George Orwell; soldier of the POUM.

Ola Amigos;
Here is something I did not know. George Orwell-the author of 1984 and Animal Farm -was a Spanish War vet. Astonishingly he was a lefty who chose not to compromise his intellectual integrity by glossing over the truth about what he saw in the war for the sake of "the cause"-an honest man! Bravo Senor George! I will be ordering his "Homage to Catalonia" this evening.
The young Orwell joined the POUM forces of the Republic and he could not have made a more dangerous choice. POUM was targeted by Comintern as "Trotskyites" and it's members were being "dissappeared" by the Secret Police; as well as facing an endless tirade of accusations, abuse, calumnies, and lies from the Stalinist organs of state. So as well as facing the Franco forces at the Front, Orwell and his comrades in arms had to face the savagery of the Stalinist thugs in the rear. Young Orwell and his wife barely escaped Spain with their lives.

Essay;
George Orwell - Looking Back On The Spanish War - Essay

Homage To Catalonia review; Review of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia - BrothersJudd.com

Orwell in Spain; Pictures // George Orwell // www.k-1.com/Orwell

A timeline; http://iberianature.com/barcelona/history-of-barcelona/barcelona-in-the-civil-war/

JeffinMNUSA

PS. Gee, I wonder what the inspiration for 1984 was?
PS. Screw Hemmingway!

 

Hola. No se de donde sacas tiempo para estudiar tanto y tan rápido. Es impresionante.

About the POUM (Partido obrero de unificación Marxista). The NKVD killed his leader ANDREU NIN, and more (obvious) during the "Hechos de Barcelona" in May 1937.

Comunist Propaganda: ¿donde está NIN? en Salamanca o en Berlín. Where is NIN? in Salamanca or Berlin. The guy was tortured and killed near Madrid. May be his grave is in Alcalá

Andreu NIN

POUM

In fact, I'm sure you have read these links yet.

An other one, "Sucesos de Mayo"

There was a civil war in the republicans as you said. The comunist killed anarchist and other Marxists. I've read many references of a book in spanish "Porqué perdimos la guerra" wrote by an old anarchist Abad de Santillán. I found it in P2P. I guess It gives many details about that repression.

 

Efestos;
Well anyone who read Russian history knew that the Stalinists would tolerate no other ideology but their own, and that it was just a matter of when before they attacked. It is unbelievable that they began their purges with Franco at the door in 1937, but this was a reflection of the insanity that was going on in the larger communist world.
I finished Beevor yesterday and at the time of the Fall of Barcelona Roosevelt stated that the arms embargo had been a mistake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8JEfcqbLCk "A mistake" is a massive understatement about this most earth shattering of historic tragedies.... This was in the Winter of 1939 and we all know what unfolded during the rest of that year.
JeffinMNUSA

 

Reparations at home.

If you take a look at the video you would see the soviet tank ( T 26) in the nationalist forces. During the war, It became the main tank of the fascist!!!

About Rooswelt: If the royal Navy have keep the african profesional army ... in Africa in 1936 there would no have been a civil war. The air shuttle sended the men, but the amo and the artillery went by sea (as in Crete ).


Two "Facist propaganda videos" . In fact I heard that a young historian estudied that videos to found the fascist agents that forced the public to asist the parade and cheer. None.

Barcelona

Sitges

The Doctor (Granpa) drove his ambulance in the still red zone to meet his Professors (?) and safekeeping them. They never thanked him.

About the video of Barcelona: It´s horrible to see the people. My hometown was bombed from planes that came from Barcelona. They drooped the bombs over my other grandapa. The same guy that "shotted no one" told me about how he ran to refuge with a boy in his arms...

 

Efestos;

The Spanish Civil War was a great learning experience for the Germans according to Beevor-they developed their frontline tanks from the Soviet as you say, AND they added the deadly effective 88 mm Aerial gun to their arsenal. More importantly they learned the concept of Schwerpunct; that is the point where to strike the enemy with the armoured spearhead. In aerial combat they learned carpet bombing, the use of fighters in twos, strafing tecniques, the effectiveness of different bombs and the importance of air/ground communications. To this I would add that their officers acquired precious combat experience and the Wehrmacht got to really study just how communist commanders operated. With all this the Germans were ready to have at the entire world. More on the lessons learned by the Condor Division; http://spanish-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the-condor-legion
The Soviets brought back some artillery tricks and some combat experience but learned really nothing else. The Soviets did acquire some foreign talent from the international brigades and quite a few of these individuals found themselves in the Partisan Wars.
The US and Britain learned just how badly they had blundered when they embargoed the Spanish Republic and let the USSR have it's way in Spain.
JeffinMNUSA
PS. My book on the Blue Legion arrived today and I am curious to see how the finest soldiers in the world performed with some good strategic leadership and modern weapons.

 

Hi;
Just finished Orwell's eyewitness account and some observations;
1. The author was an able soldier-something rare with artistic types-and good enough to have been made a frontline officer. He constantly disparages his shooting abilities and the like but it is certain that he was respected by his companeros in the trenches.
2. A thing the author repeats is that if he saw a policeman beating a worker his knee jerk reaction was to side with the worker. This knee jerk reaction applied no matter what uniform the policeman might be wearing. This became very politically incorrect of George when he sided with the POUM workers against Iosip Visarionovich Stalin's (a country run by a bank robber?) secret police.
3. Orwell documents how starved the frontline POUM soldiers were of everything.
4. Orwell documents how spurious the charges against the POUM were.
5. Orwell seemed to have a very bad opinion of the media and constantly decries the shallowness of the coverage from reporters nowhere near the scene.
6. Orwell was of an antireligious bent and upon observing a graveyard practically empty of religious symbols concludes that this was due to the Catalonian peasants' view of the Spanish church as "a racket." I find it hard to reconcile the church of Archbishop Romero and John Paul with this view of the church as a corrupt medieval racket but there must be some truth here. Beevor also makes mention of the Spanish Church as an instrument of Medievalist repression.
7. The author was one of those rare Englishmen who was totally comfortable with and an admirer of the Latin culture. "An Englishman Italianate is the devil incarnate" the Cromwell saying goes (nasty bunch-those Cromwellian types-and we have more than our share of them in this here USA!).
8. The Orwellian vision of the book 1984 was drawn from the author's experiences as a hunted man in Barcelona that May of 1937. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4rBDUJTnNU Why were the secret police arresting everybody with any POUM connections? It seems they did not want word of the purge reaching the front or leaking out onto the international scene.
9. Orwell makes comment about how the very word "Anarchist!" could cause apoplexy in some quarters. Why did the Western allies not aid the Republic? Well it had a lot to do with the excesses committed by a people after centuries of feudalism. Orwell is remarkably casual about these injustices.
10. Orwell's differing opinions were tolerated by his POUM companeros-something which could not have happened in the Stalinist formations.

NOt everybody thinks much of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia; George Orwell and the British State
So what is to be done with these overidealistic ignoramouses of the right and left? " Give em a broom-it's all these dangerous jerks are good for!" I say. Unfortunately the OI's often run the political process-more money there than in sweeping floors like they should be.
haha,
JeffinMNUSA
PS. Screw Hemmingway again!

 

amen to that Jeff except that I am a Hemingway fan too. He may have been a pacifist, He was good enough to be banned by uncle Addi and his writings gave Hitler a few grey hairs and wrinkles , so that's more than okay with me.

 

Skipper;
I was a fan-until I found out that he was withholding vital evidence from his fans. This constitutes an unforgivable betrayal of trust in my book-no different than say a medical researcher who suppresses inconvenient facts. SCREW HEMMINGWAY!
And what happens to pacifists in the real world?
JeffinMNUSA

 

This has nothing to do with Cromwell, it actually dates from the 16th century.

 

Hi;
HMMM...I believe Durrell attributed the saying to Cromwell and he cast it in a xenophobic, anti-papist light. Does the phrase rhyme in Italian? Not so well off my translater; Un inglese di stile italiano è il diavolo incarnato The English version works much better, speaking for an English origin. Maybe the sex tourists made it up? Whatever-a catchy little ditty no matter whom the author. Ah here;
Roger Ascham was the author; http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/ascham.htm Did Cromwell ever quote Ascham? Lawrence Durrell seems to have thought so. No evidence of the ditty in Cromwell quotes; http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/oliver_cromwell.html
"The final danger of Italy is the temptation to embrace bad customs and habits when there, then bring them home. Ascham cites those young men who now are 'contemners of mariage and readie persuaders of all other to the same'. He describes the devil incarnate, the 'Englishman Italianated' (40).

"Ascham was not the only one to condemn Italian travel. Towards the end of his life, William Cecil, Lord Burghley (to whom The Scholemaster is inscribed), instructed the caretakers of his children not to allow them to 'pass the Alps, for they shall learn nothing there [in Italy] but pride, blasphemy, and atheism'" (41).

JeffinMNUSA

 

Back to the topic lads

 

Oh yes-Orwell.
There is a Plaza of his name in Barcelona; Foto: plaza george orwell - Spanien, Barcelona - GEO-Reisecommunity.de
At any rate-in his account Orwell draws sharp contrasts between the Barcelona of DEC 1936 when he first came to Spain, and the Barcelona of May 1937 when he arrived back from the trenches. George arrived in May just in time for the NKVD power grab-and his harrowing days of dodging the secret police are a veritable "how to survive a reign of terror." The concept of "doublespeak" no doubt came from the trumped up charges the Reds leveled at the POUM. So why did NKVD target the POUM amongst the non Stalinist groups? Well they were the easiest target. "Smash one head terrorize a thousand" the Leninist saying goes. Beevor notes that morale crashed in the Anarchist ranks and many people were becoming indifferent as to which set of thugs would be ruling the country when it was all said and done.
JeffinMNUSA
PS. An Orwell tour of Barcelona; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/a...loring-Catalan-capitals-civil-war-ghosts.html And see if you agree
with Old George that the Sagrada Familia should have been blown up by the Anarchists.
Another PS.; Orwell compares and contrasts the splendidly dressed and modernly armed secret police with the ragged soldiers of the front. He also makes an assertion that when the secret policemen were sent to the front they were totally lost and often paired up with 14 year olds that had experience.
Yet another PS. And Orwell came to regard his days in Spain as the best days of his life. Towards the end of his account he wonders at the fates of his comrades in arms and wishes them all the best, and he is troubled that he could not still be there with them. Here was this highly educated man sharing these hard times with illiterate goatherds and the like and finding common ground-amazingly he states that the whole experience gave him faith in basic human decency.

 

What about "Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War" I've read a bit of it. I do not understand that Orwell wrote that "the average worker does not know how to shoot a rifle." At that time Spain had compulsory military service.

 

Efestos;
Nothing new here; S. L. A. Marshall's Men Against Fire: new evidence regarding fire ratios | Parameters | Find Articles at BNET
The Writer Vasily Grossman was interviewing a frontline officer during Barbarossa and the officer estimated that only 30% of his soldiers were capable of delivering aimed shots. The problem has been addressed by militaries since WWII and modern armies are showing better percentages. Training is important but nothing can take the place of experience. Then it is a fact that a large percentage of combat soldiers never will have the self mastery under combat stress levels to deliver aimed shots-hence the use of automatic assault rifles and the tactic a spraying areas to one's immediate front. My friend Jim took a course in Combloc weapons and tactics in Germany during the 70s and it is interesting that the Reds would assign the better shooters in their fireteams the older, better engineered SKS carbine tasked for aimed shots in the semi automatic mode.
JeffinMNUSA

 

Efestos mi amigo;
I found a copy the Sudoplapov NKVD account of the SCW and will let you know of my read of the facts in a month or two. For certain the Spanish Civil War WAS the opening act of WWII what with the competing totalitarian systems of the time supplying arms (and controls) on the two sides. For certain the great western writers-other than Orwell-misread the situation. AND FOR CERTAIN; Francisco Franco was a great man simply for have kept his country out of the conflagation that followed.
JeffinMNUSA

Encontré una copia la cuenta de Sudoplapov NKVD del SCW y le dejaré saber de mis leídos de los hechos en un mes o dos. Con seguridad la Guerra Civil Española ERA el acto que se abre de WWII que con los sistemas totalitarios competidores del tiempo suministrando armas (y mandos) en los dos lados. Con seguridad los grandes escritores occidentales - además de Orwell-leer-mal la situación. Y con SEGURIDAD; Francisco Franco era un gran hombre simplemente para tienen el cuidado de su país del conflagation.

Later; A few pages in this rambling account and Si Senor George-NKVD was way more interested in warring on the Trotskyites than defeating Franco (Orwell in his "Homage to Catalonia" account describes how well supplied and armed the secret police were, in stark comparrisson to the threadbare existence of the POUM foot soldier). That Spain ended up under Franco seems to have been of secondary importance so long as there was "no room for Trotsky anywhere in the world" after the SCW.

 

In spite of his idolization by conservatives, Orwell was a well-known socialist in his time. Unlike his contemporaries, however, he was neither wide-eyed nor gullible. He was extremely committed to democratic principles and the rule of law and he saw Stalinism as an abhorrent betrayal of principle. Have you read Road to Wigan Pier? The last chapter on how fish and chips saved capitalism is a hilarious critique on consumer culture that is no less real when applied to McDonald's and Wendy's.

 

Well in fact the Stalinism was near to kill him during his participation in the SCW. See "Homage to Catalonia" He narrow escaped from the "police" ... well NKVD ... IMHO ... Animal Farm ... 1984 ...and others ... were almost revolutionary in the "momentum" when he wrote them ... Still TODAY the PCE (Spanish comunist party) states they were fighting for democracy in the SCW!!!!

PS I'm looking for my old "Orwell's War Diary 1940 -42" ...

 

Hi all
You are of course aware that George Orwell served five years as a policeman in Burma, 1922 to 1927, with the Indian Imperial Police force. He then wrote his first novel "Burmese Days". This experience obviously shaped him and what he did after.

Wikipedia link - Burmese Days - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

AFAIK they actually were, Franco led a military revolt against an elected government.
It's not a sure thing that had Franco lost the communists could have retained control, just as it's not sure they could have gained the domininant position they had in 1938 without the military revolt giving them the upper hand as the only group on the government side with easy access to foreign weapons (the real result of the ill advised blockade).
IMO a pact between the Catholic Church and the stalinists, like the one Mussolini got, is a historical impossiblity and if the Church "goes underground" control of the country is going to be impossible to achieve. The attempt by the Moscow supported communists to "purge" the other leftist groups with Franco at the gates of Madrid (and the disbandment of the international brigades, a whole volunteer force that were possibly the government's best troops, a year later) was pure madness, but is typical of a civil war, think Ciang and Mao and the Japanese or what sometimes happened in a lot of "partisan" groups towards the end of WW2. IMO Orwell was basically a man who thought with his own brain, and had a good one, these people rarely fit into any "political slot" as they are likely to see the wrongs of all power systems, some may grudgingly accept Churchill's "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" but are still unlikely to keep their mouth shut in the face of what the see as wrong. (And there are lots of things called "democracy" that have very little to do with the people having a say in the decisions, animal farm can be applied to describe any entrenched power group). IMO the Spannish civil war is not the start of WW2, it was basically a civil war, not a war for territorial gains and/or economic dominance.

 

Although you change the reference to the PCE (Comunist) to a mention to the Republic, I must say that there were very few (and shy) democrats in our Republic... As Eric Blair better kown as George Orwell discovered during the SCW.

The PCE didn't fight for democracy ... neither the PSOE (Spanish SOCIALIST party) , I wrote socialist not labourist because they have so few things in common with the british leftish, basically they were "revolutionaries" not democrats ... the first discourse of his father founder Pablo Iglesias included a death menace to the rest of the parliment ... Thouse days the socialists controlled The "guardia de Asalto" something like the carabinieri ...that MURDERED Calvo Sotelo in July 1936, a most important leader of the Right parties. The men that did it took cover in the house of a socialist deputy. Paul Preston writes that Franco was very impressed with this murder.

The conservatives had returned the power to the winners of the early 1936 elections ... they weren´t fascist ... or not as so fascist that the "good guys" say.

...Not only the police did nothing to stop the many previous terrorist attaks. The president of the Republic, Manuel Azaña declared that he (and the police) would do NOTHING about these attaks... He has lost the elections in 1934 because he had ordered to suppress an anarchist uprising that lead to the "Casas viejas events". Politics sucks ... Is this a matter of a what if.?

The spanish fascist party had a marginal importance in 1936. Franco adopted it for obvious political reasons. The Republicans were stupid enough to shot his leader Jose Antonio who really disliked Franco...

(By rote) In fact one of the reasons for the non intervention pact was that the foreing office informs show that the Spanish Republic would became a revolutionary (for comunist) state in few time.

FAMILY references : When Grandpa heard that "La Pasionaria" Mrs Dolores Ibarruri , comunist deputy, had menaced Calvo Sotelo that "it was your last discourse in this chamber" «Este hombre ha hablado por última vez»... and actually it was. He was sure that that people would kill them all ... there would be a Civil War.

SCW: The very democratic Republic started the bombardment of civil population ... my hometown was bombed, slightly initially, but with increased force, from the 23 july 1936 ( the SCW started the 18 july) till the the italian fighters caused them too heavy looses.

PS: so Franco had the right to retaliation, as many members of this forums state in the thread: Arthur Harris ... Well, I don't think so.