George Orwell

Biography

Eric Arthur Blair — who wrote under the name George Orwell — arrived in Barcelona in December 1936 intending to report on the war. The revolutionary atmosphere of the city, where workers' militias had effectively seized control, immediately radicalized him. He joined the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) militia, fighting on the cold, static Aragon front for months. In May 1937 he was shot through the throat by a Nationalist sniper, the bullet narrowly missing his carotid artery. While recovering, he witnessed the Stalinist suppression of the POUM and anarchists in Barcelona's 'May Days' street fighting — an experience that convinced him that Soviet Communism was a greater enemy of the left than fascism. His account of the war, Homage to Catalonia, was initially a commercial failure — Orwell's left-wing publisher Victor Gollancz refused to publish it, fearing it would damage Communist Party interests. But the experience transformed Orwell's political outlook and provided the raw material for Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The pigs who corrupt the revolution, the rewriting of history, the pervasive surveillance state — all have their roots in what Orwell witnessed in Spain. He survived the war by days: the POUM was declared illegal and its leaders arrested for 'Trotskyist' treason just as he escaped across the border.

Key Battles