We enjoy reading about secret organizations without having to encounter them in reality. Two such organizations in twentieth century fiction were the revolutionary Cabal in Robert Heinlein's Future History and Ian Fleming's SPECTRE, the latter uniting former members of the Gestapo, SMERSH, the Mafia, the Unione Corse, the Yugoslav secret police and Blofeld's previous organization, RAHIR.
With such a pedigree, I think that SPECTRE has to be the ultimate fictional criminal organization, overshadowing any others, including even Poul Anderson's Exaltationists whom Manse Everard tracks through time as James Bond tracks SPECTRE through the 1960s.
6 comments:
Paul:
I'd like to nominate THRUSH from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. series as competition with SPECTRE for the title of ultimate criminal organization.
From Wikipedia:
"...In the U.N.C.L.E. novels written by David McDaniel ... [THRUSH is] described as having been founded by Col. Sebastian Moran after the death of Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls in the Sherlock Holmes story, 'The Final Problem'....
"THRUSH's aim was to conquer the world. THRUSH was considered so dangerous an organization that even governments who were ideologically opposed to each other – such as the United States and the Soviet Union – had cooperated in forming and operating the U.N.C.L.E. organization."
Any group that can scare Cold-War Soviets and Yanks into working together on a long-lasting basis is seriously bad juju.
I'll also mention that Ian Fleming had a hand, albeit a somewhat limited one, in the creation of the U.N.C.L.E. series.
Kaor, DAVID!
While stories about sinister private criminal organizations such as S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and T.H.R.U.S.H. makes for fascinating reading, I question how serious a threat they can be for powerful real world gov'ts. I realize some criminal gangs, such as the drug cartels in Colombia and northern Mexico, can corrupt, undermine, threaten, or subvert the local gov't. But, can they overthrow and take over a nation? Even Colombia, despite the bloody chaos caused by the drug cartels, never fell completely to domination by the narcobarons.
I would suggest a non-governmental organization of any kind striving to take over a nation has to offer some kind of system of ideas, agendas, beliefs, an IDEOLOGY before it can do so. Such groups can range from legal, peaceful, political parties like, say, Labour in the UK or the Republicans in the USA, to religio/ideological/conspiratorial sects like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (which has spawned spin offs like Hamas). The Muslim Brotherhood was partly inspired by Marxist/Leninist ideas as well, such as Lenin's views on the use of terror (to paraphrase Lenin, "the objective of terror is to terrorize") and his principle of "two steps forward, one step backwards." The MB advocated using political, legal means of attaining power if force was not practical. If legal means had softened up the targeted victim, force could be used to hasten the conquest. The ultimate goal being the imposition of a Muslim Sharia law regime.
In conclusion, I have my doubts a non-ideological, merely criminal non-governmental GANG like SPECTRE or THRUSH would have the motivation or stamina needed for being a serious threat to the existence of a reasonably strong nation. I think the Muslim Brotherhood, which has tried to take over Egypt and has spin offs like Hamas actually ruling the Gaza Strip, is more of a political threat than a drug cartel.
Sean
David,
I agree that THRUSH's descent from Moriarty's organization and also its philosophy paralleling 1984 puts it in a special literary category. This origin story for THRUSH was invented not for the UNCLE TV series but for one of the (usually not very good) novels. Did McDaniel elaborate the origin story in any later novels? I don't remember Moran or indeed Moriarty being mentioned by name. The latter is referred to as "the Professor."
Paul.
Paul:
I don't recall any elaboration beyond that, except for a VERY labored acronym for the name THRUSH. I never grasped the rationale for that name; all the references I've found indicate a thrush is a mainly inoffensive bird. Now if it'd been a raptor or vulture, or for that matter the shrike, a.k.a. "butcher bird".... Consider the possible acronym for that last: Secret Hierarchy for Revolution, Intimidation, Killing, and Espionage.
Yeah, most of the U.N.C.L.E. novels weren't great, but even some of the bad ones had nice touches. There was a book set in Britain, The Rainbow Affair in which Solo and Kuryakin had brief encounters with a number of never-named, but usually recognizable figures from mystery and spy fiction, both print and television: The Saint, Steed and Mrs. Peel, Nayland Smith.... Mrs. Marple and Father Brown advised them to consult with an elderly beekeeper, too, and he clearly hadn't lost his touch.
David,
MISS Marple, please!
Paul.
Paul:
And I know that; what a horrendous typographical error! I was actually thinking "Miss" even as I typed in "Mrs." and then didn't spot it in preview.
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