Committee on Nonintervention in Spanish Affairs

an international body created in August 1936 to check on the adherence of the 27 signatory European countries (all European countries except Switzerland) to an accord prohibiting the export or transit of arms into Spain.

The background for the agreement was the outbreak of military actions against the Spanish Republic by fascist Spanish insurgents on July 17–18, 1936, and the subsequent Italian and German intervention. The representatives of the signatory countries formed the committee. On September 14, a subcommittee was formed (the representatives of Great Britain, France, the USSR, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Sweden, and Portugal), which discussed and decided all the most important questions. The Soviet representative in the committee and subcommittee (I. M. Maiskii) carried on a persistent fight for a cessation of aid to the insurgents by Germany, Italy, and Portugal, which was rendered with the complicity of the representatives of Great Britain and France, who paralyzed the work of the committee. On Apr. 20, 1939, the committee officially ceased to function. The Soviet government recalled its representative from the committee on Mar. 1, 1939.