerically expressed measurements
of parts of their head and body.
A further anti-anarchist conference was held
in Saint Petersburg in March 1904.
This conference was called after an anarchist
assassinated William McKinley, the President
of the United States, on September 14, 1901.
Ten governments sent representatives, including
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Denmark.
Here the Secret Protocol for the International
War on Anarchism was drawn up.
Portugal and Spain were to subsequently agree
to this, while France and Great Britain decided
not sign the St. Petersburg Protocol, but
did express a willingness to help other states
on police matters relating to anarchism.
The United States government neither participated
in the St. Petersburg meeting nor agreed to
follow its provisions.
However President Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley's
successor, had called for an international
treatise to combat anarchism.
== See also ==
Anarchism and violence
Propaganda of the deed, the doctrine of the
use of violence by anarchists around this
time period
== References ==
BEUGNIET Thomas, "La conférence anti-anarchiste
de Rome (1898)" : et les débuts d'une coopération
internationale contre le terrorisme de la
fin du XIXe siècle à la Première Guerre
mondiale, mémoire, (dir.) Stanislas Jeannesson,
Nantes, Université de Nantes, 2016, 316 p.
Deflem, Mathieu.
2005.
International Police Cooperation --History
of.
pp. 795–798 in The Encyclopedia of Criminology,
edited by Richard A. Wright and J. Mitchell
Miller.
New York: Routledge
Deflem, Mathieu.
2005.
"Wild Beasts Without Nationality": The Uncertain
Origins of Interpol, 1898-1910."
Pp. 275-285 in The Handbook of Transnational
Crime and Justice, edited by Philip Reichel.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
