The Real Meaning of the Non‑Intervention Committee in the Spanish Events

At the suggestion of the French Popular Front government, the “Non‑Intervention Committee” in the Spanish affairs has been formed for about two months now, where all the representatives of World Capitalism are included; the appointees of democratic France and England, of fascist Italy and Germany, of Soviet Russia, to limit ourselves to just the great powers. It is not difficult to imagine the conditions under which the meetings of this Committee had to take place, which, moreover, did not hold many meetings, and this was not because there was a lack of material for work since every day we learned news of the sending of arms, supplies and men, but for another reason. This Committee of “non‑intervention in Spanish affairs” was really nothing but the “committee of business and intense intervention against the Spanish and international proletariat”. Since, unfortunately, the success of the traitors was total in all countries – which includes Spain here – since everything was marching beautifully in the interests of world capitalism, no reason existed for this Committee to meet that frequently. That our interpretation is accurate is not difficult to realize from even a cursory analysis of events.

All States had thus proclaimed non‑intervention. Not one of them applied it, not the fascist States, nor the democratic States, nor the Soviet one: all intervened in an iron solidarity dictated by the laws of capitalist society, all threw themselves against the revolutionary proletariat whether through support of Franco’s reactionary right‑wing or the left‑wing of the Popular Front and the extreme left‑wing bloc ruling in Catalonia with the support of the POUM and the FAI. There were polemics of the anti‑fascists against the fascists but this was just a means to fool the proletarians. The war of 1914‑1918 proved to us that business is done magnificently even with the “enemy”, and without fail it can be said that when cash is paid, orders are immediately accepted from both camps.

They’ll even be accepted by proletarians and when they’ve paid the money, the cops will be notified about who will “find the booty”: a notice to the proletarians around whom provocateurs and speculators are now circling under the benevolent eye of the Popular Front ministers.

Here are the actual conditions under which the “Non‑Intervention Committee” works. The French representative is the first who will say: if the others don’t comply with the pact we should re‑examine the convention as a whole. The Russian one, after much delay, will proclaim: the Spanish Minister Del Vayo has made damning revelations in Geneva; since neutrality is not respected I’ll resume freedom of action. The fascist henchmen, Grandi in the front line, don’t even dream of bothering to refute the accusations, there’s no need. From the first moment Mussolini and Hitler, who had said that the pact should apply to all supplies and not only to arms, had raised the question of sending funds but not that of sending human material to Spain since sending money – a simple polemical pretext, however – was a violation of the pact, but not the formation and sending of legions. Grandi has his collection of “Giustizia e Libertà”, of the reformist and maximalist Avanti!, of the Grido del Popolo, and everywhere, complete with the luxury of photographs, he gives palpable proof that the pact is being openly violated in France. But it’s not worth the effort to produce this documentation, because the real objective is not to “not intervene” in Spain, but the opposite, to “intervene” in all of them to offer the one and the other arm of capitalism, the reactionary right and the left of the Popular Front with the Catalan appendage, arms and men for the massacre of the proletarian class.

Russia proclaimed its freedom of action, at the same time the Social Democratic International and the Amsterdam Trade Union International discussed at length, to reach what conclusion? Not to call the masses not to unleash class movements against their respective capitalists, but to exert energetic pressure on their respective governments to “lift the blockade” against the Spanish government. But did this blockade ever exist? The press coverage of the Popular Front is there to prove that if the Italian fascists came down in Majorca, they are recruiting, with a lot of fanfare, the proletarians to leave for Spain.

There remains the problem of weapons, of airplanes. In this regard it’s necessary to face reality and this will enable us to foil the deception of the traitors. At the beginning of the events the enormous majority of aviation was on the side of the government; if this weapon is – as it’s said – the essential cause of the military superiority of the right‑wing supplied by Italian and German fascism, then why was it not used at the beginning against the territories where the right‑wing had succeeded, or why was it not used when the right‑wing was using the few airplanes it had to communicate with Alcazar of Toledo and supply other encircled cities? And today when, in the naval field, superiority still belongs to the government, why isn’t this weapon used? And finally, don’t the arms factories, the war industry that are in the hands of the government produce enough weapons? Not to mention that we all know that if the Italian proletarians had had a one thousandth of the weapons that the Spanish workers possess today, the fascist gangs would have been crushed like bugs. But a revolver in the hands of workers fighting on their class terrain has proletarian political force; an artillery piece in the hands of a proletarian thrown into the enemy front has no proletarian but rather capitalist political force.

There remains the problem of weapons, of airplanes. In this regard it’s necessary to face reality and this will enable us to foil the deception of the traitors. At the beginning of the events the enormous majority of aviation was on the side of the government; if this weapon is – as it’s said – the essential cause of the military superiority of the right‑wing supplied by Italian and German fascism, then why was it not used at the beginning against the territories where the right‑wing had succeeded, or why was it not used when the right‑wing was using the few airplanes it had to communicate with Alcazar of Toledo and supply other encircled cities? And today when, in the naval field, superiority still belongs to the government, why isn’t this weapon used? And finally, don’t the arms factories, the war industry that are in the hands of the government produce enough weapons? Not to mention that we all know that if the Italian proletarians had a one thousandth of the weapons that the Spanish workers possess today, the fascist gangs would have been crushed like bugs. But a revolver in the hands of workers fighting on their class terrain has proletarian political force; an artillery piece in the hands of a proletarian thrown into the enemy front has no proletarian but rather capitalist political force.

The development of Spanish events had made more than a few proletarians reflect. The bloody victories of the reactionary right occurred after the defeat of the whites had been taken for certain, and proletarians – after three months of cruel experiences – were led to wonder whether finally their very approach of the struggle was not contrary to the interests and objectives of their class. Already there was a loosening of the influence of the traitors over the revolutionary proletarians who increasingly no longer trusted themselves to the moves of the enemy. After the Russian declaration to the “Non‑Intervention Committee” we see on the one hand the intensification of appeals for departures for Spain, and on the other hand the fact that more than a few proletarians expect a change in the situation and are preparing to leave for Spain.

Let us begin by observing that this alleged need for human materiel, for fighters, is a denial of what had been said so far by those calling for new enlistments and who had said that what was lacking was not men, but weapons. And we come to the essential question. On what level can the action of the different governments take place, on which pressure would be brought to bear, and for the moment on the Russian one? No doubt is possible: at the level of the interests of world capitalism. The proletarian who would put himself at the service of his enemy would not only sacrifice his life, but would become a new element of deception for the Spanish proletariat. Indeed, when a worker from another country arrives, immediately the proletarians of the country flock to him for his advice, an indication of the way to face to the enemy attack. The proletarian who arrives with the intention of incorporating himself into the so‑called proletarian militias, and which are and have always been tools of the capitalist enemy since they are dependent on the bourgeois State machinery, this proletarian will further encourage the Spanish workers to persist in a path that leads to the progressive slaughter of proletarian lives and organizations.

These considerations which are not the fruit of our reflections but an unequivocal and terrible lesson from the events must incite the proletarians to reply to the traitors that they won’t leave for Spain, that they want to remain faithful to real proletarian internationalism which doesn’t mean concentration in only one country in struggle, but continuation of the class struggle in all sectors of world capitalism. In Russia, where proletarians whose crime is to have belonged to the leading body of the Russian revolution are exterminated en masse, in Italy and Germany where all the slightest opposition is slaughtered, in the British Empire which fiercely suppresses the uprisings in Palestine, in France where the police are hurled at strikers, in all countries finally. And the only truly proletarian directive to really manifest solidarity with the Spanish proletariat is to move to the struggle against capitalism in the country where one resides. Just as in Spain, in the localities that fascism has not seized power, the duty of the proletariat consists in taking advantage of the greatest opportunities for struggle to attack the machine of capitalist oppression in order to be able to thus weaken the same machine in the territories held by the fascist white terror, just as in other countries it is only by weakening French and English capitalism that one can really help the Spanish proletariat as a whole. It’s a thousand times more difficult to unleash class struggles where fascist reaction reigns, but this means that if in the other areas – where the potential for class struggle still exist – the proletarians, instead of employing them, fall captive to the maneuvers of anti‑fascism and integrate themselves into the front of the defense of democratic capitalism, they ultimately only strengthen the capitalist machine in the fascist areas as well, thus strengthening the chances of the victory of the fascist attack.

As there are two classes, there are two class fronts: the capitalist front and the proletarian front. The laws of class struggle determine the nature of the two opposing fronts. There is no evaluation from one to the other, but once one enters the capitalist front one becomes its instrument and accomplice, and this with the same necessary logic that directs events and history. The revolutionary proletariat may find itself today, faced with too strong an enemy constellation, unable to overturn the situation, but in order to be able to overturn it when the situation again permits it, it mustn’t in any way credit the enemy move. A revolutionary proletariat that accepts the traitors’ order to leave for Spain becomes the standard-bearer of the enemy’s watchwords in the already extremely cruelly tried ranks of the Spanish workers.

In Spain, the gallows of the Spanish and international proletariat are being raised. After the victory of fascism in Germany, the Popular Front took upon itself the task of corrupting, of distorting the consciousness of the proletarians in France, it today with the uniform of “lifting the blockade of republican Spain” sends as many proletarians as it can into the arms of Franco’s bloody reaction. The duty of the worker is to recognize in the traitor who makes the call the function he is to be made to perform: he will not risk, he will not give its life to betray his class, he will not obey as the proletarians of different countries did in 1914. Unable today to overcome the enemy it will acquire the political capacity to beat him tomorrow on the sole condition of not serving him today.