When he arrived
in Brussels—the Civil War in
Spain had already broken out—I
left Barcelona to welcome him. Farsighted
as he was, he immediately warned me
of the dangers facing our independent
and anti-Stalin party. He said, "If
Stalin has decided to intervene in
Spain at the very time when he is
liquidating the opposition in Russia,
he will never tolerate an opposition
such as yours to survive abroad."
I listened to him skeptically,
for I had great trust in the independent
spirit of the Spanish people.
On his initiative we
went to see the leaders of the Second
International: they told us bluntly that
our struggle was a fight between two factions
of the working class and they preferred
not to be involved.
When we left, Victor
Serge said: "They are blinded by
the Popular Front and by Non-Interventionism."
Then, shaking his head sadly he added:
"You will have to fight on two fronts,
the fascist and the Stalinist; the latter
is the more perilous. You will be alone,
or just about alone."
