More than £1.4m is believed to have flowed into British banks in 1926, with £400,000 coming from the Soviet Union through the Co-operative Wholesale Society to the Miners' Federation.
The Home Office file released today shows that under emergency powers legislation, the banks, including the Moscow Narodny, were compelled to inform the home secretary about any doubtful transactions.
Civil servants were convinced that "arrangements were being made for payments to the TUC by bodies outside England of large sums of money for the purpose of furthering the strike".
One secret report to Captain Miller of MI5 from the Westminster Bank confirmed that three senior executives from the Co-op had turned up five days before the start of the general strike and collected £300,000.
But the Home Office investigation failed to establish the truth of allegations made by the Daily Mail that the money paid to the Co-op was a direct subvention from Russia in support of the general strike.
The Co-op bank maintained that the money had come from "purely commercial sources". The Home Office said it had no evidence to the contrary and a letter from Barclays Bank supported the Co-op case.
