Orwell in Spain, edited by Peter Davison, published by Penguin Books, 2001

George Orwell, true name Eric Arthur Blair, was the author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four. But before he became a famous writer, Orwell went to Spain in 1936 and joined the ranks of the Republicans in their struggle against General Franco and the Nationalists. Orwell served 115 days on the front lines near Huesca, went on leave, came back to the front lines and, a few days later, he was shot through the throat by a Fascist sniper. Miraculously, he survived, received a medical discharge, and returned to England with his wife, Eileen Blair, who had accompanied him to Spain. When he recovered from his war wound, he wrote a timely memoir about the Spanish Civil War titled Homage to Catalonia, published in 1938. The complete text is included in Orwell in Spain, along with numerous book reviews and letters of the period.

So what was Orwell’s position on the civil war in Spain? He volunteered his services because he genuinely felt he had a duty to fight Fascism which he regarded as the enemy of the working class. Upon his arrival at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, Orwell joined the P.O.U.M. militia, a collection of working class revolutionary socialists and communists. He would have preferred to have joined the Anarchists who had strong ties to the trade union movement. He could have also joined the Communist Party forces which were heavily influenced by Stalinism. Another option was the International Brigade. What Orwell soon came to understand was that the militia movements resisting General Franco’s attempts to overthrow the Spanish Republican Government had become deeply divided between those who wanted the revolution to go forward and those who preferred to wait until the war was over.

What changed everything was when the Government, on May 3, 1937, decided to take physical custody of the Telephone Exchange in Barcelona which was considered as an attack on the unions and working class. On leave at the time, Orwell was a first-hand witness to the street fighting that erupted. (Interestingly, the Government had also issued a decree that all arms held by private persons were to be surrendered.) One of the outcomes was that the Government later suppressed the P.O.U.M “Trotskyist” militia by suggesting that it was a “Fifth Column” financed by General Franco. Orwell blames this “internecine struggle” on the Government’s weakness. Being obliged to seek Russian arms and ammunition to resist Franco, the Government had also accepted the Stalinist control of the Spanish Communist Party. This led to the demise of the revolution. As Orwell wrote in Homage to Catalonia, “In reality, it was the Communists above all others who prevented revolution in Spain.”

Orwell’s hands-on grasp of the Spanish Civil War comes across as remarkably honest and astute. One cannot question his commitment or his sacrifice. The same goes for his wife, Eileen. His sincere willingness to accept and support the Spanish people in their struggle against feudalism is only surpassed by his timely and insightful grasp of the intent of the Soviet Union to control the fate of Spain.