Homage to Catalonia

[Ander]

Has anyone here read it? I have only read Animal Farm and 1984 but never any of Orwell's personal accounts. Is it a good read? Tell me a bit about it without spoling it.

[Cult of Reason]

It is a must-read. It explains all of Orwell's later major work.

[bolshevik butcher]

I think it's a fantastic work, and although it only goes into Orwells personal expirience it is a great explanation into events in the Spannish Civil War in general.

[Ander]

I read a few reviews on it online and it seems very interesting.

I found it online also, but I would rather buy my own copy.

[FinnMacCool]

This is my favorite Orwell book. It talks all about his experiences with the anarchist revolution in catalonia as well as his training with the POUM. There are a lot of funny moments and some interesting scenes (where Orwell finds himself unwilling to shoot someone whose pulling his pants on). Also his analyse of the tensions that were building between the anarchists and the communists is the best I've ever read. He also talks a lot about the abhorrent propaganda put out by communists against the CNT and the POUM.

Should be required reading for Marxist Leninists I think.

[Comrade-Z]

It is a must-read. It gives you a sense of everyday life during the Spanish Civil War, the political situation behind the war itself, and it is just a plain good read.

[Zero]

http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/0.html

There it is if you'd like to read it. Great book.

[Ander]

Yeah, I found that site already. I just don't think I'll be able to read it without getting distractd or being uncomfortable.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2006, 11:20 PM
This is my favorite Orwell book. It talks all about his experiences with the anarchist revolution in catalonia as well as his training with the POUM. There are a lot of funny moments and some interesting scenes (where Orwell finds himself unwilling to shoot someone whose pulling his pants on). Also his analyse of the tensions that were building between the anarchists and the communists is the best I've ever read. He also talks a lot about the abhorrent propaganda put out by communists against the CNT and the POUM.

Should be required reading for Marxist Leninists I think.
I think its worth remembering that the POUM were leninists as well.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Clenched Fist+May 25 2006, 11:18 PM--> (Clenched Fist @ May 25 2006, 11:18 PM)
[email protected] 24 2006, 11:20 PM
This is my favorite Orwell book. It talks all about his experiences with the anarchist revolution in catalonia as well as his training with the POUM. There are a lot of funny moments and some interesting scenes (where Orwell finds himself unwilling to shoot someone whose pulling his pants on). Also his analyse of the tensions that were building between the anarchists and the communists is the best I've ever read. He also talks a lot about the abhorrent propaganda put out by communists against the CNT and the POUM.

Should be required reading for Marxist Leninists I think.
I think its worth remembering that the POUM were leninists as well. [/b]
Not really.

The POUM broke with Trotsky.

[Cult of Reason]

I was under the impression that there was quite a divide between the leadership of the POUM and the rank and file, especially the militia members.

[bolshevik butcher]

Not really, the POUM maintained a trotskyist position in terms of the vanguard etc. The barracks the Orwell trained at was called Lenin barracks after all. The POUM rank and file was presenitng more of a leninist approach then the leadership, they were frustraited that the POUM and the CNT didn't take power when they had oppertunities to do so.

[Invader Zim]

If you don't want to read it, I suggest a shorter more consise work: -

'Looking back on the Spanish War', an essay penned in 1942. It is much shorter than Homage, but outlines Orwells basic views on the war and his fealings towards the soviets, fascists, etc.

I prefer it to Homage, because it gets straight to the point, while homage is more autobiographical.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 26 2006, 09:57 AM
Not really, the POUM maintained a trotskyist position in terms of the vanguard etc. The barracks the Orwell trained at was called Lenin barracks after all. The POUM rank and file was presenitng more of a leninist approach then the leadership, they were frustraited that the POUM and the CNT didn't take power when they had oppertunities to do so.
Perhaps.

However, I wouldn't call the POUM leninist in the traditional sense, because it didn't follow the traditional leninist paradigm. The POUM followed certain libertarian principles that would have made Lenin shake in disgust. Let us remember how the POUM was organized in a very decentralized fashion. Hell even the POUMist militias were democratic!

Just because the POUM followed certain trotskyist theoretical concepts (like the permanent revolution) that doesn't means the POUM operated in a similar way as the Bolshevik party did.

[Angry Young Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2006, 09:21 PM
Should be required reading for Marxist Leninists I think.
I read Orwell hated Leninists because he was chased out of Spain by them. I get the impression from reading Animal Farm he was a Trotskyist. Good lad! :P

[Ander]

Originally posted by chairmanmick+Jun 6 2006, 11:58 AM--> (chairmanmick @ Jun 6 2006, 11:58 AM)
[email protected] 24 2006, 09:21 PM
Should be required reading for Marxist Leninists I think.
I read Orwell hated Leninists because he was chased out of Spain by them. I get the impression from reading Animal Farm he was a Trotskyist. Good lad! :P [/b]
Orwell was not a Trotskyist, he disliked Communism and considered himself a Socialist.

[Ian]

This man is a piece of shit, snitching on communists to mi5 who had done nothing wrong and suddenly found their lives and careers ruined on your own behest disgusts me. No matter how many books he wrote 'in favour of democratic socialism'

[Nachie]

My great great grandfather fought in the CNT and when I was 15, I picked it up as a way of learning what that was all about. It pretty much was what got me into communism. Homage to Catalonia is not only an amazing book, but the name of a pretty-inspired anarchist acoustic act, as well.

[Comrade-Z]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2006, 03:13 PM
This man is a piece of shit, snitching on communists to mi5 who had done nothing wrong and suddenly found their lives and careers ruined on your own behest disgusts me. No matter how many books he wrote 'in favour of democratic socialism'
Well, when your friends are thrown in jail and killed by communists and when you are made to be on the run from a communist government simply for being dissident (one of many things that Orwell details in Homage to Catalonia), some hostility to communists, especially of the Stalinist variety, is to be expected.

One can make the argument that later in life Orwell became more reactionary. But Homage to Catalonia is definitely a revolutionary communist work.

[Angry Young Man]

I only thought he was a Trot because of the sympathetic way in which he treats Snowball and because of his debating skills as opposed to Napoleon's crudeness (pissing on the plans for the windmill) and brainwashing the puppies.

[FinnMacCool]

Let me clear something up:

He did NOT snitch on communists. Its true he had a great dislike for them but he merely gave a list of writers who couldn't be asked to write propaganda for the British (that is anti stalinist propaganda). You have to remember that pretty much every communist and socialist at that tim supported the Soviet Union. Orwell was one of the few who didn't.

One of the things I like about Orwell was that he defended anarchist civil liberties, at a time when everyone thought they deserved none.

[Comrade-Z]

Originally posted by lovechild of Kahlo and [email protected] 6 2006, 06:35 PM
I only thought he was a Trot because of the sympathetic way in which he treats Snowball and because of his debating skills as opposed to Napoleon's crudeness (pissing on the plans for the windmill) and brainwashing the puppies.
I would say he was, perhaps, a bit more sympathetic to Trotsky than to Stalin. After all, Orwell fought with the POUM while in Spain, which wasn't really a Trotskyist group, technically speaking (the group did support some of Trotsky's positions such as "world revolution," but opposed Trotsky on others.) But I don't think you could say Orwell was a "Trotskyist." Especially later in life when he became disillusioned with the whole notion of revolution and adhered to a schtick of advancing "democratic socialism" through electoral and bourgeois legal means. (A rather pathetic turn, if you ask me).

[Johnny Anarcho]

I've only read Animal Farm and 1984. Animal Farm is excellent if you know the history behind it, 1984 is pure genius and the best book I've read. You can make connections between 1984 and the modern political spectrum with a bit of study.

[YSR]

Same with Nachie for me. Homage was what lead me down the road into anarchism.

It's the most honest book of his that I've read. Although 1984 is terrifying and amazing, Homage really puts you there.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2006, 04:42 PM
However, I wouldn't call the POUM leninist in the traditional sense, because it didn't follow the traditional leninist paradigm. The POUM followed certain libertarian principles that would have made Lenin shake in disgust.
You're right that the POUM wasn't Leninist...though it claimed to be. But that's not why.

The POUM wasn't Leninist, because it joined a coalition government led by capitalist parties! (The Catalan regional government.) That's much closer to the tradition of Menshevism.

That's what the break with Trotsky was about too. One of the POUM's leaders once tried to dedicate a book to Trotsky, "my teacher." Trotsky responded: "I never taught anybody to betray the working class."

And for the same reason, the Spanish "Communists" were even farther from Leninism! They joined the Spanish Socialist Party, and were it's right wing. The wing most hostile to proletarian revolution, the most committed to maintaining the bourgeois order.

As an anarchist leader of the time, Camilo Berneri, said of the Spanish "Communist" policy: "It smells of Noske." Not of Lenin. (Noske was a post-WWI German Social Democratic minister; he organized the suppression of workers' revolts and the murder of German Communists including Luxemburg and Liebknecht.)

And as Orwell points out in his book: Whichever side won the Civil War, it was likely to result in a dictatorship, so it might as well be "a dictatorship of the working man." And only by making a workers' revolution could the war against Franco be won.

That was the real issue in Spain: workers' power vs bourgeois power, not anarchism vs "vanguardism" or even "authoritarianism". (How exactly were the Stalinists supposed to be a "vanguard party" - inside the Spanish Socialist Party, anyway?)

Orwell's book keeps that issue in crystal clear focus, and that's why it's very much worth reading.

I also recommend Felix Morrow's and Trotsky's stuff about Spain.

[Angry Young Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 08:26 PM
I also recommend Felix Morrow's and Trotsky's stuff about Spain.
What are Trotsky's writings on Spain? I didn't know there were any! :huh:
Kinda betrays my name, huh!
AND I actually say I'm a Trot!!!! I have the "R.B".

[bolshevik butcher]

I'm not sure about Trotsky's actual writings although there are some, I would highly reccomend Ted Grants (tortksyist) a marxist analysis of the Spannish revoluthttp://www.marxist.com/History/Spanishrev.htmlhion and all trtoskys writing can be found on www.marxist.org

[Severian]

Originally posted by lovechild of Kahlo and Trotsky+Jun 9 2006, 03:22 PM--> (lovechild of Kahlo and Trotsky @ Jun 9 2006, 03:22 PM)
[email protected] 9 2006, 08:26 PM
I also recommend Felix Morrow's and Trotsky's stuff about Spain.
What are Trotsky's writings on Spain? I didn't know there were any! :huh: [/b]
You can read them online here (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?act=Post&CODE=06&f=11&t=50462&p=1292084820)

Trotsky on Spain (a collection) on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0873482735/sr=1-51/qid=1150668444/ref=sr_1_51/002-7386246-7853616?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books)

[black magick hustla]

too bad trotsky didnt knew what was he talking about

[Severian]

Do you have anything substantive to say about the issues discussed in this thread? Say, about my post on page 1?

Or are you just spamming and/or trolling?

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 10:40 PM
Do you have anything substantive to say about the issues discussed in this thread? Say, about my post on page 1?

Or are you just spamming and/or trolling?
i am just spamming :P

Actually, what do you want me to tell you? Argue about petty partisan events inside the POUM that I do not care much about?

I do not know much about the history of the POUM. I do know though that the POUM joined a the "workers' and peasants bloc" and this resulted in the schizm betweem the POUM and Trotsky.

I do not know what was the political aligment of that bloc, so I will give you the benefit of doubt.

However, I DO know that the POUM did help creating alot of collectives and was for workers' democracy. This is much more important than the petty partisan politics trotsky was whining about.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 05:01 PM
i am just spamming :P

Actually, what do you want me to tell you? Argue about petty partisan events inside the POUM that I do not care much about?
If you don't know anything, why not shut up and listen?

And the question of workers power vs supporting the bourgeois government is not "petty." You could express a reasoned opinion of it....if you're capable of expressing a reasoned opinion.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Severian+Jun 19 2006, 01:40 AM--> (Severian @ Jun 19 2006, 01:40 AM)
[email protected] 18 2006, 05:01 PM
i am just spamming :P

Actually, what do you want me to tell you? Argue about petty partisan events inside the POUM that I do not care much about?
If you don't know anything, why not shut up and listen?

And the question of workers power vs supporting the bourgeois government is not "petty." You could express a reasoned opinion of it....if you're capable of expressing a reasoned opinion. [/b]

indeed, it is petty for me. i care for practical action, not for a stain in the history of a party--stain that actually turned unimportant when compared to the actions of the POUM in the spanish revolution. After all the POUM did prove itself revolutionary, anticapitalist, and libertarian.

however i would understand your discontent. after all, you trotskyists are always slinging shit to each other because of partisian nonsense, considering trotskyist parties are famous for experiencing numerous schizms. sorry if i could care less for the official "political label" the workers' and peasants' bloc had before the spanish civil war.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 08:19 PM
indeed, it is petty for me. i care for practical action, not for a stain in the history of a party--stain that actually turned unimportant when compared to the actions of the POUM in the spanish revolution.
Supporting a capitalist government isn't a "practical action" in the "course of the Spanish revolution"?

"After all the POUM did prove itself revolutionary, anticapitalist, and libertarian. "

No, it "proved" to support a capitalist government. It joined the cabinet of the Catalan regional government. "in the course of the Spanish revolution". Rather than working to replace that government with a workers' government.

Just because you don't know anything about it, doesn't mean it didn't happen!

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 02:31 AM


No, it "proved" to support a capitalist government. It joined the cabinet of the Catalan regional government. "in the course of the Spanish revolution". Rather than working to replace that government with a workers' government.


the POUM joined the Popular Front at the eve of the elections, and then they renounced to it later.

Some time later the Popular Front completely obliterated them.

[Severian]

Which hardly proves their actions correct.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 02:47 AM
Which hardly proves their actions correct.
They renounced the Popular front immediately after the elections.

[Comrade-Z]

Has anyone else noticed that Orwell uses the term "State capitalism" in Homage to Catalonia? Would this be the first use of the term ever, or had there been people and groups already existing that had formulated the theory of State capitalism yet? Or was Orwell simply talking about State capitalism in the sense that Lenin talked about copying the State capitalism of the Germans? Although Orwell was referring to a Communist Spain being State capitalist, so....

[Severian]

Orwell might well be talking about it in the sense of Marx's comments about Bismarck (which probably didn't include that term, but so what?)

In any case, almost certainly not a theoretical innovation by Orwell; his theory, to the extent he had one, was standard left social-democracy. Orwell's strong points were his honesty, his moral courage, his ability as an observer, his instinct for siding with workers and all the oppressed.

Not his theory. Heck, in 1984, he's basically cribbing Burnham, who was cribbing Bruno R.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Comrade-Z
Would this be the first use of the term ever, or had there been people and groups already existing that had formulated the theory of State capitalism yet?

I've seen Pannekoek use it in the early thirties....and I'm pretty sure that the term itself comes from about 1925. Essentially, before Lenin popped his clogs a lot of people, in the name of "comradely criticism", used to just say stuff like "capitalist features"....though that "comradely criticism" was rarely received in a comradely manner.

So, in terms of the modern definition of the term, it dates from the mid-twenties. However, you could probably find earlier stuff which reflects this....for instance, a Polish fella' from the 19th century theorised along similar lines.

Also, quite a few people described fascism as State Capitalist in nature....and that would, of course, pre-date Orwell's usage of the term.