Orwell in Spain

by George Orwell

  Finally, Spain of a hundred years ago. Spanish Circus recounts the reign of Carlos IV, Godoy2 (the ‘Prince of Peace’), Napoleon, Trafalgar, palace intrigues, Goya’s portraits – it is that period. At this particular moment I find it rather hard to read such a book. Spain is too much bound up in my mind with flooded trenches, the rattle of machine guns, food-shortage and lies in the newspapers. But if you want to escape from that aspect of Spain, this is probably the book you are looking for. It is written with distinction and, as far as I can judge, it is a piece of accurate historical research. The way in which Mr. Armstrong has not exploited the scandalous story of Godoy and Maria Luisa should be an example to all popular historians.

  1. C.L.R. James (1901–89) was born in Trinidad but lived most of his life in England, where he died. A Marxist, but not a member of the Communist Party, he wrote on politics and cricket. He settled in Lancashire in the 1930s and wrote on cricket for the Manchester Guardian leading to the fine book Beyond the Boundary (1963). He worked for a British West Indian Federation (proposed 1947) and lectured in the USA, but fell victim of McCarthyism and was expelled.

  2. Manuel de Godoy (1767–1851) was twice Prime Minister of Spain. When a member of the royal bodyguard, he became the lover of Maria Luisa of Parma, wife of future king, Charles IV. He sided with the French in the Napoleonic Wars, and in 1807 agreed to the partition of Portugal. The following year, Charles was forced to abdicate in favour of the heir apparent (later Ferdinand VII), and by a device, Godoy, with Charles and Ferdinand, became a prisoner of Napoleon. Martin Armstrong (1882–1974) was to be one of the contributors to Orwell’s ‘Story by Five Authors’, 30 October 1942 (1623).

  [413A]

  To H. N. Brailsford

  10 December 1937

  The Stores, Wallington, Near Baldock, Herts

  Dear Mr Brailsford,1

  I cannot exactly claim your acquaintance, though I believe I did meet you for a moment in Barcelona, and I know you met my wife there.

  I have been trying to get the truth about certain aspects of the May fighting in Barcelona. I see that in the New Statesman of May 22nd you state that the P.O.U.M. partisans attacked the Government with tanks and guns ‘stolen from Government arsenals’. I was, of course, in Barcelona throughout the fighting, and though I cannot answer for tanks I know as well as one can be certain about such a thing that no guns were firing anywhere. In various papers there occurs a version of what is evidently the same story, to the effect that the P.O.U.M. were using a battery of stolen 75 mm. guns on the Plaza de España. I know this story to be untrue for a number of reasons. To begin with, I have it from eye-witnesses who were on the spot that there were no guns there; secondly, I examined the buildings round the square afterwards and there were no signs of gunfire; thirdly, throughout the fighting I did not hear the sound of artillery, which is unmistakeable if one is used to it. It would seem therefore that there has been a mistake. I wonder if you could be kind enough to tell me what was the source of the story about the guns and tanks? I am sorry to trouble you, but I want to get this story cleared up if I can.

  Perhaps I ought to tell you that I write under the name of George Orwell.

  Yours truly

  Eric Blair

  1. Henry Noel Brailsford (1873–1958) was a socialist intellectual, author, political journalist and leader-writer for the Manchester Guardian, Daily News and the Nation; and editor of the New Leader, weekly organ of the ILP, 1922–6. His article in the New Statesman & Nation was published in two parts. In the first, ‘Anarchists and Communists in Spain’, 22 May 1937, he said that the POUM ‘represented the older and now heretical Communist position. It opposed any alliance with the middle-class even for the salvation of the Republic: for the sake of political as distinct from social democracy it would make no sacrifices to unity. Against it, far more fiercely than against the Anarchists, the Communists waged a merciless feud, and charged it with all the treasons ascribed to Trotsky… the Anarchists with whom [the POUM] allied itself stand farther from its unbending Marxism than do the Socialists whom it assailed with its tanks and guns stolen from Government arsenals.’

  [414]

  Review of Storm Over Spain by Mairin Mitchell; Spanish Rehearsal by Arnold Lunn; Catalonia Infelix by E. Allison Peers; Wars of Ideas in Spain by Josée Castillejo; Invertebrate Spain by Josée Ortega y Gasset

  Time and Tide, 11 December 1937

  Storm Over Spain sounds like a war-book, but though it covers a period that includes the civil war the author says very little about the war itself – a subject which is obviously distasteful to her. As she very truly remarks, the atrocity stories that are so eagerly circulated by both sides are an indictment not of Right or Left, but simply of war.

  Her book is valuable for a number of reasons, but especially because, unlike almost all English writers on Spain,1 she gives a fair deal to the Spanish Anarchists. The Anarchists and Syndicalists have been persistently misrepresented in England, and the average English person still retains his eighteen-ninetyish notion that Anarchism is the same thing as anarchy. Anyone who wants to know what Spanish Anarchism stands for, and the remarkable things it achieved, especially in Catalonia, during the first few months of the revolution, should read Chapter VII of Miss Mitchell’s book. The pity is that so much of what the Anarchists achieved has already been undone, ostensibly because of military necessity, actually in order to prepare the way for the return of capitalism when the war is over.

  Mr. Arnold Lunn2 writes as a supporter of General Franco and believes life in ‘Red’ Spain (which he has not visited) to be one continuous massacre. On the authority of Mr. Arthur Bryant,3 who, ‘as an historian, is well accustomed to weigh evidence’, he puts the number of non-combatants massacred by the ‘reds’ since the beginning of the war as 350,000. It would appear, also, that ‘the burning of a nun in petrol or the sawing off of a Conservative tradesman’s legs’ are ‘the commonplaces of “democratic” Spain’.

  Now, I was about six months in Spain, almost exclusively among Socialists, Anarchists and Communists, and if I remember rightly I never even once sawed off a Conservative tradesman’s legs. I am almost certain I should remember doing such a thing, however commonplace it may seem to Mr. Lunn and Mr. Bryant. But will Mr. Lunn believe me? No, he will not. And meanwhile stories every bit as silly as this are being manufactured on the other side, and people who were sane two years ago are swallowing them eagerly. That, apparently, is what war, even war in other countries, does to the human mind.

  Professor Allison Peers4 is the leading English authority on Catalonia. His book is a history of the province, and naturally, at the present moment, the most interesting chapters are those towards the end, describing the war and the revolution. Unlike Mr. Lunn, Professor Peers understands the internal situation on the Government side, and Chapter XIII of his book gives an excellent account of the strains and stresses between the various political parties. He believes that the war may last for years, that Franco is likely to win, and that there is no hope of democracy in Spain when the war is over. All of them depressing conclusions, but the first two are quite probably correct and the last is most assuredly so.

  Finally, two books which really belong to an earlier period, but are relevant to the civil war in so much that they give certain glimpses of its origins. Wars of Ideas in Spain is primarily a treatise on Spanish education. I am not competent to judge it, but I can admire the intellectual detachment that has been able to produce it amid the horrors of civil war. Dr. Castillejo is a professor at the University of Madrid and for thirty years past has worked for educational reform in Spain. He is now watching his life-work going down into a sea of rival fanaticisms; for, as he rather sadly recognizes, whatever else survives the war, intellectual tolerance will not. Invertebrate Spain is a collection of essays, most of them first published about 1920, on various aspects of the Spanish character. Sr. Ortega y Gasset5 is one of those writers of the type of Keyserling, who explain everything in terms of race, geog
raphy and tradition (in fact, of anything except economics), and who are constantly saying illuminating things without reaching any general conclusion. Open Invertebrate Spain and you realize immediately that you are in contact with a distinguished mind; go on reading it, and you find yourself wondering what the devil this is all about. Still, it is a distinguished mind, and if the book as a whole leaves behind an impression of vagueness, or even chaos, each separate paragraph is capable of starting an interesting train of thought.

  1. Mairin Mitchell wrote to Orwell following the publication of this review (letter undated) thanking him for the generosity with which he had treated her book, especially because, from her reading of The Road to Wigan Pier, she did not think they were in the same political camp. However, she did point out that she was ‘unlike almost all English writers on Spain’, in being Irish!

  2. Arnold Lunn (1888–1974; Kt, 1952) incurred Orwell’s wrath because he supported Franco. He was an authority on skiing and wrote books on travel and religion. With Monsignor Ronald Knox he published their correspondence about Roman Catholicism, Difficulties (1932).

  3. Sir Arthur Bryant (1899–1985), conservatively inclined historian, whose books include The Spirit of Conservatism (1929), Stanley Baldwin: A Tribute (1937), Unfinished Victory, on Germany 1918–33 (1940), The Years of Endurance, 1793–1802 (1942) and The Years of Victory 1802–12 (1944). Of Unfinished Victory, Kenneth Rose said, ‘Goebbels himself could not have composed a more ingratiating apologia for the Nazis. Anti-semitism is a recurrent theme’, yet he received ‘a whole chestful of decorations’ including a knighthood and the Companion of Honour (Sunday Telegraph, 1 August 1993).

  4. E. Allison Peers (1891–1952), an Anglican scholar of English and French literature, was appointed in 1920 to the chair of Spanish at Liverpool University. His knowledge of Spain was extensive, and he wrote several distinguished studies on that country. He wrote on contemporary Spain from well before the outbreak of the civil war for the Bulletin of Spanish Studies. Under the pseudonym Bruce Truscot he wrote the influential Redbrick University (1943).

  5. José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955), Spanish essayist and philosopher. Of his many books and essays, The Revolt of the Masses (in Spanish, 1929–30; in English, 1932) is perhaps now best known. Orwell reviewed Invertebrate Spain at greater length in ‘The Lure of Profundity’, New English Weekly, 30 December 1937 (415).

  [424]

  H. N. Brailsford to Orwell

  17 December 1937

  Dear Mr. Blair,

  The story about the theft of guns & tanks from an arsenal in the rear of the Aragón front came from the Russian Consul-General Ossienko0,1 who has since been purged. He had his notes before him & gave me date, place & the details of the forged order by which it was worked. I also took notes but haven’t got them now. The people who actually did this were Friends of Durruti2 but I gathered they were acting then & later with Poum. I had this from him at the end of April, before the rising. I accepted it, because the Consul-General struck me as a fair-minded man, who had much good to say about Anarchists. About Poum he said very little, but was in general less prejudiced than most Communists. I had confirmation later of this story from the latter.

  I’m puzzled when you now tell me that no guns were used in the rising. I hope I haven’t been unwittingly unfair.

  I hope your wife is well after her very trying time in Barcelona. You must both feel very sore.

  Sincerely Yours

  H. N. Brailsford

  P. S. Is it conceivable that the guns were stolen, but were recovered before the rising?

  1. Vladimir Antonov-Ovsïenko (1884–1937), Soviet Consul-General in Barcelona. He was recalled by Stalin to take up a high judicial post shortly after the May Events of 1937, but he disappeared soon after his return and was presumably murdered. He had led troops in the assualt on the Winter Palace at St Petersburg in 1917. Orwell refers to him in Homage to Catalonia, p. 204 [VI/234].

  2. The Friends of Durruti were an extreme anarchist group (see Thomas, 656, n. 1). Orwell refers to them in Homage to Catalonia, pp. 194–5 and 202–3 [VI/219–20 and 231–3].

  [414B]

  To H. N. Brailsford

  18 December 1937

  The Stores, Wallington, Near Baldock, Herts

  Dear Mr Brailsford,

  Thank you very much for your letter. I was very interested to know the source of the story about tanks and guns. I have no doubt the Russian ambassador told it you in good faith and from what little I know myself I should think it quite likely it was true in the form in which he gave it you. But because of the special circumstances, incidents of that kind are apt to be a little misleading. I hope it will not bore you if I add one or two more remarks about this question.

  As I say, it is quite conceivable that at some time or other the guns were stolen, because to my own knowledge, though I never actually saw it done, there was a great deal of stealing of weapons from one militia to another. But people who were not actually in the militia do not seem to have understood the arms situation. As far as possible arms were prevented from getting to the P.O.U.M. and Anarchist militias, and they were left only with the bare minimum that would enable them to hold the line but not to make any offensive action. There were times when the men in the trenches actually had not enough rifles to go round, and at no time until the militias were broken up was artillery allowed to get to the Aragón front in any quantity. When the Anarchists made their attacks on the Jaca road in March–April they had to do so with very little artillery support and had frightful casualties. At this time (March–April) there were only about 12 of our aeroplanes operating over Huesca. When the Popular Army attacked in June a man who took part in the attack tells me that there were 160. In particular, the Russian arms were kept from the Aragón front at the time when they were being issued to the police forces in the rear. Until April I saw only one Russian weapon, a sub-machine gun, which quite possibly had been stolen. In April two batteries of Russian 75 mm. guns arrived – again possibly stolen and conceivably the guns referred to by the Russian ambassador. As to pistols and revolvers, which are very necessary in trench warfare, the Government would not issue permits to ordinary militiamen and militia officers to buy them, and one could only buy them illegally from the Anarchists. In these circumstances the outlook everyone had was that one had to get hold of weapons by hook or by crook, and all the militias were constantly pilfering them from one another. I remember an officer describing to me how he and some others had stolen a field gun from a gun-park belonging to the P.S.U.C.,1and I would have done the same myself without any hesitation in the circumstances. This kind of thing always goes on in war-time, but, coming together with the newspaper stories to the effect that the P.O.U.M. was a disguised Fascist organisation, it was easy to suggest that they stole weapons not to use against the Fascists but to use against the Government. Owing to the Communist control of the press the similar behaviour by other units was kept dark. For instance there is not much doubt that in March some partisans of the P.S.U.C. stole 12 tanks from a Government arsenal by means of a forged order. La Batalla, the P.O.U.M. paper, was fined 5000 pesetas and suppressed for 4 days for reporting this, but the Anarchist paper, Solidaridad Obrera, was able to report it with impunity. As to the guns, if stolen, being kept in Barcelona, it seems to me immensely unlikely. Some of the men at the front would certainly have heard of it and would have raised hell if they had known weapons were being kept back, and I should doubt if you could keep two batteries of guns concealed even in a town the size of Barcelona. In any case they would have come to light later, when the P.O.U.M. was suppressed. I do not, of course, know what was in all the P.O.U.M. strongholds, but I was in the three principal ones during the Barcelona fighting, and I know that they had only enough weapons for the usual armed guards that were kept on buildings. They had no machine guns, for instance. And I think it is certain that there was no artillery-fire during the fighting. I see that you refer to the Friends of Durruti being more or les
s under P.O.U.M. control, and John Langdon-Davies2 says something to the same effect in his report in the News Chronicle. This story was only put about in order to brand the P.O.U.M. as ‘Trotskyist’. Actually the Friends of Durruti, which was an extremist organisation, was bitterly hostile to the P.O.U.M. (from their point of view a more or less right-wing organisation) and so far as I know no one was a member of both. The only connection between the two is that at the time of the May fighting the P.O.U.M. are said to have published approval of an inflammatory poster which was put up by the Friends of Durruti. Again there is some doubt about this – it is certain that there was no poster, as described in the News Chronicle and elsewhere, but there may have been a handbill of some kind. It is impossible to discover, as all records have been destroyed and the Spanish authorities would not allow me to send out of Spain files even of the P.S.U.C. newspapers, let alone the others. The only sure thing is that the Communist reports on the May fighting, and still more on the alleged Fascist plot by the P.O.U.M., are completely untruthful. What worries me is not these lies being told, which is what one expects in war-time, but that the English left-wing press has refused to allow the other side a hearing. Eg. the papers made a tremendous splash about Nin and the others being in Fascist pay, but have failed to mention that the Spanish Government, other than the Communist members, have denied that there was any truth in the story. I suppose the underlying idea is that they are somehow aiding the Spanish Government by allowing the Communists a free hand. I am sorry to burden you with all this stuff, but have tried to do all I can, which is not much, to get the truth about what has happened in Spain more widely known. It does not matter to me personally when they say that I am in Fascist pay, but it is different for the thousands who are in prison in Spain and are liable to be murdered by the secret police as so many have been already. I doubt whether it would be possible to do much for the Spanish anti-Fascist prisoners, but some kind of organised protest would probably get many of the foreigners released.