Historical context
General map of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39).During the 19th century, a motif known as the two Spains began to emerge in Spanish literature, in which writers such as Mariano José de Larra depicted a polarised Spain, divided into progressive and conservative factions.[2] When the Second Spanish Republic was established in 1931,[3] it came at a time when Europe was experiencing rise in far-right politics, including fascism and Nazism.[4] The Spanish Civil War broke out on 18 July 1936, when the Nationalist faction of the Spanish Army, supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, launched a coup d'état against the elected government of the Spanish Republic.[5]
As the Republican government was initially paralysed by the coup, resistance to it was organised by the general population in cities throughout the country, culminating in a social revolution that saw anarchist and socialist workers bring Spain's industrial economy under social ownership.[6] Thousands of volunteers came to Spain from around the world in order to fight against fascism, in the defence of the Revolution.[7]
Biographical context
Joining the war
Orwell left for Spain just before Christmas 1936, shortly after submitting The Road to Wigan Pier for publication, the first book in which he explicitly espouses socialism.
Within the first few pages of Homage to Catalonia, Orwell writes, "I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do." However, it has been suggested that Orwell intended all along to enlist.[8]
Orwell had been told that he would not be permitted to enter Spain without some supporting documents from a British left-wing organisation, so he sought the assistance of the British Communist Party. When its leader, Harry Pollitt, asked if he would join the International Brigades, Orwell replied that he wanted to see for himself what was happening first. After Pollitt refused to help, Orwell contacted the Independent Labour Party (ILP), whose officials agreed to help him. They accredited Orwell as a correspondent for their weekly paper, the New Leader, which provided Orwell the means to go legitimately to Spain.[9] The ILP issued him a letter of introduction to their representative in Barcelona, John McNair.
Upon arriving in Spain, Orwell is reported to have told McNair that he had come to Spain to join the militia to fight against Fascism.[10] While McNair also describes Orwell as expressing a desire to write "some articles" for the New Statesman and Nation with an intention "to stir working-class opinion in Britain and France", when presented the opportunity to write, Orwell told him writing "was quite secondary and his main reason for coming was to fight against Fascism." McNair took Orwell to the POUM (Catalan: Partit Obrer d'Unificació Marxista; English: Workers' Party of Marxist Unification), an anti-Stalinist communist party.[11]
By Orwell's own admission, it was somewhat by chance that he joined the POUM: "I knew that I was serving in something called the POUM. (I had only joined the POUM militia rather than any other because I happened to arrive in Barcelona with ILP papers), but I did not realize that there were serious differences between the political parties."[12] He later notes, "As far as my purely personal preferences went I would have liked to join the Anarchists." He also nearly joined Communist International's International Column midway through his tour because he thought they were likeliest to send him to Madrid, where he wanted to join the action.
Writing
Orwell wrote diaries, made press-cuttings, and took photographs during his time in Spain, but they were all stolen before he left. In May 1937, he wrote the publisher of his previous books saying, "I greatly hope I come out of this alive if only to write a book about it."[13] According to his eventual publisher, "Homage was begun in February [1937] in the trenches, written on scraps, the backs of envelopes, toilet paper. The written material was sent to Barcelona to McNair's office, where his wife Eileen Blair, working as a volunteer, typed it out section by section. Slowly it grew into a sizable parcel. McNair kept it in his own room."[14]
Upon escaping across the French border in June 1937, he stopped at the first post office available to telegram the National Statesman, asking if it would like a first-hand article. The offer was accepted but the article, "Eyewitness in Barcelona",[15] was rejected by editor Kingsley Martin on grounds that his writing "could cause trouble"[16][17][18] (it was picked up by Controversy). In the months after leaving Spain, Orwell wrote a number of essays on the war, notably "Spilling the Spanish Beans" and a praiseful review of Franz Borkenau's The Spanish Cockpit.
Writing from his cottage at Wallington, Hertfordshire, he finished around New Year's Day 1938.[19][11]
