What Can We Do? (Camillo Berneri)

1: To believe that, thanks to a policy of nonintervention, one can eliminate the possibility of an international armed conflict is to procrastinate while the problems worsen. It would permit Italy, Germany and Portugal to prepare themselves better for the war and allow the Spanish fascist forces to store up supplies of arms and ammunition.

If fascism were victorious, France would be threatened in the south and the balance of forces in the Mediterranean would be permanently upset in favor of Italy and Germany who would emerge from this adventure stronger and more aggressive. Italy is seriously committed in Ethiopia while Germany is in a bad financial situation; do they want war immediately? No. They could go to war but they do not deliberately want a war straight away. If they wanted it, they would have it set in motion already in Spain. We have to adopt, therefore, a forceful foreign policy, having as its basis Portugal, which has eluded the control of Great Britain. Geneva (ie, the League of Nations) is powerless. The only solution is, therefore, to break with Portugal by means of the following measures: the immediate expulsion of all Portuguese diplomatic representatives; the immediate and complete closure of the border with Portugal; confiscation of all goods belonging to Portuguese capitalists resident in Spain.

As for Germany and Italy, the immediate expulsion of all their diplomatic representatives, suspension of the right of German aircraft to overfly Spanish territory, the prohibition of all ships flying German or Italian colors from entering Spanish ports, the suspension of all immunity for bourgeois Germans and Italians living in Spain.

Such a foreign policy would have as its immediate effect the forcing of Britain and France to adopt a definite position. If it were to give rise to the armed intervention of Italy and Germany, that intervention would at least be provoked now and not at the time chosen by those powers.

2. The operational base of the fascist army is Morocco. We must intensify our propaganda in favor of Moroccan autonomy throughout the pan-Islamic sphere of influence. We must oblige Madrid to make unequivocal declarations announcing the abandonment of Morocco and a promise of protection for Moroccan autonomy. France views with concern the possibility of insurrectionary repercussions in North Africa and Syria; Great Britain would see autonomous nationalist movements in Egypt as well as among the Arabs in Palestine grow stronger. We must exploit such anxieties and fears by adopting a policy which threatens to unleash revolt throughout the Arab world.

For such a policy we need money and we urgently need to send agitators and organizers to all the centers of Arab migration, into all the frontier regions of French Morocco. On the Aragón Front, the Center Front, the Asturias and Andalusia, a few Moors would be sufficient to act as propagandists.

3. Given our lack of arms and ammunition, we must expand production on the spot by making use of foreign technicians whose utilization has been very badly organized. We must also create, as rapidly as possible, all the war industries possible and end wastage of munitions by issuing far-reaching instructions and decisive orders.

4. We must achieve ‘unity’ just as much in the general and specific plan of military operations, which must be carried out on all fronts, as in liaison among the comrades of the areas by means of a general Staff controlled by a ‘National Defense Committee’.

5. We must completely and without pity eliminate the fascist remains which oblige us to maintain a front line within our own ranks and have recourse to systematic searches, mass arrests of people who are not in unions, who are of the right age and physical condition for military service, strict control of new recruits to the trade unions, etc…

6. We must force Madrid to reconstitute immediately all the Spanish diplomatic corps which will have to be reformed with members chosen by the ‘National Defense Committee’.