immediately after the civil war began, a minority emerged within the left fraction whose members sought to participate in the events in spain. this minority, including longtime members of the fraction, numbered some 26 militants mainly belonging to the parisian federation of the fraction. they travelled to barcelona to enlist in the workers militias and after a fruitless meeting in september with a delegation from the fraction back home, they were expelled. the problem for the fraction was that the military support given to the republican forces by this minority was accompanied by political support (in that the minority wished to halt strikes among loyalist workers in the name of military victory against fascism). according to the fraction, no support could be given to a bourgeois state even in a struggle against fascism.