Discussion #30: Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell

Welcome to Citizen Scholar! Since launching six months ago we&#8217;re reaching hundreds of people a week, so we thank you for your support. If you enjoy our writing on civic virtue and individual excellence, we humbly ask you to share Citizen Scholar with your family members and friends who may enjoy it. The contents of the audio and text formats are identical and meant to accommodate your preferences. Please let us know if you have any feedback - we&#8217;re always looking for ways to improve!<br/><br/>Introduction<br/><br/>George Orwell published his memoir of the Spanish Civil War in 1938, while the conflict was still ongoing. It chronicles the roughly seven-month period he spent in Spain contributing to the Republican cause. Orwell arrived in Barcelona in December of 1936, eager to join and document the fight, and later fled to France to escape political persecution in June of 1937.<br/><br/>In the intervening period, Orwell experienced the extremes of war and politics. This arc - which led to a significant personal transformation - attracts romantics and history lovers on its own merits. These events take on added significance given their influence on a writer whose work left such a mark on the events and thinking of the Twentieth Century. The path to the effective warnings against Stalinism in Animal Farm and 1984 along with the testament to intellectual honesty that Orwell&#8217;s work became, runs right through Homage to Catalonia.<br/><br/>All the Best Matadors were Fascists<br/><br/>A few months before Orwell arrived in Spain, Nationalist forces &#8211; a coalition of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and others &#8211; orchestrated an insurrection against the Republican government. While the Nationalists successfully gained control of much of western Spain, military units that rose up for the Nationalist cause in Barcelona were suppressed. A coalition of hard-left factions allied with the government participated in the suppression and took over the city. As a convinced socialist, Orwell was fasc