Book Review: Orwell's Homage To Catalonia
George Orwell is best known for writing 1984 and Animal Farm. However, he also was one of the very small group of political commentators who were willing to put their words into action. He went to Spain in December 1936, arriving in Barcelona as a journalist, but quickly signed up with a local militia (P.O.U.M., a small left-wing communist party allied with the anarchist F.A.I. and the associated C.N.T. union). Actually, I'm going to quit with the narration now. It's probably been done a thousand times. Here, read this for the summary.
What I really wanted to do was talk about what an excellent book this is. I know that lavishing praise on something is generally not a good way to go about reviewing something, so I'll try to minimize such things. However, the book serves as an excellent read on the situation in the war, which was very poorly (and inaccurately) reported by the international press. In fact, Orwell states that one of his reasons for writing the book was to counter some of the myths that had taken hold in the West with regards to factionalism in the Republican forces. Little of the more scholarly literature on the war deals in any depth with the extent of control of the Anarchists in Catalonia and what sort of collectivizing they were able to achieve. This is part of what is so interesting about the book. Orwell was amazed at the proletarian atmosphere in Barcelona when he arrived, and what he saw both in the rear and at the front (the military operated on a more-or-less egalitarian system, with all ranks treated with equal respect, pay, rations, etc.) convinced him that, for once in the long history of "people's revolutions" the people were for once actually in power.
Of course, such things could not last. The communists and liberals in the government wanted the revolution not only to be brought to a halt, but to be reversed, so they could gain the support of the Spanish bourgeoisie and convince the Western countries that Spain was not a country that would threaten their colonial ambitions and their oppression of their own working class. In effect, the communists wanted Spain to be another bourgeois democracy, following the Soviet Union's line that world revolution must wait (of course, the Soviet government by this time had no interest in revolution, they being the ruling class themselves). The anarchists on the other hand wanted the revolution to go forward, believing there was no point in fighting Franco and fascism if the worker would go back to being the drudge of the rich at the end of it. Initially, Orwell was indifferent to the political arguments (he had come to fight fascism, not to fight for any specific ideology), but by the time of the Barcelona street fighting he had come around to believing that the anarchists were right and the government was moving towards a fascistic stance themselves.
The whole book is told in the style of humor that is a hallmark of Orwell's writing. His descriptions of life in the trenches are infused with genuine humor, such as his remark that pacifists should take pictures of the lice that are an unavoidable part of war and print them in pamphlets to discourage recruitment. Even events that were surely frightening at the time (such as when he was taking a picture of a machine-gun crew and they accidentally opened fire on him) are retold in a humorous manner.
Beyond the value of Homage To Catalonia as a eyewitness account of the Catalonian collectivisation and Barcelona fighting, it is simply a very interesting book. Orwell's description of trench life/warfare is quite absorbing, and his discussion of the changes in life behind the front as the war went are especially interesting in light of the atmosphere in which he entered the country.
Here at the end I just want to point out that we have in Orwell something that you never see anymore: an ideologue who is willing to actually fight for what he believes in, far removed from your punk-rock anarchists and draft-dodging warmongers who flee at the first threat to their comfort and well-being. Make no mistake, Spain was a warzone, as much as any other. Thousands of foreigners and hundreds of thousands of Spaniards died in the war. The fascists were not lenient in any way with prisoners, and many foreigners were executed by them. Orwell himself caught a sniper's bullet in the neck and was lucky to survive. Even as I sit here praising him for his willingness to fight for his convictions, it is an honest question whether I would be willing to do the same.
What I really wanted to do was talk about what an excellent book this is. I know that lavishing praise on something is generally not a good way to go about reviewing something, so I'll try to minimize such things. However, the book serves as an excellent read on the situation in the war, which was very poorly (and inaccurately) reported by the international press. In fact, Orwell states that one of his reasons for writing the book was to counter some of the myths that had taken hold in the West with regards to factionalism in the Republican forces. Little of the more scholarly literature on the war deals in any depth with the extent of control of the Anarchists in Catalonia and what sort of collectivizing they were able to achieve. This is part of what is so interesting about the book. Orwell was amazed at the proletarian atmosphere in Barcelona when he arrived, and what he saw both in the rear and at the front (the military operated on a more-or-less egalitarian system, with all ranks treated with equal respect, pay, rations, etc.) convinced him that, for once in the long history of "people's revolutions" the people were for once actually in power.
Of course, such things could not last. The communists and liberals in the government wanted the revolution not only to be brought to a halt, but to be reversed, so they could gain the support of the Spanish bourgeoisie and convince the Western countries that Spain was not a country that would threaten their colonial ambitions and their oppression of their own working class. In effect, the communists wanted Spain to be another bourgeois democracy, following the Soviet Union's line that world revolution must wait (of course, the Soviet government by this time had no interest in revolution, they being the ruling class themselves). The anarchists on the other hand wanted the revolution to go forward, believing there was no point in fighting Franco and fascism if the worker would go back to being the drudge of the rich at the end of it. Initially, Orwell was indifferent to the political arguments (he had come to fight fascism, not to fight for any specific ideology), but by the time of the Barcelona street fighting he had come around to believing that the anarchists were right and the government was moving towards a fascistic stance themselves.
The whole book is told in the style of humor that is a hallmark of Orwell's writing. His descriptions of life in the trenches are infused with genuine humor, such as his remark that pacifists should take pictures of the lice that are an unavoidable part of war and print them in pamphlets to discourage recruitment. Even events that were surely frightening at the time (such as when he was taking a picture of a machine-gun crew and they accidentally opened fire on him) are retold in a humorous manner.
Beyond the value of Homage To Catalonia as a eyewitness account of the Catalonian collectivisation and Barcelona fighting, it is simply a very interesting book. Orwell's description of trench life/warfare is quite absorbing, and his discussion of the changes in life behind the front as the war went are especially interesting in light of the atmosphere in which he entered the country.
Here at the end I just want to point out that we have in Orwell something that you never see anymore: an ideologue who is willing to actually fight for what he believes in, far removed from your punk-rock anarchists and draft-dodging warmongers who flee at the first threat to their comfort and well-being. Make no mistake, Spain was a warzone, as much as any other. Thousands of foreigners and hundreds of thousands of Spaniards died in the war. The fascists were not lenient in any way with prisoners, and many foreigners were executed by them. Orwell himself caught a sniper's bullet in the neck and was lucky to survive. Even as I sit here praising him for his willingness to fight for his convictions, it is an honest question whether I would be willing to do the same.
posted by Jimmy at 3:49 PM
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