The leftist newspapers willingly accepted lies about the Spanish Civil War.

"This taught me," Orwell wrote, "that the Left Wing press is every bit as spurious and dishonest as that of the Right."

This set him on his life work, to push continually to establish the facts, no matter how unpopular that might be, and to always put the truth before ideology. This made Orwell a true hero.

To truly understand both "1984" and "Animal Farm," I think it's essential to also read "Homage."

Role model......

“Orwell was one of those upon whom nothing was lost. (This included, as Orwell himself said: “the power of facing unpleasant facts”). By declining to lie, even as far as possible to himself, and by his determination to seek elusive but verifiable truth, he showed how much can be accomplished by an individual who unites the qualities of intellectual honesty and moral courage..”

-Christopher Hitchens

======

Note: this edition of the book is the best one because certain factoids that slow down the narrative are relegated to the appendix.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

ISBN # 0544382048

=====

Aldous Huxley and Eric Blair (Orwell) at Eton

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

Always preferred Orwell as a writer of nonfiction, and Homage to Catalonia is most certainly up there with the best of it. Didn't think much of Animal Farm, and haven't even bothered to read 1984 yet, which, to be honest, doesn't really interest me anyway. What does interest me, a lot more, is his voice in the real world. I think now, having read this, Down & out in Paris & London, and some of his brilliant essays, he's simply a great writer. Didn't think I'd be saying that after Animal Farm. When he suddenly got shot here, I feared for his life, even though, of course, I knew he was to survive. He was told by a doctor he would lose his voice, permanently, but thankfully it did come back within a few months, having previously been reduced to a whisper. He was a lucky boy though, and on any other day the wound could have been fatal, thus, there would have been no book, or any others after for that matter. Orwell had joined the POUM militia, after simply serving as a journalist, because of his loose ties with the Independent Labour Party back home, but the poumistas were anti-Stalinists, and in the era of Moscow show-trials, they soon found themselves accused of being Trotskyist-fascists and enemy agents by the Moscow-run Spanish Communist Party, but like with many other conflicts there's lots of finger-pointing and accusations made by all sides. What I loved about this work is that Orwell never romanticizes about war, and is crisp and as clear as possible in regards to his intellectual honesty and capacity for observation. In between his reports of being on the frontline, he gives a really detailed account to the political side of things, and all those involved, which for someone like me, who is not well knowledged on the Spanish Civil War, provided much needed information, to at least make certain things that little bit clearer. Orwell, who produced this work fresh in his mind only a few months after returning to England, was not writing for effect. He recorded what he had seen out of a compelling need to testify. His prose has none of the mannerisms of modern cynical equivalents, who can tend to glamorise the horror and the futility of war. For Orwell, the characteristic smell and taste of war was that of excrement and decaying food, while also being pestered by rats and lice, he paints a vivid picture of the squalid trenches of the Aragón front in the early months of the war, while also describing the naive idealisms, his fellow comrades, the inability to use their rusty rifles properly (some of the weapons were decades old), and, to my surprise, there appeared to be more casualties (at least during Orwell's time) caused by simple accidents than by enemy fire, and he points out often, while on the front, that nothing really appears to be happening. So the battles overall are scarce, but when something does kick in, you bloody well know it. His descriptions in may of 1937 are a fascinating portrayal of mounting suspicion and much uncertainty, of which, he may have been wrong about certain events, but then so were other journalists and later historians, even more so, yet the immediacy of Orwell's account conveys the terrible fear and utter confusion caused by everything that was going on around him, which was, pardon my french, a bit of a clusterfuck at times, mitigated only by incompetence and many unpredictable flashes of humanity. As this was pretty much my first book to do with the Spanish Civil War, I'd be lying if I suddenly said everything now becomes crystal, because it doesn't. But at least it's a stepping stone toward likely future reading on the subject.

È proprio vero che non si finisce mai di imparare. Sapevo di non essere ferratissima sulla guerra di Spagna, ma non immaginavo che la mia ignoranza arrivasse a non aver capito di quante e quanto grandi fossero le incomprensioni, le diffidenze ma anche gli odii tra le varie componenti repubblicane che si opponevano ai legionari franchisti. Questo libro è una vera e propria immersione nella guerra civile spagnola. Arruolatosi volontario nei primissimi anni del conflitto nel POUM (Partito Operaio di Unificazione Marxista), Orwell ci lascia questa preziosa testimonianza, quasi in diretta, in quanto scritta nel 1937 quando il conflitto era ancora in corso e ben lungi da finire presto. Su tutto il libro aleggia una sincera e appassionata critica a tutti i totalitarismi di destra e di sinistra, quando soprattutto questi si mostrano intolleranti verso i propri stessi militanti. Molto interessante è la disamina che egli fa delle intolleranze, delle incomprensioni e delle violenze interne alle forze repubblicane. Non conoscevo per esempio l’accanimento aggressivo di queste contro la POUM e gli anarchici. Particolarmente drammatici sono il quadro dettagliato della vita in trincea e il clima di rivoluzione sociale che permeava la Catalogna e qui si sente che lo scrittore ne è profondamente toccato. Mi spiace non aver letto prima questa bella testimonianza di difesa del valore della libertà individuale.

“Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.”

George Orwell’s memoir about his experiences as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War fighting the fascists. He was a soldier in the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), which was part of a loose coalition of left-leaning forces on the side of the Republic opposing Franco’s right-wing Nationalists. Orwell explains the organizations involved and the political in-fighting that accompanied their attempts to band together. He gradually became less idealistic and realized the likely outcome would be some form of dictatorship.

Orwell describes the fatigue and frustrations on the frontlines, where troops were equipped with outdated weapons, were poorly trained, and only sporadically encountered the enemy’s troops. His account is infused with irony and humor. He relates his excursions in Barcelona, and the street-fighting that occasionally ensued.

He was shot in the neck, and attempts to convey the experience:
“Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the centre of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all round me, and I felt a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shrivelled up to nothing.”

He thought he would die:
“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!”

Eventually the POUM was outlawed, becoming a scapegoat for war, and Orwell (and his supportive wife) had to flee Spain to avoid arrest, and a high probability of execution. It is written in a straight-forward manner and is an interesting first-hand account of what it was like to live through this piece of history. It is easy to find the seeds of his future anti-totalitarian works in this memoir.

“Now that I can see this period in perspective I do not altogether regret it. I wish, indeed, that I could have served the Spanish Government a little more effectively; but from a personal point of view—from the point of view of my own development—those first three or four months that I spent in the line were less futile than I then thought. They formed a kind of interregnum in my life, quite different from anything that had gone before and perhaps from anything that is to come, and they taught me things that I could not have learned in any other way.”

“È difficile essere certi di qualcosa, se non di quello che s’è visto coi propri occhi, e consciamente o inconsciamente, ognuno scrive con una certa partigianeria.”

È una guerra di posizione quella che si combatte in Spagna, una guerra statica, in cui si è immersi irrimediabilmente nel fango delle trincee, scavate con strumenti improvvisati. D’inverno il freddo è insopportabile e la legna per accendere il fuoco è pochissima; d’estate il caldo è soffocante e i pidocchi sono pronti a colonizzare ogni piega dei tuoi pantaloni.

Dall’altra parte del parapetto si trovano uomini uguali a te, ma completamente diversi: se tu hai scelto di scendere in campo, di arruolarti, di lottare e sparare per la causa anticapitalistica, loro sono coscritti alla causa fascista, braccia giovani, ma già stanche destinate ad alimentare la lotta di Franco, l’ascesa del totalitarismo in Spagna.

Giunto a Barcellona con lo scopo di raccontare lo stato d’animo di una delle prime città spagnole liberate dall’azione anarchica e decise a portare il vessillo della rivoluzione e dell’uguaglianza, Orwell sente l’impulso irresistibile di arruolarsi tra le file della milizia del P.O.U.M. (Partito Operaio di Unificazione Marxista) e finisce ben presto al fronte, tra le montagne.

Il racconto di Orwell è febbrile, appassionato, e il suo ritmo vertiginoso ed eccitato entra, sin da subito, in contrasto con la vita al fronte, con gli scontri silenziosi e inconcludenti tra i due schieramenti, pronti a spararsi addosso con fucili difettosi, a conquistare metri per poi doversi ritirare.

Orwell miscela perfettamente passione, idealismo e concretezza in questo reportage che ha il sapore di un memoir: cerca di superare la freddezza della scrittura e il suo distacco dalla realtà riscaldandola con i suoi stati d’animo, le sue impressioni, il suo desiderio di verità e giustizia, ma non si lascia mai trascinare dalla forza e dalla violenza di quello che ha vissuto, non perde mai di vista ciò che conta davvero: dissotterrare dal fango e dalle calunnie dei giornali spagnoli ed esteri la verità di quei giorni, il complotto sapientemente celato dietro la cosiddetta guerra per la democrazia.

Continua a leggere qui: https://parlaredilibri.wordpress.com/...

1. Homage to Catalonia has the distinction of being on my mental to-read list for longer than any other book. I've wanted to read this book longer than any of the people who elbowed or punched me in the face this week have been alive. I figured after almost twenty and half years I should finally read it.

I've owned the book for over a decade.

I have no clue what book now currently holds the distinction book I've wanted to read for the longest time but haven't.

2. When I was a senior in high school I wrote a paper for a friend of mine on this book, he was a year older and a freshman at Fordham. I had been visiting him, and he needed to write a paper on this book. I'm not sure if he read it or not. I hadn't. The paper was on the relationship between the Anarchists (CNT) and the Communists (PSUC). I dictated the paper to him, highlighting the ideological differences between the two groups and why the Communists would turn on the Anarchists. Prior to the evening that we did this I don't know if I had ever really known anything about the Spanish Civil War. I don't remember having ever really learned anything in school or had read anything about Anarchism or Communism (beyond what we learned growing up in the waning and thawing days of the Cold War, not necessarily the most objective facts being passed on to young minds). I babbled on about the differences between these two ideologies. My friend typed and gave me some bits he knew or remembered from the book to get my reaction to them.

It was the first college paper I wrote, and it wasn't for myself. My friend later told me that he got his highest grade for that class on this paper.

It would take me two decades to actually read the book.

3. The Spanish Civil War I think of as one of the great tragedies of the 20th Century. Fuck the 60's. To me this was the last stand of idealism.

4. The book.

George Orwell went to Spain to report on the war in late 1936. Arriving in Barcelona he got caught up in the revolutionary feeling of the city and joined the militia. His credentials to get him into the country were from an organization aligned with the POUM, a politically fairly insignificant group in the hodgepodge of alphabet groups that made up the Spanish Government who were fighting Franco. Orwell wasn't necessarily happy about joining the POUM, he would have rather joined up with the Communists, which was where his sympathies lay at the time. But, he also wanted to help defeat this threat of fascist, and wanted to do his part and kill at least one fascist in battle. So he joined and after a short time went to one of the fronts.

It's significant that Orwell had joined the POUM. About six months later the POUM would be a suppressed political group, branded fascist traitors by the Communists (PSUC), they would be accused of the heretical crime of Trotskyism, and many of the leaders would disappear into jails, never to be heard of again, and the rank and file arrested as fast as they could be found. Orwell would end up escaping from Spain and evading arrest as friends of his were arrested, disappeared and ultimately died in the custody of the Communists.

The book itself is mostly a narrative of Orwell's time in Spain. A travel essay where instead of describing his Holiday in the Sun in some exotic place he ends up spending four months living in a trench, takes part in an ineffectual assault on a fascist position, goes on leave just in time to arrive back in Barcelona to witness and take part in the street fighting of May 1937, goes back to the trenches, gets shot in the throat, and arrives wounded back in Barcelona just in time to be branded a traitor and an enemy of the state because he had been in a POUM regiment. Interspersed with this narrative are some chapters on the political climate of Spain and the gross distortions and lies about the various political groups that were being trumpeted in the press both in Spain and abroad.

Orwell's narrative of his time in Spain is great reporting on the time. It's fairly amazing today to think that he did what he did. There was no real reason why he should have signed up to fight in this war. It wasn't his country. He was caught up in the revolutionary possibilities being exhibited in Barcelona at the time, and as he says he was tired to seeing the fascists up until this point winning at everything they tried, so it makes sense why wanted to take part, but I think about myself and other people I've known and I can see myself being sympathetic to the cause, but to actually sign up, live in a cold trench with almost no food, and shooting and getting shot at with antiquated rifles? This isn't like deciding to go sleep in a park and play bongoes in order to collapse the capitalist system.

The real message to the book though is in Orwell himself. He never politically sympathized with the POUM or the CNT (I don't know how to describe the POUM, revolutionary-socialist might work, but those terms get clouded, but they need to be put in perspective with the Communist position, which wasn't revolutionary at all, but was attempting to hold back the floodgates of revolutionary fervor, so as not to alienate the middle class and foreign interests-- in case you forgot the CNT are the Anarchists, who played a very significant role in the Spanish Civil War, especially in the early days, and their role lessened when the big backer of the Government (which is the side this whole alphabet soup were fighting on) became the USSR and the better weapons and stuff were finding their ways into the hands of the various Communist armies and militias), he saw problems with the waging of a revolution alongside creating a united front against Franco. Orwell might have been naive, but he sort of thought that the war could be won by a united front, and then the revolution, true equality as was being attempted and exhibited by the POUM and CNT at the time could be had by all. If this doesn't make too much sense it might be my fault in explaining it, or it might be in the small differences between the groups and their aims that make them essentially incompatible with each other. Sooner or later the differences between them were going to become visible. And they did, and through lies and distortions people who had been risking their lives in fighting against the fascists were overnight turned into enemies of the government. Men returning from the front were finding themselves being branded the very thing they had been fighting against. They were arrested. The atmosphere of Barcelona became what we might later call Orwellian.

But back to Orwell himself. He wasn't politically sympathetic to the abstract ideas these groups might have had, but he was more than sympathetic to The Truth and the individual men who he had known, served and fought with. He knew they weren't a fifth column looking to help the fascists, they were people who believed in protecting their country, they were people who were giving their lives and comforts to holding lines and carrying out dangerous assignments. And the truth, as it was being broadcast now by Communist organs was that they were traitors. English Communist newspapers were calling for the execution of the them for being traitors to the revolution. Things Orwell had seen first hand were being reported as the exact opposite and being passed off as truth, and these distortions when they were noticed were shrugged off by fellow-travellers as necessities of the forward march of progress.

It might not seem like a big deal that Orwell was shocked by the lies he saw, and that he was more deeply committed to the truth than to an abstract political concept or the Party line, but you can compare him to other intellectuals at the time who needed to have the atrocities of Stalin to be beyond any hope of being wished away before they turned away from their love affair with Stalin's vision of pragmatic action. Or you can compare Orwell to someone like Hemingway who knew full well that a friend of his had been innocent of the charges he was arrested for in Spain, but he had no problem with supporting the official line that even if he was innocent he was still guilty of treason, because the Party had said so.

To write this book when Orwell did was courageous. The truth being held to be less important than orthodoxy. It would be kind of like one of those Evangelistic money-makers coming out with a book exposing all the fraud, lies and deceit that his fellow cronies were taking part in. Or a Conservative pundit coming out with an attack on the lies and fleecing the neo-cons have been a part of, say a month before a presidential election.

Needless to say, this book of Orwell's was pretty much ignored when it came out.

Today, with the Spanish Civil War something that most people don't really know about or care about, this book stands as an interesting read about a man going to war, but more importantly as a testament to one man's dedication to the truth and his strong moral fortitude.

Tematika totalitarizma me privlači, jer smo eto kao civilizacija njime označeni poslednjih 90 godina, ova knjiga nije samo svedočanstvo o ratu već i prikaz medijske manipulacije, raskola između komunista i anarhista u okvirima republikanske opcije u Španskom građanskom ratu.

Slabo sam poznavao događaje vezane za ovaj sukob, ali sad je dosta jasnije, prosto je neverovatno koliko podseća na balkanske podele, bar meni, strančarenja, koja su dovela do do međusobnog ubijanja u okvirima republikanskih snaga.

Opisi rata su odlični, ne pikazuje ga romantičnijim nego što je bio, nego što ga dugo posle mediji oslikavali.


Orvel se ograđuje rekavši da je pristrasan(bio je na strani anarhista i trockista) ali demantuje, i dokazuje protivrečnosti u propagandi prostaljinističke štampe zapadnih država, navodeći tekstove i logičke greške, protivrečnosti u njima.

Svakog koga zanima ova tema ovo bi trebalo da je neizbežna knjiga jer je autor bio u ratu, kao i u borbama u Barseloni, tako da ima dosta autentičnosti.

3.5 stars. I pretty much enjoyed reading this classic. I’ve never thought that much about the Spanish Civil War back in the 30s and I picked up this book just because of the great reviews here on GoodReads. Orwell is mostly (or should I say almost exclusively) known for his masterpiece 1984, which I also liked. So I thought I'll give this one a try.

Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell, is the authors account of the Spanish Civil War, as a participant for the POUM forces - a Republican aligned militant group. Orwell writes about the tribulations of the war, the internal politicking, and the hardship of living on the front. He is also heavily critical of Communist forces in the war, and the internal divisions he believes they orchestrated to try and take greater executive control of the Republican government.

Orwell writes a truthful, blow by blow account from the ground. The fear of war, the boredom of guard duty, the discomfort of louse and bugs, the midnight raids, being shot at and attacked and so forth. He also ties in the history of the bigger picture politics, as he sees it, and goes through the civil strife within the Republican forces, and the competing factions within the movement. As Orwell learns, it is not always a workers paradise - politics, internal rivalries, and power often trump ideological situations. His account of the conflict communicates great disappointment with how the war was run; a lack of weapons and training on the front, difficulty coordinating competing factions in maneuvers, stockpiling of weapons behind the front, political strife, and a slow degradation of the Socialist, worker led movement as society returns to its hierarchical structure. This book brilliantly captures the spirit of the conflict, and gives a good account of why things failed for Republican Spain over time. Although the conflict started well for them, and they received a lot of support in Western Spain and Catalonia regions, they slowly lost ground due to incompetent management at the front, and internal politicking in the back. Orwell's frustration is clear throughout the text, and is interesting to read. His experiences during the war are also fascinating - he claims he barely did anything at all, and was mostly bored throughout the conflict, with brief interludes of heavy fighting and nerve racking guard duty.

All in all, a solid read and an obvious classic. This book does a wonderful job advocating the workers cause at the time, and clearly blames the communists for their over zealousness in the field. This book very accurately captures the Spanish Civil War, both as a personal and primary source, and as an examination of its greater themes and concepts. Certainly worthy of a read by anyone who is interested in history, Orwell, or looking for a good classic read.

درود بر کاتالونیا تشریح شخصی از تجارب و مشاهدات روزنامه نگار سیاسی و رمان نویس جورج اورول از جنگ داخلی اسپانیا است. چاپ اول در سال 1938 منتشر شد.

Habiendo leído 1984 y Rebelión en la Granja, siempre me había quedado con ganas de leer algo de Orwell que no fuera ficción, y he comenzado por este libro. Orwell (Eric Blair) vino desde Inglaterra a España a combatir el fascismo, y da testimonio de sus vivencias en 1936.

Comienza el libro relatando todo aquello que ve por las calles en una Barcelona donde reina la clase trabajadora y el anarquismo.

Un aspecto que me ha resultado curioso y divertido es la precisión con la que el autor describe el carácter español, tanto las cosas buenas (el ser amigables, generosos, el restarle importancia a las cosas) como las malas (el ser ineficientes, impuntuales, desorganizados). Parece que nada de eso ha cambiado en la actualidad.

A partir de aquí y hasta la primera mitad del libro, aproximadamente, se me hace un poco más tediosa la lectura. Habla de su experiencia en el frente de Huesca, y realmente pocas cosas interesantes suceden ahí.

En cambio, la segunda mitad del libro, especialmente hacia el final, me ha resultado lo más interesante de todo. Orwell relata cómo empiezan a cambiar las cosas, cómo se comienza a tornar todo lúgubre y se comienza a vivir en una atmósfera de tensión constane ante la inminente represión fascista:

“La larga pesadilla de la lucha, el estrépito, la falta de comida y de sueño, la mezcla de tensión y aburrimiento de las largas horas pasadas en la azotea, preguntándome si al minuto siguiente recibiría un balazo o me vería obligado a disparar contra alguien, me habían destrozado los nervios. Mi estado era tal que, cada vez que la puerta se cerraba con violencia, inmediatamente echaba mano de la pistola. El sábado por la mañana se oyó una serie de disparos y todo el mundo gritó: «¡Ya empieza otra vez!». Corrí a la calle y descubrí que unos guardias de asalto disparaban contra un perro rabioso. Nadie que haya vivido en Barcelona entonces o en los meses posteriores olvidará la agobiante atmósfera creada por el miedo, la sospecha, el odio, la censura periodística, las cárceles abarrotadas, las enormes colas para conseguir alimentos y las patrullas de hombres armados.”

Orwell relata cómo los profranquistas comienzan a encarcelar durante meses –y en muchos casos a fusilar–a miles de inocentes que ni siquiera tenían nada que ver en aquellos sucesos:

“Era inútil aferrarse a la idea inglesa de que uno está a salvo mientras cumpla la ley. En la práctica, la ley era la voluntad de la policía.”

Al final, y con muchísima suerte –había sobrevivido ya a un disparo de bala en el cuello–, Orwell consigue escapar de España junto a su esposa y se trasladaría a Francia. Y digo con muchísima suerte también porque en buena parte es gracias a la ineficiencia española que pudo salir victorioso de aquella. No daré más detalles para quienes quieran leerlo y no lo hayan hecho todavía.

Reading anything by Orwell is always worth and rewarding.
And "Homage to Catalonia" makes no exception.
As someone pointed out somewhere the way Orwell understood and described Spain surpasses by far what Hemingway wrote pretty much in the same years about the same country.

But while Hemingway spent his Spanish time in a sort of cosmopolitan way drinking, waking up late, watching bullfighting, munching tapas and generally having fun (Fiesta!), Orwell was freezing in trenches, picking up cigarettes butts in the mud, being assaulted by rats, dealing with faulty guns and being hunted down for no reason in a hostile Barcelona.

Now, nobody forced Orwell to have that kind of unpleasant experience and he later reckoned how he was pretty much a fool in volunteering among the socialist forces in the Spanish Civil War, but let's be frank: could you picture Ernest doing the same without asking for a bloody daiquiri?
The toll of that bell didn't really sound.

The less convincing part of this book is actually the first one when Orwell reports about his -rather modest- military actions with that sort of detailed step by step account that I don't really like although we knew he had a diary with him so that we expect how every tiny detail here is true.
But this doesn't happen very often and the most clever and interesting part of this book are the ones in which Orwell struggles with cold, lack of hygiene, disillusion and boredom. Something that another idealist like his countryman Lord Byron would have never mentioned.
Orwell's observations on the people who fought (or better waited) with him in the trenches are also very good in pointing out the absolute naivete of the whole combatants, mostly teenagers coming from peasant families which were hardly able to communicate with the foreigners fighting at their side and for the same cause.

And then come the hectic Barcelona days and the whole book stands up on a higher level.
What we have is now Orwell at his very best. And writing about real paranoids, not fictional ones, in a way that wallops master Kafka. What I can say is that I have not only read but felt the feverish state of Orwell and a whole town where good and evil, friends and enemies got suddenly all mixed up with no apparent logic.

This is a book to reread and to hold in a visible shelf.
This is a book that teaches you something in its own way and will always do.