apathy maybe
19th October 2003, 22:28
The book can be downloaded here (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201111.zip) by some people (its still in copyright in the US and other places). Here (http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty.html) is a list of other authors.
Homage to Catalonia (by George Orwell) - Book review by apathy maybe
This book is based on Eric Blair's experience in the Spanish Civil War. Blair went to Spain ostensibly as a journalist but in reality it was 'to fight fascism'. The book gives an unbiased and complete description of life in the trenches. It also gives an account of Catalonia, particularly Barcelona, during the struggle for power that was happening between the forces of the government.
When Blair left England and headed for Spain he travelled with Independent Labour Party (ILP) credentials rather then Communist Party ones. So when he got to Spain, rather then joining the International Brigade (volunteers from a number of countries organised by the Comintern), he ended up in Catalonia where Anarchists (C.N.T.) were in control. He joined a militia that has been organised by the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (P.O.U.M) the sister party to the ILP. There were also a few other foreigners in Barcelona but nothing like the number in Madrid.
The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle.
He is quite enthusiastic about the Spanish specifically the Catalans, he didn't meet too many other Spanish. He felt that they were a generous and kind people unlike other peoples.
I would sooner be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries. How easy it is to make friends in Spain ... I defy anyone to be thrown as I was among the ... Catalan working class, ... and not be struck by their essential decency; above all, their straightforwardness and generosity. A Spaniard's generosity ... is at times almost embarrassing.
Another example of his enthusiasm for the Spanish people comes later in the book when he is leaving Spain chased by the police for being a member of the P.O.U.M. militia.
I have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards. I only twice remember even being seriously angry with a Spaniard, and on each occasion, when I look back, I believe I was in the wrong myself.
One of the major aspects of the Spanish Civil War was that of the fighting between the Republican forces. And it probably proved the downfall of the Republic. At first Blair didn't understand the political situation, but he soon found out what it was and how it affected him. In fact he was forced to leave Spain when the P.S.U.C. (the Communist Party) gained power and cracked down on the other parties. When the fighting broke out in Barcelona he knew which side he was on and why.
When I came to Spain, and for some time afterwards, I was not only uninterested in the political situation but unaware of it. ... The revolutionary atmosphere of Barcelona had attracted me deeply, but I had made no attempt to understand it. As for the kaleidoscope of political parties and trade unions, with their tiresome names-- P.S.U.C., P.O.U.M., F.A.I., C.N.T., U.G.T., J.C.I., J.S.U., A.I.T.--they merely exasperated me. ... I knew that I was serving in something called the P.O.U.M. ... but I did not realize that there were serious differences between the political parties. At Monte Pocero, when they pointed to the position on our left and said: 'Those are the Socialists' (meaning the P.S.U.C.), I was puzzled and said: 'Aren't we all Socialists?'
The Catalonians seemed to be more revolutionary then other parts of Spain, according to Blair. He describes how after weapons had been distributed to the workers in the first few days of the war, they proceeded to collectivise industry and land, to take control of the government and other 'revolutionary' activates.
Of course the process was not uniform, and it went further in Catalonia than elsewhere. ... In Catalonia, for the first few months, most of the actual power was in the hands of the Anarcho-syndicalists, who controlled most of the key industries. The thing that had happened in Spain was, in fact, not merely a civil war, but the beginning of a revolution.
But this was only the beginning of a revolution; Franco had to be dealt with first. And while the Nationalists were still fighting the Anarchists could hardly destroy all hierarchy in government and military. Arms and other goods had to be distributed and there needed to be a unified fighting strategy and anyway the C.N.T. (Anarchists) where in the Government.
But, after all, it was only the beginning of a revolution, not the complete thing. Even when the workers, certainly in Catalonia and possibly elsewhere, had the power to do so, they did not overthrow or completely replace the Government. Obviously they could not do so when Franco was hammering at the gate and sections of the middle class were on their side. ... At the beginning both the Central Government and the Generalite de Cataluna (the semi-autonomous Catalan Government) could definitely be said to represent the working class. ... But every subsequent reshuffling of the Government was a move towards the Right. [F]inally, a year after the outbreak of war and revolution, there remained a Government composed entirely of Right-wing Socialists, Liberals, and Communists.
Because the Soviet Union was the major supplier of weapons to the Government, they effectively got to dictate terms to them. For this reason the P.S.U.C. soon had control of the Government. The fact that the Soviet Union was suppling the weapons also meant that few of them reached the far left parties (the C.N.T. and the P.O.U.M.). Effectively the P.U.S.C. received the weapons and they made sure that as few as possible reached their political enemies.
The general swing to the Right dates from about October-November 1936, when the U.S.S.R. began to supply arms to the Government and power began to pass from the Anarchists to the Communists. Except Russia and Mexico no country had had the decency to come to the rescue of the Government, and Mexico, for obvious reasons, could not supply arms in large quantities. Consequently the Russians were in a position to dictate terms. There is very little doubt that these terms were, in substance, 'Prevent revolution or you get no weapons', and that the first move against the revolutionary elements, the expulsion of the P.O.U.M. from the Catalan Generalite, was done under orders from the U.S.S.R.
Fighting broke out between the various forces in Barcelona in May 1937, after the Telephone Exchange was stormed by Government forces. It was only one of a number of steps taken to remove power from the hands of the Anarchists. Blair automatically was on the side of the workers against the people whom he thought of as their natural enemy, the police.
It appeared that he had been in the Plaza de Cataluna when several lorry-loads of armed Civil Guards [gendarmerie - police] had driven up to the Telephone Exchange, which was operated mainly by C.N.T. workers, and made a sudden assault upon it. Then some Anarchists had arrived and there had been a general affray. I gathered that the 'trouble' earlier in the day had been a demand by the Government to hand over the Telephone Exchange, which, of course, was refused..
This fighting led to the taking over of Barcelona by the Government, nobody wanted to fight for it meant resources not being spent against the Nationalists, but the C.N.T. didn't want to give up the gains it had made in 1936 either.
[N]o one wanted this to develop into a full-sized civil war which might mean losing the war against Franco. I heard this fear expressed on all sides. So far as one could gather from what people were saying at the time the C.N.T. rank and file wanted, and had wanted from the beginning, only two things: the handing back of the Telephone Exchange and the disarming of the hated Civil Guards. ... It was said that the Valencia [the government had left Madrid and moved to Valencia early in the war] Government was sending six thousand men to occupy Barcelona, and that five thousand Anarchist and P.O.U.M. troops had left the Aragon front to oppose them. Only the first of these rumours was true.
...
Over the Telephone Exchange the Anarchist flag had been hauled down and only the Catalan flag was flying. That meant that the workers were definitely beaten.
These troops soon took over the city and the final stages of destroying all the far left parties began. First the various gains made by the workers (collectivization, self government, etc) were eroded and then the parties of the workers were crushed.
The Barcelona fighting had given the Valencia Government the long--wanted excuse to assume fuller control of Catalonia. The workers' militias were to be broken' up and redistributed among the Popular Army. The Spanish Republican flag was flying all over Barcelona--the first time I had seen it, I think, except over a Fascist trench. ... The P.S.U.C. papers were un-censored and were publishing inflammatory articles demanding the suppression of the P.O.U.M. ... Evidently the official version of the Barcelona fighting was already fixed upon: it was to be represented as a 'fifth column' Fascist rising engineered solely by the P.O.U.M.
[I was told] that according to information he had just received the Government was about to outlaw the P.O.U.M. and declare a state of war upon it. The news gave me a shock. It was the first glimpse I had had of the interpretation that was likely to be put upon this affair later on. I dimly foresaw that when the fighting ended the entire blame would be laid upon the P.O.U.M., which was the weakest party and therefore the most suitable scapegoat. And meanwhile our local neutrality was at an end. If the Government declared war upon us we had no choice but to defend ourselves.
The P.O.U.M. was outlawed and Blair was forced to flee Spain.
In the end we crossed the frontier without incident. The train had a first class and a dining-car, the first I had seen in Spain. Until recently there had been only one class on the trains in Catalonia. ... At the passport office they looked us up in the card--index of suspects, but thanks to the inefficiency of the police our names were not listed, not even McNair's. We were searched from head to foot, but we possessed nothing incriminating, except my discharge--papers, and the carabineros who searched me did not know that the 29th Division was the P.O.U.M. So we slipped through the barrier, and after just six months I was on French soil again. My only souvenirs of Spain were a goatskin water-bottle and one of those tiny iron lamps in which the Aragon peasants burn olive oil.
In Homage to Catalonia Blair explains the complexities of the internal and international politics involved in the Spanish Civil War. Both sides of the war, the Popular Front and army of Franco, were hardly unified. Each side contained several smaller groups, each with their own ideologies and aims. The one that ultimately gained control, perhaps at the expense of the Republic losing the Civil War, was the Communist Party backed by the Soviet Union. Perhaps Orwell summed up the divisions of the Popular Front when he lamented, before he realized what each party stood for, "why can't we drop all of this political nonsense and get on with the war?" It is a very good book to read for an alternative history of the Spanish Civil War. And I recommend it for anyone interested in politics or just looking for another view of the events leading up to the Second World War. It does however, include more then what I have mentioned. It gives, as I said at the beginning a insight into trench warfare and warfare in general.
Homage to Catalonia (by George Orwell) - Book review by apathy maybe
This book is based on Eric Blair's experience in the Spanish Civil War. Blair went to Spain ostensibly as a journalist but in reality it was 'to fight fascism'. The book gives an unbiased and complete description of life in the trenches. It also gives an account of Catalonia, particularly Barcelona, during the struggle for power that was happening between the forces of the government.
When Blair left England and headed for Spain he travelled with Independent Labour Party (ILP) credentials rather then Communist Party ones. So when he got to Spain, rather then joining the International Brigade (volunteers from a number of countries organised by the Comintern), he ended up in Catalonia where Anarchists (C.N.T.) were in control. He joined a militia that has been organised by the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (P.O.U.M) the sister party to the ILP. There were also a few other foreigners in Barcelona but nothing like the number in Madrid.
The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle.
He is quite enthusiastic about the Spanish specifically the Catalans, he didn't meet too many other Spanish. He felt that they were a generous and kind people unlike other peoples.
I would sooner be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries. How easy it is to make friends in Spain ... I defy anyone to be thrown as I was among the ... Catalan working class, ... and not be struck by their essential decency; above all, their straightforwardness and generosity. A Spaniard's generosity ... is at times almost embarrassing.
Another example of his enthusiasm for the Spanish people comes later in the book when he is leaving Spain chased by the police for being a member of the P.O.U.M. militia.
I have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards. I only twice remember even being seriously angry with a Spaniard, and on each occasion, when I look back, I believe I was in the wrong myself.
One of the major aspects of the Spanish Civil War was that of the fighting between the Republican forces. And it probably proved the downfall of the Republic. At first Blair didn't understand the political situation, but he soon found out what it was and how it affected him. In fact he was forced to leave Spain when the P.S.U.C. (the Communist Party) gained power and cracked down on the other parties. When the fighting broke out in Barcelona he knew which side he was on and why.
When I came to Spain, and for some time afterwards, I was not only uninterested in the political situation but unaware of it. ... The revolutionary atmosphere of Barcelona had attracted me deeply, but I had made no attempt to understand it. As for the kaleidoscope of political parties and trade unions, with their tiresome names-- P.S.U.C., P.O.U.M., F.A.I., C.N.T., U.G.T., J.C.I., J.S.U., A.I.T.--they merely exasperated me. ... I knew that I was serving in something called the P.O.U.M. ... but I did not realize that there were serious differences between the political parties. At Monte Pocero, when they pointed to the position on our left and said: 'Those are the Socialists' (meaning the P.S.U.C.), I was puzzled and said: 'Aren't we all Socialists?'
The Catalonians seemed to be more revolutionary then other parts of Spain, according to Blair. He describes how after weapons had been distributed to the workers in the first few days of the war, they proceeded to collectivise industry and land, to take control of the government and other 'revolutionary' activates.
Of course the process was not uniform, and it went further in Catalonia than elsewhere. ... In Catalonia, for the first few months, most of the actual power was in the hands of the Anarcho-syndicalists, who controlled most of the key industries. The thing that had happened in Spain was, in fact, not merely a civil war, but the beginning of a revolution.
But this was only the beginning of a revolution; Franco had to be dealt with first. And while the Nationalists were still fighting the Anarchists could hardly destroy all hierarchy in government and military. Arms and other goods had to be distributed and there needed to be a unified fighting strategy and anyway the C.N.T. (Anarchists) where in the Government.
But, after all, it was only the beginning of a revolution, not the complete thing. Even when the workers, certainly in Catalonia and possibly elsewhere, had the power to do so, they did not overthrow or completely replace the Government. Obviously they could not do so when Franco was hammering at the gate and sections of the middle class were on their side. ... At the beginning both the Central Government and the Generalite de Cataluna (the semi-autonomous Catalan Government) could definitely be said to represent the working class. ... But every subsequent reshuffling of the Government was a move towards the Right. [F]inally, a year after the outbreak of war and revolution, there remained a Government composed entirely of Right-wing Socialists, Liberals, and Communists.
Because the Soviet Union was the major supplier of weapons to the Government, they effectively got to dictate terms to them. For this reason the P.S.U.C. soon had control of the Government. The fact that the Soviet Union was suppling the weapons also meant that few of them reached the far left parties (the C.N.T. and the P.O.U.M.). Effectively the P.U.S.C. received the weapons and they made sure that as few as possible reached their political enemies.
The general swing to the Right dates from about October-November 1936, when the U.S.S.R. began to supply arms to the Government and power began to pass from the Anarchists to the Communists. Except Russia and Mexico no country had had the decency to come to the rescue of the Government, and Mexico, for obvious reasons, could not supply arms in large quantities. Consequently the Russians were in a position to dictate terms. There is very little doubt that these terms were, in substance, 'Prevent revolution or you get no weapons', and that the first move against the revolutionary elements, the expulsion of the P.O.U.M. from the Catalan Generalite, was done under orders from the U.S.S.R.
Fighting broke out between the various forces in Barcelona in May 1937, after the Telephone Exchange was stormed by Government forces. It was only one of a number of steps taken to remove power from the hands of the Anarchists. Blair automatically was on the side of the workers against the people whom he thought of as their natural enemy, the police.
It appeared that he had been in the Plaza de Cataluna when several lorry-loads of armed Civil Guards [gendarmerie - police] had driven up to the Telephone Exchange, which was operated mainly by C.N.T. workers, and made a sudden assault upon it. Then some Anarchists had arrived and there had been a general affray. I gathered that the 'trouble' earlier in the day had been a demand by the Government to hand over the Telephone Exchange, which, of course, was refused..
This fighting led to the taking over of Barcelona by the Government, nobody wanted to fight for it meant resources not being spent against the Nationalists, but the C.N.T. didn't want to give up the gains it had made in 1936 either.
[N]o one wanted this to develop into a full-sized civil war which might mean losing the war against Franco. I heard this fear expressed on all sides. So far as one could gather from what people were saying at the time the C.N.T. rank and file wanted, and had wanted from the beginning, only two things: the handing back of the Telephone Exchange and the disarming of the hated Civil Guards. ... It was said that the Valencia [the government had left Madrid and moved to Valencia early in the war] Government was sending six thousand men to occupy Barcelona, and that five thousand Anarchist and P.O.U.M. troops had left the Aragon front to oppose them. Only the first of these rumours was true.
...
Over the Telephone Exchange the Anarchist flag had been hauled down and only the Catalan flag was flying. That meant that the workers were definitely beaten.
These troops soon took over the city and the final stages of destroying all the far left parties began. First the various gains made by the workers (collectivization, self government, etc) were eroded and then the parties of the workers were crushed.
The Barcelona fighting had given the Valencia Government the long--wanted excuse to assume fuller control of Catalonia. The workers' militias were to be broken' up and redistributed among the Popular Army. The Spanish Republican flag was flying all over Barcelona--the first time I had seen it, I think, except over a Fascist trench. ... The P.S.U.C. papers were un-censored and were publishing inflammatory articles demanding the suppression of the P.O.U.M. ... Evidently the official version of the Barcelona fighting was already fixed upon: it was to be represented as a 'fifth column' Fascist rising engineered solely by the P.O.U.M.
[I was told] that according to information he had just received the Government was about to outlaw the P.O.U.M. and declare a state of war upon it. The news gave me a shock. It was the first glimpse I had had of the interpretation that was likely to be put upon this affair later on. I dimly foresaw that when the fighting ended the entire blame would be laid upon the P.O.U.M., which was the weakest party and therefore the most suitable scapegoat. And meanwhile our local neutrality was at an end. If the Government declared war upon us we had no choice but to defend ourselves.
The P.O.U.M. was outlawed and Blair was forced to flee Spain.
In the end we crossed the frontier without incident. The train had a first class and a dining-car, the first I had seen in Spain. Until recently there had been only one class on the trains in Catalonia. ... At the passport office they looked us up in the card--index of suspects, but thanks to the inefficiency of the police our names were not listed, not even McNair's. We were searched from head to foot, but we possessed nothing incriminating, except my discharge--papers, and the carabineros who searched me did not know that the 29th Division was the P.O.U.M. So we slipped through the barrier, and after just six months I was on French soil again. My only souvenirs of Spain were a goatskin water-bottle and one of those tiny iron lamps in which the Aragon peasants burn olive oil.
In Homage to Catalonia Blair explains the complexities of the internal and international politics involved in the Spanish Civil War. Both sides of the war, the Popular Front and army of Franco, were hardly unified. Each side contained several smaller groups, each with their own ideologies and aims. The one that ultimately gained control, perhaps at the expense of the Republic losing the Civil War, was the Communist Party backed by the Soviet Union. Perhaps Orwell summed up the divisions of the Popular Front when he lamented, before he realized what each party stood for, "why can't we drop all of this political nonsense and get on with the war?" It is a very good book to read for an alternative history of the Spanish Civil War. And I recommend it for anyone interested in politics or just looking for another view of the events leading up to the Second World War. It does however, include more then what I have mentioned. It gives, as I said at the beginning a insight into trench warfare and warfare in general.