A glimpse of a new world (Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell)

Member Name: pan

Product:	Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
Date:	01/02/01 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb eye-witness acount

Disadvantages: None

George Orwell was of the generation for whom the Spanish Civil War represented a clear-cut crusade of good versus evil. For them it was a case of supporting the Spanish Republic against the menace of fascism. Unlike so many of them, however, George Orwell was prepared to take up arms in a bid to stop Franco and his allies in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

‘Homage To Catalonia’ is a vivid description of what happened to him, and, more importantly what happened in Spain. As a supporter of the Independent Labour Party (nothing to do with the shower now headed by Tony Blair), Orwell went to Spain to join the militia of a group called the POUM, a small and independently-minded Marxist group. The chapter where he describes arriving in Barcelona, a city firmly in the hands of the working-class, is truly inspiring. Barcelona was the heart of the Spanish Revolution. Lead by the anarchists in the CNT, Barcelona was being turned upside down. The POUM worked side by side with the anarchists, it was the Spanish Communists who were frightened by the revolution. The idea that the workers could create a revolution for themselves, without the communists, was something that they could not bear.

Orwell describes in detail the break-down of the revolution, and the treachery of the Communists and Socialists who preferred to turn their guns on the anarchists and the POUM rather than support the working class. Orwell himself had to escape the clamp-down, had he stayed it is likely that the Communists would have arrested and shot him.

In the end the revolution was destroyed and the fascists gained victory. Stalin and his allies in Spain preferred to see the revolution drowned in blood rather than let it flourish. Anyone who’s seen the film ‘Land and Freedom’ will be familiar with the story.

To understand Orwell’s hatred of dictatorship, as shown in 1984 and Animal Farm, was informed by his experiences in Spain. The f
act that he refused to become a ‘fellow-traveller’ of the communists, and his refusal to lie about the events in Spain, meant that for many on the left we was seen as a traitor. His bravery deserves mention. Much has been written about Spain and the Civil War, but less has been written about the revolution. To my mind, this ranks as one of Orwell’s greatest books.

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