On Orwell in Spain

George Orwell’s writings on Spain and the civil war of 1936-39 are a remarkable, if underdiscussed resource to understand both the war and the writer himself. I was not privy to the degree of Orwell’s leftist political viewpoint, identifying deeply with workers against “bourgeois capitalism.”  Still, there is the disillusionment that follows, not of all leftist politics itself, but of the belief in international cooperation towards progress and even in the concept of truth. 

Clearly there is much that Orwell learned being in tangential contact with authoritarian systems that he would bring to his subsequent writings on totalitarianism. All the chaos of the May Days, where the legitimate republican government crushed the anarchist-led vanguard of the revolution in which Orwell had served, seemingly at the behest of the Soviet authorities, makes for a kaleidoscopic experience for the writer and reader alike. And what was the British government thinking?

Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is a fine piece of writing on its own. His prose is tinged with humor and cynicism, but still contains that vital human element that any good war narrative must. The story is narrow in scope by necessity of the author’s experience, and yet much can be learned of the conflict that shaped Spanish history in the 20th century. The only complaint to be had is that it is quite brief.