Homage to Catalonia

Ένα οδοιπορικό των ημερών του Orwell, από τις πρώτες μέρες του στην επαναστατική κ εμφυλιακη Ισπανία, ως την άρον άρον διαφυγή του.
Από τον ενθουσιασμό του επερχόμενου νέου ως την πικρή συνειδητοποίηση της υστεροβουλίας κ των μικροπολιτικων συμφερόντων.
Ένα στοίχημα που δεν μπόρεσε να κάνει την υπέρβαση με ενδιαφέρουσες κρίσεις για τον τρόπο που αντιμετωπίστηκε από τον ευρωπαϊκό Τύπο της εποχής

“I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do.”

From HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell, 1938 UK edition, 1952 revised US edition.

Over the last handful of years, I've read 2 Orwell biographies, and other books that regularly source his writings. A main takeaway from those books is: "I need to read Orwell's essays." His perspective and prescience have always impressed me, and I knew delving into his essays would be very informative.

Last year, I read some contemporary Spanish poetry (Garcia Lorca), another personal narrative of war refugees moving to Chile (Neruda), a history of the International Brigades (Hochschild), so my informal Spanish Civil War education continued into 2020 through the English eyes of Eric Blair, pen name: George Orwell and his time with a militia faction in 1936, fighting against Franco's fascists.

"Part of what makes Homage to Catalonia one of the greatest nonfiction books of its age is that he managed to write in first person without ever sounding self-centered. You can look at almost any page and see how deftly he amassed rich, sensual detail, but always in the service of a larger point."
- From Adam Hochschild's Foreword.

Never is this "sensual detail" more on display than when Orwell describes the smells of the front, the pestilence of lice and rats, and his own near-fatal gunshot wound through the neck, just missing his carotid artery, and leaving him injured for the rest of his life.

Even while things are happening, he writes with this deep knowledge of the moving parts and politics. It can be a little confusing with the "alphabet soup" of acronyms for all the factions, but it's clear to see this War and its ramifications in the 20th-century history, and the literary provenance of Orwell's later classic novels - Animal Farm and 1984.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell and adapted for The BBC
This is ranked 293rd on The Greatest Books of All Time list

A different version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... and http://realini.blogspot.ro/

This is an excellent adaptation.
And the original work has been acclaimed and included on lists of best non-fiction works, including The Modern Library one:

-thttp://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/...

And evidently, George Orwell is better known; at least this is what I think, for his other masterpieces, included also on the Modern library list of best books, this time the fiction domain for the best creations of the last century:

-thttp://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/...

And these classic works that are fundamental for those who want to know what a dictatorship looks like would be:

-tAnimal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four

In Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell writes about his own experiences during his fighting against the Franco Regime.
If he was enthusiastic in the beginning and took all the trouble to join the brigades, by the time the author writes the aforementioned classics he has totally changed his mind...

Given that the narrative is complex and not totally supportive of the divided leftist army, I enjoyed this tale.
As a “survivor” of a communist regime I do not like reading books that sing its praises and have a dislike or outright hatred for leftists.

There are many jokes about communists…here is one:

-tWho is not a communist when young has no heart
-tThe one who is still a communist when old has no brains

I beg to differ.
Since I disagree that even young people could share the criminal, stupid ideas of the communists, knowing what they have done.

It is unforgivable that while the Nazi propaganda and ideas are illegal in places like Germany- and they well should be- the other murderous, heinous doctrine of the communists is not just tolerated, but embraced in so many places.

Take the example of France; where close to 20% have voted for man that wants to join the Bolivarian “revolution”.

In order to join the left wing brigades, George Orwell had to have a letter of “recommendation” from the communist party.
He describes very well and in detail, the gruesome fighting and the suffering around it, the lice that those fighting hated more than the fascists, the way he chased after an enemy to stab him with the bayonets and so much more.

The spies and the soviet agents have ended up killing so many of those who just wanted to defeat the Franco regime.
After the split and then the terrible conflict between Stalin and the Trotskyites.

All the supposed followers of Trotsky have been chased and persecuted, then tortured and killed without trial.
So much for communist justice.

“Philosophically, Communism and Anarchism are poles apart. Practically—i.e. in the form of society aimed at—the difference is mainly one of emphasis, but it is quite irreconcilable. The Communist’s emphasis is always on centralism and efficiency, the Anarchist’s on liberty and equality.”

Finally, George Orwell is hit by a bullet shot by an enemy sniper and the war ends for him, even if he is sent on trial.
His book does not enjoy a warm welcome and he would become an enemy of the Soviet propaganda and state.

“In trench warfare five things are important: firewood, food, tobacco, candles, and the enemy. In winter on the Zaragoza front they were important in that order, with the enemy a bad last”

And there is so much more about war and its horrors, even if one approximate quote says that…

-tWar is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror

"And I hope the account I have given is not too misleading. I believe that on such an issue as this no one is or can be completely truthful. It is difficult to be certain about anything except what you have seen with your own eyes, and consciously or unconsciously everyone writes as a partisan. In case I have not said this somewhere earlier in the book I will say it now: beware of my partisanship, my mistakes of fact, and the distortion inevitably caused by my having seen only one corner of events. And beware of exactly the same things when you read any other book on this period of the Spanish war."

"I remember saying once to Arthur Koestler, 'History stopped in 1936', at which he nodded in immediate understanding. We were both thinking of totalitarianism in general, but more particularly of the Spanish civil war." - "Looking Back on the Spanish War" (1943)


Ideology, War, and Journalistic Ethics

If I had to describe this book thematically those bold terms would have to do. The reputation of this book being what it is, I already knew that the first two themes would play a big role, but I was very impressed with Orwell's handling of the role of, or rather, abuse of journalism in wartime. I had already a "broad" knowledge of this war in Spain, but the details from an active participant like George Orwell helped give me an interesting angle to view it from. While I am not going to go into too much detail on the book (since it is recommended that you read it yourself), I will try to sum-up this narrative based on the three themes in the best way possible.

Ideology

I mainly want to talk about the political groups on the left since most of this story deals with the events leading up to, through and after the Barcelona May Days of 1937 which resulted in the purge/suppression of the leftist group Orwell was fighting with. Orwell had no specific political leanings beyond left-leaning anti-fascist views, by the time he left Spain he would be a Democratic Socialist who was stridently anti-Soviet and anti-Stalin. During the beginning of the civil war, Catalonia may have had dozens of political factions backing the government against the Francoist, but they mainly fell under two trade unions: Confederación Nacional del Trabajo [anarcho-syndicalist] (CNT) and Unión General de Trabajadores [socialist] (UGT). The group Orwell was fighting with called Partido Obero de Unificacíon Marxista (POUM). POUM was a revolutionary Marxist group that was formed from both of the main trade unions, but mostly under the sway of the CNT during the war. POUM believed that revolution should happen concurrently with the war and the main reason that Orwell was with them was because they were the only leftist group that would have him (the Communists did not trust him).

The main opposition to POUM was the Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluña (PSUC) which was the communist faction in Catalonia and was backed by the UGT and, more importantly, the Soviet Union. They were a relatively small group in Catalonia at the beginning of the war thanks to the large appeal of the anarchists, but as the fascists got more international support and only Mexico and the USSR would help the government, the UGT and PSUC would Machiavelli their way into complete domination on the ground in Barcelona. As the PSUC was co-opted by the Soviet secret police and the government mindful of Stalin's support, Orwell and many of the others who fought with him on the front lines in Huesca and other places would, after the Barcelona May Days, find themselves enemies of the state. In fact, half of the fighting in the book is between the different leftist factions rather than the fascists. When the Soviet-backed forces gain control on-the-ground, everyone associated with the CNT and POUM are suppressed and mass arrest and killings begin. After Orwell's commanding officer Georges Kopp is detained, he and his wife escaped Spain a month before his own indictment was published. He would later say that though the Spanish secret police was as menacing as Germany's, it lacked the efficiency of the Gestapo (the comical inefficiency of Spanish bureaucracy is another big theme in this book).

War

"In trench warfare five things are important: firewood, food, tobacco, candles, and the enemy."

Now, in a war narrative it is interesting that the war be the most mundane part of the story. His time in basic training and time spent on the front-lines make up the first part of the book and is used to frame what like was life away from the political skulduggery in Barcelona. Here is where the warring factions among the left mixed fraternized and died as equals. POUM militia, because of its political leanings, stressed equality to point that even commanding officers were addressed as "Comrade." Wherever the 29th division (POUM) went, it brought its revolutionary policies which meant full collectivization of everything, no institutionalized anything, and only proletarian ideals would be tolerated. Because POUM was effectively broke, the militia was short of everything it needed and the bureaucratic grid-lock in Barcelona and Madrid made getting nothing easy. It is also here in which we will encounter the fascists that would eventually overrun Catalonia (after this book's cut-off date). Of all the dangers which he faced in Barcelona, it is on the front where Orwell had his actual flirtation with death. This would be a blessing in disguise as it gave him time to flee Spain and not be captured by the Communists as he returned from his tour of duty (unlike other unlucky CNT-affiliated soldiers who dodged death from Franco only to meet it by Stalin).

n  Journalism in wartimen

This may be the most important theme of the book or at least 2/3 of it. For George Orwell the biases of the people covering the war helped influenced a lot of its worst aspects. He is not simply talking about the lack of support for the Spanish government internationally, but the lack of general information or questioning of the suppression of the POUM. Because of the POUM's revolutionary beliefs and former association with Leon Trotsky, Stalin felt that the most pressing goal in Spain was to crush the POUM and CNT. The fighting in Barcelona gave the Soviets the pretext that they needed and their press affiliates in England (mainly The Daily Worker) became the official line that many other western media would reprint. Orwell was enraged by seeing people who had died fighting the Francoist rebels labeled Fascist while Communist partisans who had never seen action were called war-heroes.

"Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional
superstructures over events that had never happened." - "Looking Back on the Spanish War" (1943)

He prints at length newspaper articles that accuse the POUM and anarchists in-general of being Troskyist and crypto-fascist, and he systematically shows why these accusations contradict the facts and even themselves in certain cases. If you have read his essay Politics and the English Language you can guess some of the ways he breaks down the wild accusations against the anarchists by the Communists. In essence though, the disregard of facts by journalists who only want to enhance an already agreed-upon narrative is what he rails about up to the end of the book. I was not expecting this discourse from what I previously knew about the book, but appreciated it given its timeless relevancy.

The book itself is written very clearly and simplistically, though, I wish it was not so jam-packed with information. Given Orwell's insistence on precise prose, there was no filler in this book--even the chapters devoted to explaining the political lines of the anarchists and communists and Orwell's explanation of what he knew of the Barcelona May Days felt necessary, though he gives you the option of skipping them (how many authors tell you,"yeah, you can skip this chapter because it is not THAT necessary for this story?"). Orwell does not take himself too seriously and, as the quote in the beginning of this book shows, he warned against taking this book as 100% objective as he will naturally have conscience and sub-conscience bias. Though the book was savaged by the press (surprise!) when it first came out in 1938 and flopped, it has been hailed by most historians and participants in the War in Catalonia as the most objective account of Spanish Civil War.


"And then England--southern England, probably the sleekest landscape in the world. It is difficult when you pass that way, especially when you are peacefully recovering from sea-sickness with the plush cushions of a boat-train carriage under your bum, to believe that anything is really happening anywhere...I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs."

After reading “Largo pétalo de mar” by Isabel Allende, that recreates the effects of the Spanish Civil War on a group of people who fled to Chile because of their leftist beliefs, I knew it was time to get the perspective from someone who was there.

George Orwell, was also a leftist, or as he puts it, the war confirmed his socialist tendencies. He was in Spain in 1936 fighting to stop the Fascists under Franco from gaining power. I always saw the war as a fight between left and right; fascist versus socialist or communist. Well, my views were rather narrow.

Fascism was rising in Germany, Italy and Japan. Russia had communism under Stalin and socialism was being pushed in other countries like Mexico and Spain. In fact, the elected Spanish government was leftist and that troubled supporters of the Church, military and business who were backing the fascists. The left was divided up into a variety of groups; PSUC were socialists, POUM were Marxists but followed Trotsky. A whole host of others such as: FAI, CNT, UGT, JCI, JSU, AIT, many who were powerful unions and the Anarchists, whose main scope was a strong desire to be free and ruled by no one.

Are you confused yet? Well then there is George Orwell. While in the field he is mostly bored, hungry, and cold. He enjoys the Spanish people but thinks the troops are a mess, have no idea what is going on, and love that idea to put everything off until “mañana.” Accidents happen. They are shot by accidentally firing their own guns on their comrades. Damn it, let’s start the war. He is there to kill a fascist! Then when the action happens, he is realizes the consequences. And that seems to put a little fear in him.

Back in Barcelona the State-run telephone building is taken over. The action in the street is truly challenging and more importantly, no one seems to know who is fighting whom. The papers spread lies. His writing here reads like a Graham Greene thriller. It’s very intense.

He goes back into the field but thankfully for us, Orwell gets shot in the throat. His description of being shot is actually quite revealing. He recovers and it’s his ticket out of the war (also stating that this will make his wife happy). Getting out of Spain is a challenge as the left trusts no one and the fascists start to take more and more land. Finally Orwell and his wife flee to France.

What to make of this book? He has conviction to fight, as did many other foreigners, as well as the Spaniards themselves. He does address some of the regional and issues in Catalonia and Basque Country. The left would lose because of too many competing groups. The government couldn’t be trusted. He dismisses those calling the shots. The truth is being manipulated on both sides. This is fodder for his two more famous books, Animal Farm and 1984. Orwell remains a socialists believing in the cause although knows it is lost in Spain. He is very happy to return to England.

I am glad to read this classic but the title confuses me. I don’t see it as a homage. It is a catchy title. Hmmm maybe he has something there!

I will give this a 3.5 because to two appendices in the back actually help to describe the background, and without it I would be a less muddled.

Spanish civil war was definitely the breaking ground for Orwell to start pondering about dictatorships and totalitarian regimes and that probably later led to novels Animal Farm and 1984.

Orwell came to Spain in 1936, after the war has already begun and joined the local militia that was part of the political party POUM, which was part of the Republican army, the side that wanted democratic republic. Through six months of writing, Orwell gives us insights into the battles raging on the front lines and also into the events happening in the background, primarily in Barcelona. For better understanding of the war itself, he explains the political situation in Spain at that time while also recording his own experiences and thoughts.
While being there, the Republican army was slowly starting to fall apart and different parties that were on the same side, started to fight each other. He found himself in the middle of lies and propaganda, which were slowly twisting the truth about the war. As he tried to cope with it, he realized that it doesn't matter what he writes or says, or how truthful it is, history will always be written by the victorious, therefore also remembered from their point of view.

He doesn't use complex sentences or writing structures, but through simplified chain of events tries to bring his story closer to the reader. The memories are painful and short, full of both sorrow and joy, as he was explaning that all his life he just wanted to visit Spain and experience all it's beauty, but eventually got nothing but misery.

I didn't read many biographies or memoires, but for now this is the best one. Some chapters were boring, especially the ones where he is on the battlefield doing nothing except noticing things, but it's expected as the life in the trenches isn't something exciting, but rather monotonous.
I recommend it to everyone interested in modern or war history. It's better learned from the writings of the "small" people.

I reread Homage to Catalonia while staying with a friend and his wife in Kyiv this July. One day, I heard two voices in the front hallway, before the time my friend usually got back from work. Naturally, I tried to avoid human interaction by keeping the door to the guest room closed, pretending I wasn’t there; and naturally, they knew I was there, knocked on the door, and demanded that I join them to eat and drink vodka. They turned out to be my friend’s brother-in-law and his co-worker, who’d heard my friend had an American staying with him; and though they’d never met me before, wouldn’t rest until they’d helped me 'celebrate' American Independence Day in a manner that would leave me debilitated until mid-afternoon the next day. Luckily, I was on vacation.

But the co-worker, who looked about my age (early 30s) had been in the Ukrainian military, and survived the encirclement of Debaltseve, in 2015. Like many Ukrainians over the past few years, he had left his job and his family to fight for the independence of his country against an opponent that was militarily stronger. This fact seemed, at least to me, to open an unbridgeable gap between us. But if he bore any bitterness about this, or resentment towards me for not having faced the same experience, he didn’t express it. And anyway, most Ukrainians I know would rather cut off their own hands than suggest that anyone else should fight their battles for them, or even bring up The Budapest Memorandum. Circumstance had determined that he would have to shoot at other human beings and be shot at, and that I wouldn’t…or so it would seem. If he could accept that, then I could too. Still, it doesn’t feel great to go through life thinking, “well, thank God it was him and not me, them and not us…this time”, if for no other reason than the reminder of all the things you’ll never know about yourself. Then again, there is also that nagging suspicion that escape from anything is only a delay, and that you will just have to face it at some other time, in some other form; and life can have many acts.

Later, I thought about how Orwell went to Spain when he didn’t have to; how Henry Miller told him he was an idiot to go out of a sense of responsibility, which is probably also what I’d have told Orwell if he’d been my friend; and then about how it never occurred to me for an instant to feel responsible to go to Donbas in 2014, when a country I knew and had friends in was invaded. Chances are that I’d only have gotten myself killed, crippled, or maimed; and if the idea sounds crazy, it also gives you some sense of the magnitude of the choice Orwell made when he got to Spain, where he could have easily told himself the same thing. Nobility of spirit, selflessness and physical courage don’t necessarily make good books, it might often be just the opposite, but the moral example offered during a volatile time is one of the things that makes this book relevant in 2018.

Another relevant aspect is Orwell’s careful analysis of the Soviets’ disinformation warfare and attempts to undermine factuality. But the real reason I think I will come back to this book again and again is simply the aesthetic experience of the masterful last third- his descriptions of being shot in the throat, escaping from Spain, returning to England...

Everything was very blurry. There must have been about two minutes during which I assumed that I was killed. And that too was interesting- I mean it is interesting to know what your thoughts would be at such a time. My first thought, conventionally enough, was for my wife. My second was a violent resentment at having to leave this world which, when all is said and done, suits me so well. I had time to feel this very vividly. The stupid mischance infuriated me. The meaninglessness of it! To be bumped off, not even in battle, but in this stale corner of the trenches, thanks to a moment's carelessness! I thought, too, of the man who had shot me- wondered what he was like, whether he was a Spaniard or a foreigner, whether he knew he had got me, and so forth. I could not feel any resentment against him. I reflected that as he was a Fascist I would have killed him if I could, but that if he had been taken prisoner and brought before me at this moment I would merely have congratulated him on his good shooting. It may be, though, that if you were really dying, your thoughts would be quite different.

And later, after finally having gotten out of Spain:

In this quiet fishing town, remote from bombs, machine-guns, food-queues, propaganda and intrigue, we ought to have felt profoundly relieved and thankful. We felt nothing of the kind. The things we had seen in Spain did not recede and fall into proportion now that we were away from them; instead they rushed back upon us and were far more vivid than before. We thought, talked, dreamed incessantly of Spain. For months past we had been telling ourselves that 'when we get out of Spain' we would go somewhere beside the Mediterranean and be quiet for a little while and perhaps do a little fishing; but now that we were here it was merely a bore and a disappointment.

And on the train back to England:

The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery hidden by the curve of the earth's surface. Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wild flowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the barges on the river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policemen—all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs.

A sobering analysis of the internecine squabbling and eventual betrayals on the republican side during the Spanish Civil War. Orwell gives both a tactile sense of the boredom, squalor, and occasional danger of the front, and the unreality, alliances, and complexity of Barcelona.

Of course the most critical part is his accusations that the Soviets undercut the Spanish Communists to preserve their European alliances. Proving this through the communist reports of the street fighting in Barcelona does go on a little long, but he was writing very shortly after the event and the injustice and sense of personal betrayal is palpably intense.

This is a depressing suggestion that a just cause doesn’t create a perfect army of angels, but an army subject to infighting that can take on more importance than the advertised cause, and can be led by zealots who get so caught up in the movement power struggle that they don’t see, or come not to care, that a civil-civil war can doom the bigger war. Or they get co-opted by outsiders manipulating them for establishment interests.