Posted on 10/14/2002 6:59:29 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
Today we begin discussion of George Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia." I am posting this discussion in News/Activism because of the highly political nature of this book and because many of Orwell's observations apply to today's society.
I enjoyed this book on many levels. Of great interest to me was that the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War was fiercely divided. As Orwell has shown in this book, the Marxist POUM group was actually in more danger from the Stalinist Communists than from Franco's Fascists. If you were a member of the POUM in May/June 1937 it almost meant a sure death sentence from the Stalinist aligned Communists. Orwell himself, a member of POUM, narrowly escaped from Spain.
The other interesting facet of Homage To Catalonia was the way the press in general lied and/or misinterpreted completely the events in Spain. The purges by the Stalinists were either covered up or excused by the press in general. Even today, when liberals write about the Spanish Civil War, it is always portrayed in colors of Black and White. On one side were Franco's Fascists (actually Franco was a classic reactionary who only temporarily used the Fascists) and on the other were the noble Loyalists. Of course, little mention of the fact that there was great bloodletting and purges among the Republican side, primarily by the Stalinists (who came to dominate the Republican government side) against the POUM and others. BTW, I did a little research and although the Stalinists also wished to be rid of the Anarchists, for practical reasons they were unable to purge them simply due to the fact that the Anarchists were too numerous.
Well, I have many other observations to make but will do so later in this discussion.
BTW, didn't Orwell have problems getting HTC published?
Huh? What book did you read? If you read Homage To Catalonia you would have seen that the Commies (usually the ones who DID NOT fight at the front) were the ones responsible for the imprisonment and execution of many of those fighting on the Republican side. Also Orwell showed how many journalists back then (and also now) covered up the purges and executions by the Communists.
And in Homage To Catalonia I saw many of the ideas that would come out later in Orwell's Animal Farm.
He suffered the horrors of war, "...It was not bad fun in a way."
He found the experience of being hit by a near-fatal bullet, 'fairly interesting'.
He almost got thrown in jail where one, 'generally stays forever, with or without a trial'.
And yet--as a result, he is left with, "...not less but more belief in the decency of human beings."...Go figure.
My thoughts are that during his experience of war and bonding with his band of brothers, he developed a same sex attraction and went insane.
My hypothesis of his becoming a homosexual, explains his attraction to pain and his faith in the decency of his enemy.....Nevermind.
Not exactly. The thing to remember about Spain is that they were politically way behind the rest of Europe. It's hard to find political equivalencies witht the U.S.A. from that era (although now that Spain is democratic it is possible). The Anarchist movement in Spain lived on a lot longer in Spain than in the rest of Europe. Probably close to a majority of Spaniards (or more) on the Republican side were Anarchists. They used many of the slogans and forms of leftist revolutionaries but they were definitely different from the Communists. They were also too large of a movement for the communists to purge at that time.
I've read no evidence anywhere that Orwell went homo. Believe me if he did, the gay rights groups today would be touting that fact.
1. Mother-child.
2. Male-group (in hunting, trading, or warring).
3. Male-female.
This is why women "invading" male-groups can be divisive. It gets a class 3 bond going that disrupts the class 2 bond.
Victor Gollancz, head of the Left Book Club in Britain did'nt care for some of Orwell's conclusions and this lead to a split between them. Gollancz was one of the 30's biggest apologists for Stalin (which is saying something)
From the opening paragraphs, I was immediately captivated by this account of the Spanish Civil War. It was the first time I ever read in depth about this civil war. Being that it occurred as the storm clouds of WW2 were building throughout the rest of Europe, the Spanish Civil War tends to get overlooked by history.
Orwell paints a fascinating picture of the perpetual misery that the average line soldier of this war had to deal with. In short, it was a hellish existence. Freezing your butt off night after night, dealing with body lice (louses), eating your often spoiled food out of greasy pannikans (Spanish term for dish that soldiers carried in the field), having to perform your bodily functions in a steaming trench full of raw sewage and a dozen other discomforts and hardships that no modern soldier would tolerate for very long.
Take the louses for example, here is an excerpt of Orwell describing this vermin:
...I had a big experience of body vermin of various kinds, and for sheer beastliness the louse beats everything I have encountered. Other insects, mosquitoes for instance, make you suffer more, but at least they aren't resident vermin. The human louse somewhat resembles a tiny lobster, and he lives chiefly in your trousers. Short of burning all your clothes there is no known way of getting rid of them. Down the seams of your trousers they lie laying their gleaming white eggs, like tiny grains of rice, which hatch out and breed families of their own at horrible pace...In war all soldiers are lousy...every one of them has lice crawling over his testicles...
I am somewhat in awe that George Orwell (by then he was pretty well known as a successful writer) would give up a comfortable life in England to tolerate these conditions. He really believed in the cause and was willing to put his life on the line for those Spanish revolutionaries.
It was a tragedy what happened to the P.O.U.M. Here were this group of guys who put themselves on the front lines day after day to fight against Franco's fascists, yet their reward back at the home front was to be persecuted. First the P.O.U.M. was declared to be in league with the Fascists, then they were hunted down, jailed and most of them eventually killed. Orwell was lucky to escape the purge.
The book was a little confusing to follow with it's alphabet soup of acronyms - signifying all the different groups that aligned themselves against Franco. But Chapter 5 does a pretty good job sorting everything out. Though I had to go back and re-read it as I got towards the end of the book so that everything would make sense to me.
An excellent book overall. I had only read Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm prior to this and figured those two works were pretty much all that was worth reading from Orwell. Now I am going to check out Orwell's other works, perhaps starting with "Down And Out in Paris and London."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.