Most of us are exposed to George Orwell in high school, wherein we are usually compelled to read Animal Farm (almost compulsory) and 1984 (only slightly less compulsory). Most of Orwell’s readers know him only through his fiction, and that’s a real shame: George Orwell himself was a charming and fiercely intelligent character, an excellent journalist and a deeply ethical and distinctly humanist man. Homage to Catalonia is one of his nonfiction works, and I think it's a great read for anyone interested in a boots on the ground and extremely readable account of the vastly confusing Spanish civil war. Further, I think some casual readers of 1984 would be surprised to find that Orwell fought in the Spanish civil war in the P.O.U.M, on behalf of the communists. That battle and his time fighting on behalf of the Spanish Republicans as a whole makes up the bulk of the book, although Orwell does devote some time attempting to puzzle out the politics of the various political parties that sprang up in the conflict- whether he makes any headway on this particularly frustrating topic is for the reader to judge.
The book begins with Orwell arriving in Catalonia, wherein he joins up with the P.O.U.M and heads directly to the Zaragosa front. Interestingly enough, Orwell wasn't all that sure who or why, exactly, he was fighting. As Orwell makes pretty clear in the course of the book, the Spanish political situation was so maddeningly complex, with anarchists, socialists, communists, Republicans, and nationalists - and that was just on the loyalist, anti fascist side - that even the combatants weren't sure what was going on. Orwell's defense of his actions is refreshingly simple: "If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: 'To fight against Fascism,' and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: 'Common decency." I've heard worse rationales. Many Europeans - and quite a few Brits- came over to fight for the Popular Front against fascism, which everyone could see was moving with horrible speed against Germany and Italy. It had a lot to do with honor. Orwell would later be greatly disturbed by the Communist party and Republicans turn against the P.O.U.M later in the course of the struggle. Indeed, the division between different Popular Front factions pretty much sealed their fate.
Orwell's account of the Zaragosa front is pretty much directed entirely towards the profound boringness of much of war: lying around in trenches, stepping over shit, angling for chocolate, and hoping that the enemy will attack to give you something to do. Packs of fifteen year olds accidentally blowing each other away with guns and testicle-eating lice were just part of the ambience, as the P.O.U.M's spectacularly poorly equipped (but brave) fighting force traded insults with the fascist lines. Orwell also does a great job of conveying how incredibly backward Spain was at the time of the Spanish Civil War (which was how it remained til' Franco was done for) - people living in ancient habitations, taking their donkey carts out to the villages, and so forth and so on.
Orwell has a particularly vivid scene where he is forced to bunk up in a vile midden of a barn full of "rats, rats, rats as big as cats," trash from various strata of history, and human bones - hard to believe this is the same Catalonia now populated by vacationing Brits. I was perhaps most amused by Orwell's account of Spanish wartime propaganda: both Republicans/Popular Front and Nationalists were fond of positioning one another on opposing hills with loudspeakers and shouting insults across to the other side. (The P.O.U.M, as Orwell relates, were fond of taunting the poorly fed Nationalists with food: "We've got bread with fresh hot butter! Delicious bread with melted butter!" Psychological warfare at its best.
After an informative, helpful, and, despite all efforts, slightly mystifying account of the Spanish political situation, Orwell moves into the second quarter of the book, where he finds himself caught up in the Barcelona May Days after returning to the city on leave. I would prefer to refer you to the Wikipedia article and not attempt to explain the entire blasted thing but I will try: the Communist influenced Civil Guards decided to take an anarchist run telephone buildings in Barcelona, sparking street fighting between various Republican factions. Orwell was in the thick of it and his account of the street fighting, the aura of paranoia in the city, and the ridiculous aura of confusion surrounding the entire affair is rather priceless. Although Orwell spent a large majority of the conflict parked on top of a building reading Penguin novels, he was moved by the events and found himself completely disgusted when the communist press insinuate the P.O.U.M collaborated with the Fascists in the battle.
Due to this disillusionment, Orwell declined his original offer to join the International Brigade, and returned to the Aragon front. The third quarter of the book occurs after Orwell was shot in the neck upon his return to the front. He rather incredibly lives through the injury, giving us vivid and deeply distressing images of non too cushy Spanish war hospitals. He is deemed unfit for battle (temporarily) and returns to Barcelona. Thinking he might have a bit of a rest, he finds himself in the middle of conflict between the communists (who have decisively taken the city,) and P.O.U.M militia were being regularly taken into custody as "Trotskyists." His wife, who has been staying in the hotel in Barcelona, warns him that he must get on the move and soon to escape the Communists, who are taking in everybody regardless of nationality in an attempt to purge P.O.U.M sympathizers once and for all. In probably the books most wrenching moment, Orwell and his wife, prior to leaving, visit his friend and former commander Georges Kopp, who is being kept in prison.
Although Orwell, at the time of writing, seemed fairly certain Kopp was doomed, he made it out: partially in thanks to Orwell's testimony, Kopp made it to England, where he was nursed back to health by Orwell's brother in law and his wife. (Check out Kopp's later career via the Wikipedia article: it was incredibly ballsy, if you may pardon the expression). Orwell was forced to sleep in the streets a few nights to avoid detection in the hotel, but he and his wife managed to secure their passports and and catch the next train for the French border.
Orwell made it out and back to England, but the Spanish Civil War and his experiences within it certainly never left him. It would require a literary critic with a lot more gumption then me to tease out the strains of his experience in 1984 and other of his later works, but Homage to Catalonia stands alone as a deeply realistic, humanist, and oddly pleasant account of an under-discussed event in world history. Read it.
They are also making a movie of it. I really have nothing constructive to say on that measure.
