"Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell.

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George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" is a 20th Century classic. It captures a snapshot of the mindset of the Left at a particular point in time when the world seemed poised between a Fascist future and a Communist future, and although ultimately, even for Orwell, it was hard to tell the difference in practice between the two, the allure of Marxism never dimmed.


Orwell's autobiographical story opens with his decision to abandon the neutrality of the journalistic sidelines and enter into a struggle that his class and cohort considered to be a titanic and defining moment of history. Orwell makes the leap by joining the militia of the P.O.U.M ("POUM") in Barcelona in December of 1936 not long after the Nationalist's coup had been suppressed by a coalition of leftist militias. POUM was the militia fielded by a Marxist-but-not-Communist political party/worker's movement. In the Barcelona of 1936, all of the leftist political movements, including the anarchists and the Communists had their own militias. POUM and the Anarchists of was to the "left" of the Communists among the parties supporting the Spanish Republic.

Orwell is enchanted by the Barcelona of December, 1936, which he fancies to be the one place on Earth where the working class is in control. He is charmed by the fact that everyone is wearing working class clothes and the traditional religious based greetings have been replaced by sturdy revolutionary slogans.

Orwell is soon on his way to the "front," which turns out to be a short stretch of trenches near Zaragoza. From that point, Orwell's account describes the mundane reality of static warfare, with long stretches of inactivity broken by the rare activity of desultory conflict. These accounts are fascinating in describing the unromantic nature of military action generally and of the period between the World Wars, particularly. Orwell's active involvement in front line warfare ended in early 1937 when he was struck in the throat by a bullet, which threatened to leave him mute for the rest of his life, although he did recover. Orwell was then subjected to the coarse ministrations of the Spanish medical service and returned to Barcelona in time for the suppression of the POUM by the Communists.

Orwell has two sections of his book where he describes the internecine conflict between the leftist parties. Orwell is frankly apologetic for these sections, which he describes as being distasteful and undoubtedly not of great interest to his reader. In this he is entirely wrong because they make up the most interesting and insightful parts of his book. Orwell describes the influence of the Russian NKVD over the Republic, and explains the Communist parties' crackdown on the leftist elements of the left as being to serve the interest of Russia, which did not want France distracted by a radical Spain at its back when Russia was interested in seeing a strong France focused on Germany. Orwell then describes the crackdown by the Communists and Republic that resulted in the rounding up of POUM officers and soldiers and their internment in Communist irregular jails. Orwell found himself having to sleep in the streets to avoid arrest and internment, a fate that many international volunteers found themselves in and from which they never emerged.

One of the most chilling things about these sections is Orwell's seeming acceptance of these actions by the Communists. Orwell clearly thinks that the liquidation of the POUM was a waste of effort and cruel, but he doesn't seem outraged by it in the same way that he feels outraged by the Fascists who were doing nothing essentially different. It is as if right thinking Leftists understood that totalitarianism was inevitable and so long as it had a "worker's" flavor, it was acceptable on some level. Orwell seems to have been more outraged by the Communist's reactionary policy that favored the bourgeoisie than by the fact that the Communists were totalitarian thugs. Obviously, Orwell's Catalonian experience eventually made him distrustful of Communists and condemnatory of the totalitarian mindset, as can be seen in his later works.

Orwell's descriptions of Spain and his off-hand description of the anti-Catholicism of the Leftist is also interesting. Orwell constantly belittles the Spanish for their "manana" attitude and their disorganization. He also notes how every Catholic church he sees in Republican territory has been burned, vandalized and/or turned into a latrine. This last observation seems to leave him with no concerns for the civil rights of Catholics, but, rather, it seems that his latent British prejudice against Catholicism and Spain combine to make the desecration of churches appear almost appropriate.

Orwell's description of his military service at times seems to be a cliché from either World War II military movies showing Brits keeping a "stiff upper lip" or Monty Python. He describes ducking from a bullet in his first action and the experience of being shot in such a way that he seems amazed that he was human - imagine ducking from a bullet! How unBritish! This effect was heightened by the audiobook version I was listening to, where the narrator's voice seemed perfect to play the "British twit" role in a Monty Python skit. The reading, however, was clear and interesting.

"Homage to Catalonia" is a fascinating window into a slice of the Spanish Civil War and the mindset of people on the Left prior to the World War II.