During writing about Keep the Aspidistra Flying I explained that in 1935 Eric Blair had met Eileen O’Shaughnessy from South Shields and swept her of her feet after meeting at party held by the lady who rented him a room at her home. No sooner had they met and she agreed to marry him did he accept a commission from Victor Gollancz to travel to Yorkshire and Lancashire to gain first hand knowledge of the conditions of the manual working classes, and what happened to them when there was no work. On his return in the summer of 1936 an aunt made available a cottage at Wallington in Hertfordshire about 35 miles from central London (not my Wallington or Wallington Hall in Northumberland) for the inexpensive rent of £2 month. The cottage is described as tiny and adjacent to the closed village store which after his marriage to Eileen and their return from Spain and Morocco she opened and ran to supplement his income as a writer. However much was to happen to both of them fundamentally change Orwell’s views although I have no information on the impact on his wife.
Eric Blair then went to Spain although getting there proved a challenge in order to report on the Civil War but he quickly became involved in the fighting at the front which may have been his intention all along. Why did he do this? His wife came out to Barcelona and staying while her husband was at the front being entertained by George Kopp the man who was in charge and who became his friend. Eric appears to have believed that she had a sex based affair with Kopp who was subsequently imprisoned and accused of being a Fascist plant by the Stalin directed Spanish Communist party who turned on the popular front POUM. Blair who was shot in the throat and lucky to be alive escaped with and his wife and subsequently went to French speaking Morocco.
I have listened to the two part dramatization of Orwell’s account of his experiences in Spain as part of the BBC The Real George Orwell series and am now reading the book, Homage to Catalonia, again as well as having heard a BBC book club question and session on the book and listened to the BBC dramatization of their visit to Morocco and the meeting with George Kopp although I am not sure if this actually took place. Nearly twenty years ago I saw the Len Loach film Land and Freedom about the Spanish Civil War and I may have the video recording somewhere. The film drew on Orwell’s book which was seen at the picture house in Richmond on Thames during a short visit to the Wallington to stay with my birth and care mothers.
I have been interested in the Spanish Civil war for the greater part of my life because the Aunties were living in Gibraltar throughout the that time with my birth mother coming to England in 1938 and four of her sisters coming to the UK in 1939 to live in Wallington at her home of another sister, her husband and at the time their four children. Another sister briefly remained in Gibraltar marrying a young professional soldier who became an officer with the war and later moved to married quarters at Catterick camp in north Yorkshire, where I was to be evacuated during the worst of the VI and V2 rocket attacks with more falling around Croydon airport where we lived than anywhere else in the UK.
The youngest of my aunts, Ethel, was engaged to someone who was studying to be a doctor at the University of Madrid but who disappeared during the war with no trace of what happened to him. Later when I became more politically aware the War Interested me because for a brief period a genuine workers cooperative state began to emerge especially in Barcelona until on the orders of Stalin the Communists took control and who in turn were then crushed by the forces of General Franco, imposing his military dictatorship for several decades with the full support of the Catholic church. My maternal great grandmother was Spanish and although born in Gibraltar my maternal grandmother was from a Spanish and Italian background family. Having declared such an interest I was surprised to find that I do not have one book on the civil war and various factions that were involved although I do have, The Return to Civil Society the Victor Pérez-Diaz book, Harvard University press and John Hoopers The New Spaniards which looks at all aspects of Spanish life after the end of the Franco regime, in addition to the 1950‘s Morton’s Travel book on his journey to Spain A stranger in Spain undertaken during the post war Franco era and which was my second stream form prize in my last year at the John Fisher School..
The BBC discussed the Civil War in the Melvin Bragg series In Out Time first broadcast in 2003 and a still available for another year in which Paul Preston, Principe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish History at the London School of Economics, Helen Graham Professor of Spanish History at Royal Holloway, University of London, Dr Mary Vincent, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at Sheffield University.
The abolition of the Monarchy was less a factor in causing the war than the attempts to remove the power of the Catholic Church and the status and control the army as well as those who wanted to introduce a British kind of Welfare State. The Right embodying traditional vested interests attempted to regain power democratically between 1931 and 1936 and it was the failure to do so in the 1936 elections which led to the successful Military coup by General Franco with the help of Hitler and Mussolini, the subsequent intervention of Russia and the horrendous failure of the British government to tell Russian and Italy not to intervene with the exception Churchill who recognised that by not doing so Britain was weakened, as was France, and where according to Preston Goering told Hitler that Franco had three week to triumph before any British intervention would mean it was wise for them to withdraw support.
,
It was Hitler who facilitated the coup by providing air transport for Franco’s North African Army to cross the Straits of Gibraltar and who then provided arms notably planes which led to Guernica (the Picasso picture which dominated the room in which I work) and control of the airspace. For Mussolini it was another Mediterranean/African adventure and he provided on the ground military support. Once they controlled the south Franco’s supporters in the military commenced to raid villages and eliminate those on the left in the most brutal and dramatic of fashion while in the north the Falange (Fascist) party supporters did likewise and there was much revenge and settling of local scores.
It was suggested by Preston that had the UK insisted on a general neutrality the second World war might not have occurred, although whether this would have still meant Hitler exterminated the Jewish people and other groups he opposed within German territorial borders is a separate issue. However non intervention may not have prevented the establishment of Franco’s Dictatorship given the quantity of groups on the left within Spain. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight the amazing aspects was that the disorganised and fragmented Popular Front managed to stop Franco’s for three years although the cost was great. However the great majority of lives were lost not on the battlefield but through summary executions, assassinations and extermination of prisoners after periods of torture and imprisonment. The role of the catholic church in denouncing those on the left is inexcusable despite the murdering of priests and nuns by those on the left, giving the teachings the Catholic are supposed to endorse.
It is general agreed that the media world wide reported the war according to the positions being taken by editors and governments, with Orwell account first written for the new Statesmen rejected because it was considered inappropriate for the time and one has to remember that for the greater part of World War II Russia was an ally of the UK and the USA. In the BBC programme the Road to 1984, it was pointed out that when Hitler and Russia signed their pact at the beginning of the War, the Communist party Line in the UK was to be against the War, calling it Imperialist and capitalist, but as soon as Russia changed sides, there was national official support with a famous Wilfred Pickles programme at a factory providing supplies to Russia which commenced with the playing of the Internationale. This is why Orwell’s book has become one of the few reliable contemporary accounts of what went on and it is only now that the new generation in Spain is facing up to what happened and seeking to find out the truth, including digging up the mass graves to work out the number of murdered souls even if individual identities will remain a mystery through the destruction of church and civil records at that time.
Even after reading some of the summaries of information about the Civil War I have made little progress adding to previous impressionism about what happened between 1936 and 1939 when Franco formally took charge of the country and the persecution of anyone associated with the previously democratically elected government, left wing movement and fighting for the Republication cause commenced.
It has to remembered that the Republic did run the military, the navy and airforce and that Franco rebelled with his African based forces but was then joined by many officers with others remaining with the Republican forces. The involvement of forces from other countries and volunteers added to the complications as well as factional groups often related to particular areas and one has only to look at recent history with the quick development of a united front militia and its success against Gaddafi and his Libyan regime supported by a consortium of other countries in various ways compared to fragmented opposition against a well equipped and disciplined force of the Syrian president and where other countries remain hesitant about intervention because the outcome is so uncertain
Communist parties in other countries were encouraged o recruit volunteers to fight on the Republican side in late 1936 with the main centre located in Paris. The man who became Marshal Tito organised passports, money and travel for those from eastern Europe who went via train or ship from France although many also went by themselves. The first 500 mainly French arrived in October 1936. The French Communist party also provided uniforms and the volunteers were trained and equipped and formal discipline was established although there was no form of contract which meant individuals were free to come and to go. Less than ten percent of the 40000 republican forces which took Madrid were internationals. Also fighting were the Anarchist Militia who in one attack were faced by Moroccans and Spanish Foreign Legionnaires. It is estimated that in total some 32000 “foreigners” were involved with the elected Republicans Government forces and the militia - France 9000, Belgium 1600, Italy 3000 and Germany/Austria 3000 Poland 3000., the Soviets 2000-3000, the USA and Canada around 5000 Cuba 1100, and the UK MI5 estimated 4000 although other sources put the figure as low as 1800/2000 with the Swiss sending 400 to 800 and the Irish 250, there were 100 from China and 90 Mexicans. There were over 30 Brigades with the British brigade included those from commonwealth Countries and the Irish Free State, The International aspects is highlighted in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which includes British, Cypriots and Chilean volunteers as well as those from the USA and Canada and the Veinte brigade also included British, American, Italian Bulgarians and from Yugoslavia. In addition to 0rwell, British participants included James Robertson Justice and Stephen Spender and Laurie Lee plus the Trade Unionist Leader Jack Jones. From other nations, Will Brandt who became West German Chancellor, the grandson of Paul Gauguin and Kurt Veil. Paul Robson went to sing. The was also a man who became Prime Minister of Albania, another the Prime Minister of Iran, one became Chairman of Hungarian Council of Ministers, and another the Vice President of Yugoslavia. Arthur Koestler was imprisoned by Nationalists although an official war correspondent and Ernest Hemingway also went as a war Correspondent after Orwell visited him in Paris as he was making his way to Spain.
Those whose political experience is limited to major political parties such as Republicans and democrats the in the USA, the British Labour and Conservatives and Liberal Democrat parties will not appreciate the extent of fragmentation in other countries especially among parties of the left where difference often relate to personalities, and to issue of ways and means rather than major policies. In Spain in 1936 a broad coalition of parties formed the Popular front. I do not have the representation terms of number of seat or official supporters to hand but there were several broad groupings representing ideologies, interests and regions.
The regional interest parties were the Catalonia Region parties based on Barcelona- the ERC Republican Left of Catalonia and the PSUC Unified Socialist party of Catalonia; the Basque Separatist the PNB Basque Nationalist, the ANV Basque Separatist Action and the STV Basque Workers Solidarity.
The communists were the PCE The Communist party of Spain which became the major force aided by the SRI International Red Aid, the Russian led Comintern group who effectively also controlled the Spanish Communist party and the Communist members of the International Brigades.
One of the most influential parties in that members formed the bulk of the first government and supporters were drawn from the civil service as well as small businesses and skilled workers was the IR Izquierda Republicana Republican Left, itself made of from mergers of three parties. In addition there was the UR Union Republicana Republican Union was supported by skilled workers and progressive businessmen. The PSOE the Spanish Workers Party had itself split left and Right and became the second largest party in the Cortes and comprised mainly urban manual workers. The UGT General Workers Union was linked with the PSOE as was the Federation of Socialist Youth one of four youth orientated groups the JSU United Socialist Youth a mixture of Communists and Socialist youth groups and the FIJL representing Libertarian Youth and POUM see below also had a youth movement.
There was the anarchist and syndicalism groups ( hesitate to use party in this context) the CNT National Confederation of Labour representing anarchist and syndicalism orientated trade unions; The FAI Iberian Anarchist federation representing groups active in the republican militia; The Mureres Libre Anarchist Feminist Group, and the PS Syndicalist party a splinter group from CNT
The Union Militar was formed of military Officers supporting the Republicans
POUM - the Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista, the anti Stalin revolutionary Party of former Trotskyists with the JCI Iberian Community Youth their your movement and which the British Independent Labour Party was associated and who in turn sponsored Orwell.
They were opposed by the Nationalist Union Militar Espaliola made up of army officers, the Monarchists Alfonsist, the Spanish restoration party,, The Spanish Action and the National Block (Militia) and the Monarchists Carlists with a party of this name plus its militia Reqestés, its youth the Pelayos and its women‘s movement the Margaritas; and the Fascists the Falange FE, the OJE Fascists youth and their women’s section. There was also a traditionalist Falange party. There was also CEDA a coalition of Christian based parties, plus the wealth and the power of the Catholic Church hierarchy.
As mentioned in previous writings although Blair described himself as a socialist with notions of quality and freedom for all, he was not a member of any political party until after returning from Spain and although he attended some political meetings, including that of the Communist Party and one meeting at which Oswald Moseley spoke he was not a political activist and was hostile to other middle and upper class intellectuals who attempt to lead the socialist movement in the UK, believing that true socialism could only emerge from the actions of the proletariat.
It is my understanding that Orwell’s interest in the civil War as much concerned with the intervention of General Franco and the support he received from Hitler, Mussolini and the Falange as he was with the populist support for the new republic. When he arrived he found he had reached a socialist Utopia.
According to the Radio programme Blair believed he had to obtain papers from some left wing organisation to be admitted to the Republican controlled areas and he went to see the General Secretary of British Communist Party with a view to going to Madrid and joining an International Brigade. Politt understandably and correctly appreciated that Blair was not one of them and a potential enemy. His next approach was to the Independent Labour Party who seeing the opportunity to cash in on the man’s increasing status within the UK labour movement because of his books agreed to provide him was the credentials, albeit not necessary, to journey to Barcelona where they had an office.
I know from his previous writings that Blair structured his books carefully not always following a chronology and his responses have to judged as after thoughts as much as contemporary response at the time. Blair wrote about this aspect and the extent to which any writing, including his own could be described as objective truth. Therefore any individual work should be considered alongside any diaries, letters, remembered contemporary conversations by others and any other writings made at the time.
In the first chapter of the book Orwell, the writer, notes that on his arrival in Barcelona the city has the appearance of a worker’s state. The bourgeois are in hiding or adopting the clothes of the workers. The buildings are draped in red the socialists and red and black for the anarchists with slogans for the Republic. The churches are being demolished and entering a cafe the waiters look you in the and do not call you sir. Tipping forbidden. Food was in short supply meat scarce, milk almost unobtainable and bread queues could be several hundred yards long. Work was found for everyone and everyone individually received the same amount, that is each worker, non worker, aged parent and young child, and there were no beggars apart from the gypsies.
Almost immediately he joined the militia and was told he would quickly be moving to the frontline but this did no happen. There was no discipline and instruction useless with the main problem the absence of weaponry, Russia is estimated to have contributed half a million riffles and ammunition plus other supplies but this went to the Stalin direct Communists and the Stalin controlled International brigades supporting the forces at Madrid. The POUM militia which he joined was badly organised and equipped but he quickly made friends. He noted that sometimes parents brought their 15 year olds to join because the lad received bread, where there was sufficient for some to get back to their families. He comments on the Spanish approach to getting things done on time and ‘Manana’ and then without proper equipment they were given two hours notice of moving to the front.
He describes the excitement with the women folk coming to help their men and all the flags waving in the torchlight with a political speech in Catalan before the late departure from that planned. He was off to war and to kill Fascists.
At the town where the militia waited for trucks to take the front line outside Zaragoza which is midway between the Catalans and the Basques and the city head of the Aragon region. They still did not have riffles to fight and the main excitement was the arrival of small groups of deserters from the ranks of the Fascist forces, scared of what would happened to them and usually men who did not have close families still in Fascist controlled territories. I say Fascists but as I have explained it would be better to say Nationalists, because there were Monarchists factions, Army factions and Christian factions and then the Fascists although there were many cross over. Orwell immediately learns his first lesson of war, of any kind, the enemy are the same as you, they look the same apart from the different uniforms and they behave the same unless instructed to behave otherwise. The front line was on a hill with the enemy occupying another hill well out of the range of a riffle.
The third chapter begins with a list of their priorities in the trenches, firewood above everything else as Winter approached, then food then tobacco, then candles and then along way fifth, the enemy, He saw no fighting in January and February and played on a minor part in fighting which took place in March. Aeroplanes dropped no bombs near him and no shell exploded within fifty yards. The other side had machine guns but by taking precautions this was not a problem and he spent much of his time looking across the Wintry landscape at the futility of it all. The scenery was stupendous with the snow capped Pyrenees in the distance.
On arrival eh was made a capo, corporal, in charge of 12 men, mostly teenagers and notes that children as young as eleven were involved with militia, usually having escaped from the Fascists and looked after as means of providing for them and kept out of harm’s way, but sometimes they managed to get themselves in the front line and were a menace to everyone. He felt that boy scouts and girl guides armed with airguns or battledores( racket for playing badminton but also a horn like book reading aid) could have overcome his position. Having expressed his concern that they were not equipped or organised to overcome the enemy, he pointed out that bourgeois armies were then run on a mixture of obedience through drill, bullying and fear where his colleagues were driven by class loyalty and commitment to the cause and the men would not have tolerated bullying and other abuses of power. By May he had become an acting Lieutenant in charge of 30 men English and Spanish and had no difficult in in getting an order obey or getting volunteers.
Having said that firewood was the priority he explains just how cold he became despite pullovers jackets and coats, thick socks and boots, gloves and headgear. They were dirty often everything caked in mud with limited first water to drink brought by mules and excrement was everywhere. He took of his clothes at night only three times in eighty days and although too cold for lice as yet but they were plagued by mice and rats and rats became the enemy, leading to the rat being used to torture in 1984. There was enough food and wine with cigarettes at a packet a day. (Men confined together in close quarters smoke more I mentioned as a personal aside) The main point of the chapter is that there were not allowed to attack the enemy and Georges Kopp when he toured the lines would say it was a comic opera with an occasional death Without heavy weapons they had no choice but to stay out of reach about 400 yards and make occasional night sorties which had no impact on the overall position
He lists what they did not have, maps or charts, no range finders, binoculars, no wire cutters, flares and nothing to maintain their riffles. The greatest threat was from accidental firing of their own weapons and he records a machine gun going off close to his face.
Returning to the chronology after three weeks with another English man he was sent to join a party of 20 to 30 men sent out by the ILP from England and this brought him close to the town. He notes that the English got on well with the Spanish despite the language difficulties and who only knew two expressions one from English sailors regarding professional sex workers! And the other OK Baby which suggests American Hollywood influence. nadOrwell seems to use English to mean English speaking rather than geographical location.
He explains how tired they all became and the accumulative effect of being on guard for hours without sleep, remembering twenty four hour periods without sleep occurring on average every ten days and he fired only three shots during one period of three weeks with the estimate that it would take a thousand rounds to kill one man and on this basis twenty years before he killed one fascist. His Spanish colleagues appeared to spend most for the time calling on the enemy to desert and join them and this rather shocked Orwell. Recently I watched for the umpteenth time that great film of the Second World battle for the Atlantic convoy, The Cruel Sea with Jack Hawkins. and when they see the survivors of only the second Germany submarine they were to destroy throughout the war, and saw their enemy at close quarters, one observed they don’t seem different from us.
Eric Blair then went to Spain although getting there proved a challenge in order to report on the Civil War but he quickly became involved in the fighting at the front which may have been his intention all along. Why did he do this? His wife came out to Barcelona and staying while her husband was at the front being entertained by George Kopp the man who was in charge and who became his friend. Eric appears to have believed that she had a sex based affair with Kopp who was subsequently imprisoned and accused of being a Fascist plant by the Stalin directed Spanish Communist party who turned on the popular front POUM. Blair who was shot in the throat and lucky to be alive escaped with and his wife and subsequently went to French speaking Morocco.
I have listened to the two part dramatization of Orwell’s account of his experiences in Spain as part of the BBC The Real George Orwell series and am now reading the book, Homage to Catalonia, again as well as having heard a BBC book club question and session on the book and listened to the BBC dramatization of their visit to Morocco and the meeting with George Kopp although I am not sure if this actually took place. Nearly twenty years ago I saw the Len Loach film Land and Freedom about the Spanish Civil War and I may have the video recording somewhere. The film drew on Orwell’s book which was seen at the picture house in Richmond on Thames during a short visit to the Wallington to stay with my birth and care mothers.
I have been interested in the Spanish Civil war for the greater part of my life because the Aunties were living in Gibraltar throughout the that time with my birth mother coming to England in 1938 and four of her sisters coming to the UK in 1939 to live in Wallington at her home of another sister, her husband and at the time their four children. Another sister briefly remained in Gibraltar marrying a young professional soldier who became an officer with the war and later moved to married quarters at Catterick camp in north Yorkshire, where I was to be evacuated during the worst of the VI and V2 rocket attacks with more falling around Croydon airport where we lived than anywhere else in the UK.
The youngest of my aunts, Ethel, was engaged to someone who was studying to be a doctor at the University of Madrid but who disappeared during the war with no trace of what happened to him. Later when I became more politically aware the War Interested me because for a brief period a genuine workers cooperative state began to emerge especially in Barcelona until on the orders of Stalin the Communists took control and who in turn were then crushed by the forces of General Franco, imposing his military dictatorship for several decades with the full support of the Catholic church. My maternal great grandmother was Spanish and although born in Gibraltar my maternal grandmother was from a Spanish and Italian background family. Having declared such an interest I was surprised to find that I do not have one book on the civil war and various factions that were involved although I do have, The Return to Civil Society the Victor Pérez-Diaz book, Harvard University press and John Hoopers The New Spaniards which looks at all aspects of Spanish life after the end of the Franco regime, in addition to the 1950‘s Morton’s Travel book on his journey to Spain A stranger in Spain undertaken during the post war Franco era and which was my second stream form prize in my last year at the John Fisher School..
The BBC discussed the Civil War in the Melvin Bragg series In Out Time first broadcast in 2003 and a still available for another year in which Paul Preston, Principe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish History at the London School of Economics, Helen Graham Professor of Spanish History at Royal Holloway, University of London, Dr Mary Vincent, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at Sheffield University.
The abolition of the Monarchy was less a factor in causing the war than the attempts to remove the power of the Catholic Church and the status and control the army as well as those who wanted to introduce a British kind of Welfare State. The Right embodying traditional vested interests attempted to regain power democratically between 1931 and 1936 and it was the failure to do so in the 1936 elections which led to the successful Military coup by General Franco with the help of Hitler and Mussolini, the subsequent intervention of Russia and the horrendous failure of the British government to tell Russian and Italy not to intervene with the exception Churchill who recognised that by not doing so Britain was weakened, as was France, and where according to Preston Goering told Hitler that Franco had three week to triumph before any British intervention would mean it was wise for them to withdraw support.
,
It was Hitler who facilitated the coup by providing air transport for Franco’s North African Army to cross the Straits of Gibraltar and who then provided arms notably planes which led to Guernica (the Picasso picture which dominated the room in which I work) and control of the airspace. For Mussolini it was another Mediterranean/African adventure and he provided on the ground military support. Once they controlled the south Franco’s supporters in the military commenced to raid villages and eliminate those on the left in the most brutal and dramatic of fashion while in the north the Falange (Fascist) party supporters did likewise and there was much revenge and settling of local scores.
It was suggested by Preston that had the UK insisted on a general neutrality the second World war might not have occurred, although whether this would have still meant Hitler exterminated the Jewish people and other groups he opposed within German territorial borders is a separate issue. However non intervention may not have prevented the establishment of Franco’s Dictatorship given the quantity of groups on the left within Spain. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight the amazing aspects was that the disorganised and fragmented Popular Front managed to stop Franco’s for three years although the cost was great. However the great majority of lives were lost not on the battlefield but through summary executions, assassinations and extermination of prisoners after periods of torture and imprisonment. The role of the catholic church in denouncing those on the left is inexcusable despite the murdering of priests and nuns by those on the left, giving the teachings the Catholic are supposed to endorse.
It is general agreed that the media world wide reported the war according to the positions being taken by editors and governments, with Orwell account first written for the new Statesmen rejected because it was considered inappropriate for the time and one has to remember that for the greater part of World War II Russia was an ally of the UK and the USA. In the BBC programme the Road to 1984, it was pointed out that when Hitler and Russia signed their pact at the beginning of the War, the Communist party Line in the UK was to be against the War, calling it Imperialist and capitalist, but as soon as Russia changed sides, there was national official support with a famous Wilfred Pickles programme at a factory providing supplies to Russia which commenced with the playing of the Internationale. This is why Orwell’s book has become one of the few reliable contemporary accounts of what went on and it is only now that the new generation in Spain is facing up to what happened and seeking to find out the truth, including digging up the mass graves to work out the number of murdered souls even if individual identities will remain a mystery through the destruction of church and civil records at that time.
Even after reading some of the summaries of information about the Civil War I have made little progress adding to previous impressionism about what happened between 1936 and 1939 when Franco formally took charge of the country and the persecution of anyone associated with the previously democratically elected government, left wing movement and fighting for the Republication cause commenced.
It has to remembered that the Republic did run the military, the navy and airforce and that Franco rebelled with his African based forces but was then joined by many officers with others remaining with the Republican forces. The involvement of forces from other countries and volunteers added to the complications as well as factional groups often related to particular areas and one has only to look at recent history with the quick development of a united front militia and its success against Gaddafi and his Libyan regime supported by a consortium of other countries in various ways compared to fragmented opposition against a well equipped and disciplined force of the Syrian president and where other countries remain hesitant about intervention because the outcome is so uncertain
Communist parties in other countries were encouraged o recruit volunteers to fight on the Republican side in late 1936 with the main centre located in Paris. The man who became Marshal Tito organised passports, money and travel for those from eastern Europe who went via train or ship from France although many also went by themselves. The first 500 mainly French arrived in October 1936. The French Communist party also provided uniforms and the volunteers were trained and equipped and formal discipline was established although there was no form of contract which meant individuals were free to come and to go. Less than ten percent of the 40000 republican forces which took Madrid were internationals. Also fighting were the Anarchist Militia who in one attack were faced by Moroccans and Spanish Foreign Legionnaires. It is estimated that in total some 32000 “foreigners” were involved with the elected Republicans Government forces and the militia - France 9000, Belgium 1600, Italy 3000 and Germany/Austria 3000 Poland 3000., the Soviets 2000-3000, the USA and Canada around 5000 Cuba 1100, and the UK MI5 estimated 4000 although other sources put the figure as low as 1800/2000 with the Swiss sending 400 to 800 and the Irish 250, there were 100 from China and 90 Mexicans. There were over 30 Brigades with the British brigade included those from commonwealth Countries and the Irish Free State, The International aspects is highlighted in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which includes British, Cypriots and Chilean volunteers as well as those from the USA and Canada and the Veinte brigade also included British, American, Italian Bulgarians and from Yugoslavia. In addition to 0rwell, British participants included James Robertson Justice and Stephen Spender and Laurie Lee plus the Trade Unionist Leader Jack Jones. From other nations, Will Brandt who became West German Chancellor, the grandson of Paul Gauguin and Kurt Veil. Paul Robson went to sing. The was also a man who became Prime Minister of Albania, another the Prime Minister of Iran, one became Chairman of Hungarian Council of Ministers, and another the Vice President of Yugoslavia. Arthur Koestler was imprisoned by Nationalists although an official war correspondent and Ernest Hemingway also went as a war Correspondent after Orwell visited him in Paris as he was making his way to Spain.
Those whose political experience is limited to major political parties such as Republicans and democrats the in the USA, the British Labour and Conservatives and Liberal Democrat parties will not appreciate the extent of fragmentation in other countries especially among parties of the left where difference often relate to personalities, and to issue of ways and means rather than major policies. In Spain in 1936 a broad coalition of parties formed the Popular front. I do not have the representation terms of number of seat or official supporters to hand but there were several broad groupings representing ideologies, interests and regions.
The regional interest parties were the Catalonia Region parties based on Barcelona- the ERC Republican Left of Catalonia and the PSUC Unified Socialist party of Catalonia; the Basque Separatist the PNB Basque Nationalist, the ANV Basque Separatist Action and the STV Basque Workers Solidarity.
The communists were the PCE The Communist party of Spain which became the major force aided by the SRI International Red Aid, the Russian led Comintern group who effectively also controlled the Spanish Communist party and the Communist members of the International Brigades.
One of the most influential parties in that members formed the bulk of the first government and supporters were drawn from the civil service as well as small businesses and skilled workers was the IR Izquierda Republicana Republican Left, itself made of from mergers of three parties. In addition there was the UR Union Republicana Republican Union was supported by skilled workers and progressive businessmen. The PSOE the Spanish Workers Party had itself split left and Right and became the second largest party in the Cortes and comprised mainly urban manual workers. The UGT General Workers Union was linked with the PSOE as was the Federation of Socialist Youth one of four youth orientated groups the JSU United Socialist Youth a mixture of Communists and Socialist youth groups and the FIJL representing Libertarian Youth and POUM see below also had a youth movement.
There was the anarchist and syndicalism groups ( hesitate to use party in this context) the CNT National Confederation of Labour representing anarchist and syndicalism orientated trade unions; The FAI Iberian Anarchist federation representing groups active in the republican militia; The Mureres Libre Anarchist Feminist Group, and the PS Syndicalist party a splinter group from CNT
The Union Militar was formed of military Officers supporting the Republicans
POUM - the Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista, the anti Stalin revolutionary Party of former Trotskyists with the JCI Iberian Community Youth their your movement and which the British Independent Labour Party was associated and who in turn sponsored Orwell.
They were opposed by the Nationalist Union Militar Espaliola made up of army officers, the Monarchists Alfonsist, the Spanish restoration party,, The Spanish Action and the National Block (Militia) and the Monarchists Carlists with a party of this name plus its militia Reqestés, its youth the Pelayos and its women‘s movement the Margaritas; and the Fascists the Falange FE, the OJE Fascists youth and their women’s section. There was also a traditionalist Falange party. There was also CEDA a coalition of Christian based parties, plus the wealth and the power of the Catholic Church hierarchy.
As mentioned in previous writings although Blair described himself as a socialist with notions of quality and freedom for all, he was not a member of any political party until after returning from Spain and although he attended some political meetings, including that of the Communist Party and one meeting at which Oswald Moseley spoke he was not a political activist and was hostile to other middle and upper class intellectuals who attempt to lead the socialist movement in the UK, believing that true socialism could only emerge from the actions of the proletariat.
It is my understanding that Orwell’s interest in the civil War as much concerned with the intervention of General Franco and the support he received from Hitler, Mussolini and the Falange as he was with the populist support for the new republic. When he arrived he found he had reached a socialist Utopia.
According to the Radio programme Blair believed he had to obtain papers from some left wing organisation to be admitted to the Republican controlled areas and he went to see the General Secretary of British Communist Party with a view to going to Madrid and joining an International Brigade. Politt understandably and correctly appreciated that Blair was not one of them and a potential enemy. His next approach was to the Independent Labour Party who seeing the opportunity to cash in on the man’s increasing status within the UK labour movement because of his books agreed to provide him was the credentials, albeit not necessary, to journey to Barcelona where they had an office.
I know from his previous writings that Blair structured his books carefully not always following a chronology and his responses have to judged as after thoughts as much as contemporary response at the time. Blair wrote about this aspect and the extent to which any writing, including his own could be described as objective truth. Therefore any individual work should be considered alongside any diaries, letters, remembered contemporary conversations by others and any other writings made at the time.
In the first chapter of the book Orwell, the writer, notes that on his arrival in Barcelona the city has the appearance of a worker’s state. The bourgeois are in hiding or adopting the clothes of the workers. The buildings are draped in red the socialists and red and black for the anarchists with slogans for the Republic. The churches are being demolished and entering a cafe the waiters look you in the and do not call you sir. Tipping forbidden. Food was in short supply meat scarce, milk almost unobtainable and bread queues could be several hundred yards long. Work was found for everyone and everyone individually received the same amount, that is each worker, non worker, aged parent and young child, and there were no beggars apart from the gypsies.
Almost immediately he joined the militia and was told he would quickly be moving to the frontline but this did no happen. There was no discipline and instruction useless with the main problem the absence of weaponry, Russia is estimated to have contributed half a million riffles and ammunition plus other supplies but this went to the Stalin direct Communists and the Stalin controlled International brigades supporting the forces at Madrid. The POUM militia which he joined was badly organised and equipped but he quickly made friends. He noted that sometimes parents brought their 15 year olds to join because the lad received bread, where there was sufficient for some to get back to their families. He comments on the Spanish approach to getting things done on time and ‘Manana’ and then without proper equipment they were given two hours notice of moving to the front.
He describes the excitement with the women folk coming to help their men and all the flags waving in the torchlight with a political speech in Catalan before the late departure from that planned. He was off to war and to kill Fascists.
At the town where the militia waited for trucks to take the front line outside Zaragoza which is midway between the Catalans and the Basques and the city head of the Aragon region. They still did not have riffles to fight and the main excitement was the arrival of small groups of deserters from the ranks of the Fascist forces, scared of what would happened to them and usually men who did not have close families still in Fascist controlled territories. I say Fascists but as I have explained it would be better to say Nationalists, because there were Monarchists factions, Army factions and Christian factions and then the Fascists although there were many cross over. Orwell immediately learns his first lesson of war, of any kind, the enemy are the same as you, they look the same apart from the different uniforms and they behave the same unless instructed to behave otherwise. The front line was on a hill with the enemy occupying another hill well out of the range of a riffle.
The third chapter begins with a list of their priorities in the trenches, firewood above everything else as Winter approached, then food then tobacco, then candles and then along way fifth, the enemy, He saw no fighting in January and February and played on a minor part in fighting which took place in March. Aeroplanes dropped no bombs near him and no shell exploded within fifty yards. The other side had machine guns but by taking precautions this was not a problem and he spent much of his time looking across the Wintry landscape at the futility of it all. The scenery was stupendous with the snow capped Pyrenees in the distance.
On arrival eh was made a capo, corporal, in charge of 12 men, mostly teenagers and notes that children as young as eleven were involved with militia, usually having escaped from the Fascists and looked after as means of providing for them and kept out of harm’s way, but sometimes they managed to get themselves in the front line and were a menace to everyone. He felt that boy scouts and girl guides armed with airguns or battledores( racket for playing badminton but also a horn like book reading aid) could have overcome his position. Having expressed his concern that they were not equipped or organised to overcome the enemy, he pointed out that bourgeois armies were then run on a mixture of obedience through drill, bullying and fear where his colleagues were driven by class loyalty and commitment to the cause and the men would not have tolerated bullying and other abuses of power. By May he had become an acting Lieutenant in charge of 30 men English and Spanish and had no difficult in in getting an order obey or getting volunteers.
Having said that firewood was the priority he explains just how cold he became despite pullovers jackets and coats, thick socks and boots, gloves and headgear. They were dirty often everything caked in mud with limited first water to drink brought by mules and excrement was everywhere. He took of his clothes at night only three times in eighty days and although too cold for lice as yet but they were plagued by mice and rats and rats became the enemy, leading to the rat being used to torture in 1984. There was enough food and wine with cigarettes at a packet a day. (Men confined together in close quarters smoke more I mentioned as a personal aside) The main point of the chapter is that there were not allowed to attack the enemy and Georges Kopp when he toured the lines would say it was a comic opera with an occasional death Without heavy weapons they had no choice but to stay out of reach about 400 yards and make occasional night sorties which had no impact on the overall position
He lists what they did not have, maps or charts, no range finders, binoculars, no wire cutters, flares and nothing to maintain their riffles. The greatest threat was from accidental firing of their own weapons and he records a machine gun going off close to his face.
Returning to the chronology after three weeks with another English man he was sent to join a party of 20 to 30 men sent out by the ILP from England and this brought him close to the town. He notes that the English got on well with the Spanish despite the language difficulties and who only knew two expressions one from English sailors regarding professional sex workers! And the other OK Baby which suggests American Hollywood influence. nadOrwell seems to use English to mean English speaking rather than geographical location.
He explains how tired they all became and the accumulative effect of being on guard for hours without sleep, remembering twenty four hour periods without sleep occurring on average every ten days and he fired only three shots during one period of three weeks with the estimate that it would take a thousand rounds to kill one man and on this basis twenty years before he killed one fascist. His Spanish colleagues appeared to spend most for the time calling on the enemy to desert and join them and this rather shocked Orwell. Recently I watched for the umpteenth time that great film of the Second World battle for the Atlantic convoy, The Cruel Sea with Jack Hawkins. and when they see the survivors of only the second Germany submarine they were to destroy throughout the war, and saw their enemy at close quarters, one observed they don’t seem different from us.
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