This is the third Orwell book I’ve read in a row. They are all volumes from the Folio Society “Reportage” box set that includes Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier, Homage to Catalonia (this book), and two volumes of essays. I’ve also just bought D.J.Taylor’s biography of Orwell, The New Life, that I intend to read, so I’ll leave reflections on Orwell in general for my review of that book. Homage to Catalonia was published in 1938. It’s his sixth book, and third non-fiction work. It details his experiences fighting with the POUM militia for period of around six months between December 1936 and June 1937. The Spanish civil war was a defining struggle between fascism and various shades of socialism and communism that acted as an ideological prelude to the second world war. Franco’s fascists were supported by Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s fascist Italy, while the Spanish communists were funded and supplied by the Soviet Union. There were calls in both Britain and France for their governments to support the legitimate republican government of Spain against the fascists, but in the event both countries decided to stay neutral in the conflict, probably because opinion was divided about which side to back. In Chips Channon’s diaries he strongly supports Franco and the fascists; not an uncommon sentiment amongst the British establishment. This hugely angered left wing opinion in Europe and led to several tens of thousands to sign up to join the international brigades and various militia groups to fight on the republican side. Thanks to Orwell’s links with the British Independent Labour Party he was introduced to the POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification) a revolutionary Marxist group separate from the Soviet backed communists (the PSUC).

The book opens in the recruiting office for the POUM in Barcelona. Orwell is intoxicated by the revolutionary atmosphere there. He had found the workers’ paradise he’d been dreaming of for the last decade. The various anarchist and Marxist militias had abolished private property and any kind of hierarchy. All firms had been reorganised as workers’ collectives, and even in the military units there was as little distinction as practical between the officers and men. His initial thrill at being part of the revolution was dampened when he found himself in a front line trench in the mountains with a rusty antique German rifle as part of a barely trained company of mostly teenage boys. The winter weather, cold and mud, were far more of an enemy than the fascists, the nearest of whom were dug in on a distant hill top, too far away to offer any real threat. Later he is transferred to the ILP contingent attached to the POUM which sees action, thrown into an assault near the town of Huesca. Orwell’s description of this action is very reminiscent of the many WWI military memoirs I’ve read, but with the significant omission of the hellish artillery barrages. There is a terrific description of a nighttime attack on the town; confused and deadly, but ultimately successful. Orwell survives unscathed.

Orwell returned to Barcelona on leave in May 1937 only to find himself embroiled in an attempt by the republican government to stamp out the anarchist/Marxist revolution in Barcelona. Orwell found himself on the rooftop of the POUM headquarters, defending the building against republican soldiers. He gives a detailed account of the confused and sporadic street fighting, and describes his main recollection as being hunger and boredom. The May fighting fundamentally changed his view of the Spanish Civil War. He realised that it was not a simple fight against fascism, but a three way power struggle between the stalinist communists, the revolutionary anarchists/Marxists, and the fascists.

Orwell was sent back to the front near Huesca with a new found cynicism for the republican cause. He still thought it was worth fighting to beat the fascists, but had lost all hope of a socialist workers’ paradise once the war is won. He was not back for long before he was shot through the throat by a sniper. Miraculously the bullet didn’t hit any major arteries and he survived. Never one to dramatise his own suffering, he describes being shot in great detail, saying it was “interesting”!

He was transferred around various hospitals eventually arriving back in Barcelona and recovering sufficiently to be mobile. Since May the communist and republican forces had progressively clamped down on the revolution, arresting members of the militia and gradually taking over more of the city. He entered the hotel where his wife was staying, only for her to urge him to go immediately into hiding. He and a couple of other Englishmen slept rough in hidden places around the city for almost a week while they attempted to arrange their passports with the British consulate while avoiding the police and the government forces. At one point they attempted to rescue their Belgian commander, Georges Kopp, who had been arrested and imprisoned. They even managed to engage the help of his military superior, a very risky undertaking, but the man proves to have principles and does everything he can to help, all to no avail. Eventually they simply rode a train out of the country posing as wealthy Englishmen and untouched by the border guards.

Orwell’s description of his return to England is very touching. In the calm tranquil atmosphere of southern England he says it was hard to imagine anything bad was happening anywhere in the world. He laments that the English can only be woken from their “deep deep sleep” by bombs falling.

The book ends with two long appendices detailing the politics of the various republican factions, and challenging the narrative of communist aligned British left-wing press. They blamed the POUM and anarchists for causing the fissure amongst the republican forces that contributed to Franco’s victory. It is perhaps here that Orwell first started to understand the power of propaganda; of inventing the “truth”. He saw how those on the extreme left have little to differentiate themselves from totalitarian fascism. They used the same methods of lies and propaganda to further their agenda. The fractured acronym soup of Spanish politics is all very “People’s Front of Judea”, where factions prefer to fight against those, supposedly on the same side, over small doctrinal differences, rather than uniting to fight the common fascist enemy. It is fascinating how Orwell manages to be disappointed with almost every political movement: he a priori dislikes Capitalism, Imperialism, and especially Fascism, but he also now decided that he disliked most of the left too.

I really enjoyed Homage to Catalonia. Orwell writes engagingly in a straight-forward journalistic style. It’s well paced and the descriptions of life in the trenches compare very well with Graves and Sassoon. One wonders if he’d read their books, and was perhaps following their model? Orwell was not a well man when he volunteered. It seems almost perverse for someone with tuberculosis to sign up for a spell exposed to the elements in the winter mountains. He must have suffered grievously from the conditions even before he was shot in the throat. Orwell simply doesn’t seem to care about himself and takes an almost perverse hair-shirt pleasure in discomfort. His desire is merely to experience the revolution and kill fascists. The disappointment at inaction during his initial spell in the line is palpable. The book is an almost perfect example of an awakening: from idealism to realism, as his initial excitement at encountering revolutionary Barcelona, turns to bitter disillusionment at the end, when he desperately hides from a Stalinist style reign of terror carried out by the side he thought he’d come to help.