Homage to Catalonia - The Anarchist Library

120 Pages·2012·0.64 MB·English

flour-chutestorndownforfirewood.Lateron,togetfirewood
forthetroopsfartherback,partiesofmenweresentinlorries
to wreck the place systematically. They used to smash the
floorboards of a room by bursting a hand-grenade in it. La Homage to Catalonia
Granja, our store and cook-house, had possibly at one time
been a convent. It had huge courtyards and out-houses, cov-
ering an acre or more, with stabling for thirty or forty horses.
The country-houses in that part of Spain are of no interest George Orwell
architecturally, but their farm-buildings, of lime-washed
stone with round arches and magnificent roof-beams, are
noble places, built on a plan that has probably not altered for
centuries. Sometimes it gave you a sneaking sympathy with
the Fascist ex-owners to see the way the militia treated the
buildings they had seized. In La Granja every room that was
notinusehadbeenturnedintoalatrine—afrightfulshambles
of smashed furniture and excrement. The little church that
adjoined it, its walls perforated by shell-holes, had its floor
inches deep in dung. In the great courtyard where the cooks
ladled out the rations the litter of rusty tins, mud, mule dung,
anddecayingfoodwasrevolting.Itgavepointtotheoldarmy
song:
Therearerats,rats,Ratsasbigascats,Inthequartermaster’s
store!
The ones at La Granja itself really were as big as cats, or
nearly; great bloated brutes that waddled over the beds of
muck, too impudent even to run away unless you shot at
them.
Springwasreallyhereatlast.Theblueintheskywassofter,
theairgrewsuddenlybalmy.Thefrogswerematingnoisilyin
theditches.Roundthedrinking-poolthatservedforthevillage
mulesIfoundexquisitegreenfrogsthesizeofapenny,sobril-
liantthattheyounggrasslookeddullbesidethem.Peasantlads
went out with buckets hunting for snails, which they roasted
alive on sheets of tin. As soon as the weather improved the 1938
peasantshadturnedoutforthespringploughing.Itistypicalof
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the worst of all. At the beginning we had been issued with a
packetofcigarettesaday,thenitgotdowntoeightcigarettes
a day, then to five. Finally there were ten deadly days when
therewasnoissueoftobaccoatall.Forthefirsttime,inSpain,
I saw something that you see every day in London — people
pickingupfag-ends.
Towards the end of March I got a poisoned hand that had
tobelancedandputinasling.Ihadtogointohospital,butit
was not worth sending me to Sietamo for such a petty injury,
soIstayedintheso—calledhospitalatMonflorite,whichwas
merelyacasualtyclearingstation.Iwastheretendays,partof
thetimeinbed.Thepracticantes(hospitalassistants)stoleprac-
ticallyeveryvaluableobjectIpossessed,includingmycamera
and all my photographs. At the front everyone stole, it was
the inevitable effect of shortage, but the hospital people were
alwaystheworst.Later,inthehospitalatBarcelona,anAmer-
icanwhohadcometojointheInternationalColumnonaship
that was torpedoed by an Italian submarine, told me how he
wascarriedashorewounded,andhow,evenastheyliftedhim
into the ambulance, the stretcher-bearers pinched his wrist-
watch.
While my arm was in the sling I spent several blissful
days wandering about the country-side. Monflorite was the
usual huddle of mud and stone houses, with narrow tortuous
alleys that had been churned by lorries till they looked like
the craters of the moon. The church had been badly knocked
about but was used as a military store. In the whole neigh-
bourhoodtherewereonlytwofarm-housesofanysize,Torre
LorenzoandTorreFabian,andonlytworeallylargebuildings,
obviously the houses of the landowners who had once lorded
it over the countryside; you could see their wealth reflected
in the miserable huts of the peasants. Just behind the river,
close to the front line, there was an enormous flour-mill
with a country-house attached to it. It seemed shameful to
see the huge costly machine rusting useless and the wooden
79
everything I have encountered. Other insects, mosquitoes for
instance,makeyousuffermore,butatleasttheyaren’tresident
vermin. The human louse somewhat resembles a tiny lobster,
andheliveschieflyinyourtrousers.Shortofburningallyour
Contents
clothesthereisnoknownwayofgettingridofhim.Downthe
seams of your trousers he lays his glittering white eggs, like
tinygrainsofrice,whichhatchoutandbreedfamiliesoftheir
own at horrible speed. I think the pacifists might find it help- ChapterOne 5
fultoillustratetheirpamphletswithenlargedphotographsof
ChapterTwo 17
lice.Gloryofwar,indeed!Inwarallsoldiersarelousy,atleast
when it is warm enough. The men who fought at Verdun, at
ChapterThree 25
Waterloo, at Flodden, at Senlac, at Thermopylae — every one
ofthemhadlicecrawlingoverhistesticles.Wekeptthebrutes
ChapterFour 40
down to some extent by burning out the eggs and by bathing
as often as we could face it. Nothing short of lice could have ChapterFive 48
drivenmeintothatice-coldriver.
Everything was running short — boots, clothes, tobacco, ChapterSix 74
soap,candles,matches,oliveoil.Ouruniformsweredropping
ChapterSeven 88
topieces,andmanyofthemenhadnoboots,onlyrope-soled
sandals. You came on piles of worn-out boots everywhere.
ChapterEight 104
Oncewekeptadug-outfireburningfortwodaysmainlywith
boots, which are not bad fuel. By this time my wife was in
ChapterNine 111
Barcelonaandusedtosendmetea,chocolate,andevencigars
when such things were procurable, but even in Barcelona ChapterTen 124
everythingwasrunningshort,especiallytobacco.Theteawas
a godsend, though we had no milk and seldom any sugar. ChapterEleven 153
Parcels were constantly being sent from England to men in
ChapterTwelve 183
thecontingentbuttheyneverarrived;food,clothes,cigarettes
— everything was either refused by the Post Office or seized
ChapterThirteen 198
in France. Curiously enough, the only firm that succeeded in
sending packets of tea — even, on one memorable occasion, a
ChapterFourteen 217
tin of biscuits — to my wife was the Army and Navy Stores.
Poor old Army and Navy! They did their duty nobly, but per-
haps they might have felt happier if the stuff had been going
toFranco’ssideofthebarricade.Theshortageoftobaccowas
78 3
tokeepupthespiritsofthetroops.Itdidnotneedmuchmili-
taryknowledgetoseethattherewouldbenomajoractionon
thissideofHuesca,atanyrateforthetimebeing.Thestrategic
pointwastheroadtoJaca,overontheotherside.Later,when
theAnarchistsmadetheirattacksontheJacaroad,ourjobwas
tomake‘holdingattacks’andforcetheFasciststodiverttroops
fromtheotherside.
Duringallthistime,aboutsixweeks,therewasonlyoneac-
tiononourpartofthefront.ThiswaswhenourShockTroopers
attacked the Manicomio, a disused lunatic asylum which the
Fascistshadconvertedintoafortress.Therewereseveralhun-
dred refugee Germans serving with the P.O.U.M. They were
organizedinaspecialbattalioncalledtheBatall6ndeCheque,
and from a military point of view they were on quite a differ-
entlevelfromtherestofthemilitia—indeed,weremorelike
soldiersthananyoneIsawinSpain,excepttheAssaultGuards
andsomeoftheInternationalColumn.Theattackwasmucked
up,asusual.Howmanyoperationsinthiswar,ontheGovern-
ment side, were not mucked up, I wonder? The Shock Troops
tooktheManicomiobystorm,butthetroops,ofIforgetwhich
militia,whoweretosupportthembyseizingtheneighbouring
hillthatcommandedtheManicomio,werebadlyletdown.The
captainwholedthemwasoneofthoseRegularArmyofficers
ofdoubtfulloyaltywhomtheGovernmentpersistedinemploy-
ing.EitherfromfrightortreacheryhewarnedtheFascistsby
flingingabombwhentheyweretwohundredyardsaway.Iam
gladtosayhismenshothimdeadonthespot.Butthesurprise-
attack was no surprise, and the militiamen were mown down
byheavyfireanddrivenoffthehill,andatnightfalltheShock
TroopshadtoabandontheManicomio.Throughthenightthe
ambulancesfileddowntheabominableroadtoSietamo,killing
thebadlywoundedwiththeirjoltings.
All of us were lousy by this time; though still cold it was
warmenoughforthat.Ihavehadabigexperienceofbodyver-
minofvariouskinds,andforsheerbeastlinessthelousebeats
77
sought after). You could explore in the daytime as well, but
mostlyithadtobedonecrawlingonallfours.Itwasqueerto
creepaboutinthoseempty,fertilefieldswhereeverythinghad
beenarrestedjustattheharvest-moment.Lastyear’scropshad
Chapter One
neverbeentouched.Theunprunedvinesweresnakingacross
the ground, the cobs on the standing maize had gone as hard
as stone, the mangels and sugar-beets were hyper — trophied
into huge woody lumps. How the peasants must have cursed IN the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, the day before I joined
botharmies!Sometimespartiesofmenwentspud-gatheringin themilitia,IsawanItalianmilitiamanstandinginfrontofthe
noman’sland.Aboutamiletotherightofus,wherethelines officers’table.
were closer together, there was a patch of potatoes that was He was a tough-looking youth of twenty-five or six, with
frequented both by the Fascists and ourselves. We went there reddish-yellow hair and powerful shoulders. His peaked
inthedaytime,theyonlyatnight,asitwascommandedbyour leathercapwaspulledfiercelyoveroneeye.Hewasstanding
machine-guns.Onenighttoourannoyancetheyturnedouten in profile to me, his chin on his breast, gazing with a puzzled
masseandclearedupthewholepatch.Wediscoveredanother frownatamapwhichoneoftheofficershadopenonthetable.
patchfartheron,wheretherewaspracticallynocoverandyou Something in his face deeply moved me. It was the face of a
hadtoliftthepotatoeslyingonyourbelly—afatiguingjob.If man who would commit murder and throw away his life for
theirmachine-gunnersspottedyou,youhadtoflattenyourself a friend — the kind efface you would expect in an Anarchist,
outlikearatwhenitsquirmsunderadoor,withthebulletscut- thoughaslikelyasnothewasaCommunist.Therewereboth
tinguptheclodsafewyardsbehindyou.Itseemedworthitat candour and ferocity in it; also the pathetic reverence that
thetime.Potatoesweregettingveryscarce.Ifyougotasackful illiterate people have for their supposed superiors. Obviously
you could take them down to the cook-house and swap them he could not make head or tail of the map; obviously he
forawater-bottlefulofcoffee. regarded map-reading as a stupendous intellectual feat. I
And still nothing happened, nothing ever looked like hap- hardlyknowwhy,butIhaveseldomseenanyone—anyman,
pening.‘Whenarewegoingtoattack?Whydon’tweattack?’ I mean — to whom I have taken such an immediate liking.
werethequestionsyouheardnightanddayfromSpaniardand Whiletheyweretalkingroundthetablesomeremarkbrought
Englishman alike. When you think what fighting means it is it out that I was a foreigner. The Italian raised his head and
queerthatsoldierswanttofight,andyetundoubtedlytheydo. saidquickly:
In stationary warfare there are three things that all soldiers ‘Italiano?’
longfor:abattle,morecigarettes,andaweek’sleave.Wewere IansweredinmybadSpanish:‘No,Ingles.Ytu?’
somewhatbetterarmednowthanbefore.Eachmanhadahun- ‘Italiano.’
dredandfiftyroundsofammunitioninsteadoffifty,andbyde- As we went out he stepped across the room and gripped
greeswewerebeingissuedwithbayonets,steelhelmets,anda my hand very hard. Queer, the affection you can feel for a
few bombs. There were constant rumours of forthcoming bat- stranger! It was as though his spirit and mine had momentar-
tles, which I have since thought were deliberately circulated ilysucceededinbridgingthegulfoflanguageandtraditionand
76 5
meetinginutterintimacy.IhopedhelikedmeaswellasIliked us there was a country house, called La Granja, with big
him.ButIalsoknewthattoretainmyfirstimpressionofhimI farm-buildings, which was used as a store, headquarters, and
mustnotseehimagain;andneedlesstosayIneverdidseehim cook-house for this sector of the line. It was this that the
again.OnewasalwaysmakingcontactsofthatkindinSpain. Fascist gunners were trying for, but they were five or six
I mention this Italian militiaman because he has stuck kilometres away and they never aimed well enough to do
vividly in my memory. With his shabby uniform and fierce more than smash the windows and chip the walls. You were
patheticfacehetypifiesformethespecialatmosphereofthat only in danger if you happened to be coming up the road
time. He is bound up with all my memories of that period of when the firing started, and the shells plunged into the fields
the war — the red flags in Barcelona, the gaunt trains full of on either side of you. One learned almost immediately the
shabby soldiers creeping to the front, the grey war-stricken mysterious art of knowing by the sound of a shell how close
towns farther up the line, the muddy, ice-cold trenches in the it will fall. The shells the Fascists were firing at this period
mountains. were wretchedly bad. Although they were 150 mm. they only
ThiswasinlateDecember1936,lessthansevenmonthsago made a crater about six feet wide by four deep, and at least
as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into one in four failed to explode. There were the usual romantic
enormousdistance.Latereventshaveobliterateditmuchmore talesofsabotageintheFascistfactoriesandunexplodedshells
completely than they have obliterated 1935, or 1905, for that in which, instead of the charge, there was found a scrap of
matter.IhadcometoSpainwithsomenotionofwritingnews- paper saying ‘Red Front’, but I never saw one. The truth was
paperarticles,butIhadjoinedthemilitiaalmostimmediately, thattheshellswerehopelesslyold;someonepickedupabrass
becauseatthattimeandinthatatmosphereitseemedtheonly fuse-cap stamped with the date, and it was 1917. The Fascist
conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual guns were of the same make and calibre as our own, and the
control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. unexploded shells were often reconditioned and fired back.
Toanyonewhohadbeentheresincethebeginningitprobably Therewassaidtobeoneoldshellwithanicknameofitsown
seemedeveninDecemberorJanuarythattherevolutionarype- whichtravelleddailytoandfro,neverexploding.
riodwasending;butwhenonecamestraightfromEnglandthe At night small patrols used to be sent into no man’s land
aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelm- to lie in ditches near the Fascist lines and listen for sounds
ing.ItwasthefirsttimethatIhadeverbeeninatownwhere (bugle-calls,motor-horns,andsoforth)thatindicatedactivity
theworkingclasswasinthesaddle.Practicallyeverybuilding inHuesca.Therewasaconstantcome-and-goofFascisttroops,
of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped andthenumberscouldbecheckedtosomeextentfromlisten-
withredflagsorwiththeredandblackflagoftheAnarchists; ers’ reports. We always had special orders to report the ring-
everywallwasscrawledwiththehammerandsickleandwith ing of church bells. It seemed that the Fascists always heard
the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church massbeforegoingintoaction.Inamongthefieldsandorchards
hadbeenguttedanditsimagesburnt.Churcheshereandthere there were deserted mud-walled huts which it was safe to ex-
were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. plorewithalightedmatchwhenyouhadpluggedupthewin-
Everyshopandcafehadaninscriptionsayingthatithadbeen dows.Sometimesyoucameonvaluablepiecesoflootsuchasa
collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and hatchetor a Fascistwater-bottle (better thanours and greatly
6 75
their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers
lookedyouinthefaceandtreatedyouasanequal.Servileand
evenceremonialformsofspeechhadtemporarilydisappeared.
Nobodysaid‘Senior’or‘Don’oreven‘Usted’;everyonecalled
Chapter Six
everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead
of‘Buenosdias’.Tippingwasforbiddenbylaw;almostmyfirst
experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for
MEANWHILE, the daily — more particularly nightly — tryingtotipalift-boy.Therewerenoprivatemotor-cars,they
round, the common task. Sentry-go, patrols, digging; mud, had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and
rain,shriekingwinds,andoccasionalsnow.Itwasnottillwell much of the other transport were painted red and black. The
into April that the nights grew noticeably warmer. Up here revolutionaryposterswereeverywhere,flamingfromthewalls
on the plateau the March days were mostly like an English incleanredsandbluesthatmadethefewremainingadvertise-
March, with bright blue skies and nagging winds. The winter ments look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide
barley was a foot high, crimson buds were forming on the central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed
cherry trees (the line here ran through deserted orchards constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revo-
and vegetable gardens), and if you searched the ditches you lutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the
could find violets and a kind of wild hyacinth like a poor aspectofthecrowdsthatwasthequeerestthingofall.Inout-
specimen of a bluebell. Immediately behind the line there ward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes
ran a wonderful, green, bubbling stream, the first transparent had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of
water I had seen since coming to the front. One day I set my women and foreigners there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at
teeth and crawled into the river to have my first bath in six all.Practicallyeveryoneworeroughworking-classclothes,or
weeks. It was what you might call a brief bath, for the water blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this
wasmainlysnow-waterandnotmuchabovefreezing-point. wasqueerandmoving.TherewasmuchinitthatIdidnotun-
Meanwhilenothinghappened,nothingeverhappened.The derstand,insomewaysIdidnotevenlikeit,butIrecognized
English had got into the habit of saying that this wasn’t a itimmediatelyasastateofaffairsworthfightingfor.AlsoIbe-
war,itwasabloodypantomime.Wewerehardlyunderdirect lievedthatthingswereastheyappeared,thatthiswasreallya
firefromtheFascists.Theonlydangerwasfromstraybullets, workers’ State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled,
which, as the lines curved forward on either side, came from beenkilled,orvoluntarilycomeovertotheworkers’side;Idid
several directions. All the casualties at this time were from not realize that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were
strays. Arthur Clinton got a mysterious bullet that smashed simplylyinglowanddisguisingthemselvesasproletariansfor
his left shoulder and disabled his arm, permanently, I am thetimebeing.
afraid. There was a little shell-fire, but it was extraordinarily Togetherwithallthistherewassomethingoftheevilatmo-
ineffectual. The scream and crash of the shells was actually sphere of war. The town had a gaunt untidy look, roads and
looked upon as a mild diversion. The Fascists never dropped buildings were in poor repair, the streets at night were dimly
their shells on our parapet. A few hundred yards behind lit for fear of air — raids, the shops were mostly shabby and
74 7
half-empty.Meatwasscarceandmilkpracticallyunobtainable, rations.’ When I joined the militia I had promised myself to
therewasashortageofcoal,sugar,andpetrol,andareallyse- kill one Fascist — after all, if each of us killed one they would
rious shortage of bread. Even at this period the bread-queues soonbeextinct—andIhadkillednobodyyet,hadhardlyhad
wereoftenhundredsofyardslong.Yetsofarasonecouldjudge the chance to do so. And of course I wanted to go to Madrid.
the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unem- Everyoneinthearmy,whateverhispoliticalopinions,always
ployment,andthepriceoflivingwasstillextremelylow;you wanted to go to Madrid. This would probably mean exchang-
saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars ing into the International Column, for the P.O.U.M. had now
except the gipsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revo- very few troops at Madrid and the Anarchists not so many as
lution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged formerly.
into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were try- For the present, of course, one had to stay in the line, but
ingtobehaveashumanbeingsandnotascogsinthecapitalist I told everyone that when we went on leave I should, if pos-
machine.Inthebarbers’shopswereAnarchistnotices(thebar- sible, exchange into the International Column, which meant
bersweremostlyAnarchists)solemnlyexplainingthatbarbers puttingmyselfunderCommunistcontrol.Variouspeopletried
werenolongerslaves.Inthestreetswerecolouredpostersap- to dissuade me, but no one attempted to interfere. It is fair to
pealingtoprostitutestostopbeingprostitutes.Toanyonefrom say that there was very little heresy-hunting in the P.O.U.M.,
the hard-boiled, sneering civilization of the English — speak- perhaps not enough, considering their special circumstances;
ing races there was something rather pathetic in the literal- short of being a pro-Fascist no one was penalized for holding
nesswithwhichtheseidealisticSpaniardstookthehackneyed the wrong political opinions. I spent much of my time in the
phrasesofrevolution.Atthattimerevolutionaryballadsofthe militiainbitterlycriticizingtheP.O.U.M.‘line’,butInevergot
naivestkind,allaboutproletarianbrotherhoodandthewicked- intotroubleforit.Therewasnotevenanypressureupononeto
nessofMussolini,werebeingsoldonthestreetsforafewcen- becomeapoliticalmemberoftheparty,thoughIthinkthema-
timeseach.Ihaveoftenseenanilliteratemilitiamanbuyoneof jorityofthemilitiamendidso.Imyselfneverjoinedtheparty
theseballads,laboriouslyspelloutthewords,andthen,when — for which afterwards, when the P.O.U.M. was suppressed, I
he had got the hang of it, begin singing it to an appropriate wasrathersorry.
tune.
AllthistimeIwasattheLeninBarracks,ostensiblyintrain-
ingforthefront.WhenIjoinedthemilitiaIhadbeentoldthat
I should be sent to the front the next day, but in fact I had to
wait while a fresh centuria was got ready. The workers’ mili-
tias, hurriedly raised by the trade unions at the beginning of
the war, had not yet been organized on an ordinary army ba-
sis. The units of command were the ‘section’, of about thirty
men, the centuria, of about a hundred men, and the ‘column’,
which in practice meant any large number of men. The Lenin
Barracks was a block of splendid stone buildings with a rid-
8 73
upaninfamousdictatorship,andtheMoorsactuallypreferred ing— school and enormous cobbled courtyards;it had been a
him to the Popular Front Government! The palpable truth cavalry barracks and had been captured during the July fight-
is that no attempt was made to foment a rising in Morocco, ing. My centuria slept in one of the stables, under the stone
because to do so would have meant putting a revolutionary mangerswherethenamesofthecavalrychargerswerestillin-
construction on the war. The first necessity, to convince the scribed. All the horses had been seized and sent to the front,
Moors of the Government’s good faith, would have been but the whole place still smelt of horse-piss and rotten oats.
to proclaim Morocco liberated. And we can imagine how I was at the barracks about a week. Chiefly I remember the
pleasedtheFrenchwouldhavebeenbythat!Thebeststrategic horsy smells, the quavering bugle-calls (all our buglers were
opportunity of the war was flung away in the vain hope of amateurs—IfirstlearnedtheSpanishbugle-callsbylistening
placating French and British capitalism. The whole tendency tothemoutsidetheFascistlines),thetramp-trampofhobnailed
oftheCommunistpolicywastoreducethewartoanordinary, bootsinthebarrackyard,thelongmorningparadesinthewin-
non-revolutionarywarinwhichtheGovernmentwasheavily trysunshine,thewildgamesoffootball,fiftyaside,inthegrav-
handicapped. For a war of that kind has got to be won by elled riding — school. There were perhaps a thousand men at
mechanical means, i.e. ultimately, by limitless supplies of thebarracks,andascoreorsoofwomen,apartfromthemili-
weapons; and the Government’s chief donor of weapons, tiamen’s wives who did the cooking. There were still women
the U.S.S.R., was at a great disadvantage, geographically, servinginthemilitias,thoughnotverymany.Intheearlybat-
compared with Italy and Germany. Perhaps the P.O.U.M. and tles they had fought side by side with the men as a matter of
Anarchistslogan:‘Thewarandtherevolutionareinseparable’, course. It is a thing that seems natural in time of revolution.
waslessvisionarythanitsounds. Ideas were changing already, however. The militiamen had to
I have given my reasons for thinking that the Communist bekeptoutoftheriding-schoolwhilethewomenweredrilling
anti—revolutionarypolicywasmistaken,butsofarasitseffect therebecausetheylaughedatthewomenandputthemoff.A
uponthewargoesIdonothopethatmyjudgementisright.A fewmonthsearliernoonewouldhaveseenanythingcomicin
thousandtimesIhopethatitiswrong.Iwouldwishtoseethis awomanhandlingagun.
warwonbyanymeanswhatever.Andofcoursewecannottell The whole barracks was in the state of filth and chaos to
yetwhatmayhappen.TheGovernmentmayswingtotheLeft which the militia reduced every building they occupied and
again,theMoorsmayrevoltoftheirownaccord,Englandmay whichseemstobeoneoftheby-productsofrevolution.Inev-
decidetobuyItalyout,thewarmaybewonbystraightforward ery comer you came upon piles of smashed furniture, broken
militarymeans—thereisnoknowing.Ilettheaboveopinions saddles,brasscavalry-helmets,emptysabre-scabbards,andde-
stand,andtimewillshowhowfarIamrightorwrong. caying food. There was frightful wastage of food, especially
But in February 1936 I did not see things quite in this light. bread. From my barrack-room alone a basketful of bread was
IwassickoftheinactionontheAragonfrontandchieflycon- thrown away at every meal — a disgraceful thing when the
sciousthatIhadnotdonemyfairshareofthefighting.Iused civilianpopulationwasshortofit.Weateatlongtrestle-tables
tothinkoftherecruitingposterinBarcelonawhichdemanded out of permanently greasy tin pannikins, and drank out of a
accusingly of passers — by: ‘What have you done for democ- dreadful thing called a porron. A porron is a sort of glass bot-
racy?’ and feel that I could only answer:’ I have drawn my tle with a pointed spout from which a thin jet of wine spurts
72 9
outwheneveryoutipitup;youcanthusdrinkfromadistance, the first year of the war the entire British public is thought
without touching it with your lips, and it can be passed from to have subscribed to various ‘aid Spain’ funds about a quar-
hand to hand. I went on strike and demanded a drinking-cup terofamillionpounds—probablylessthanhalfofwhatthey
assoonasIsawaporroninuse.Tomyeyethethingswereal- spend in a single week on going to the pictures. The way in
togethertoolikebed-bottles,especiallywhentheywerefilled whichtheworkingclassinthedemocraticcountries couldre-
withwhitewine. ally have helped her Spanish comrades was by industrial ac-
By degrees they were issuing the recruits with uniforms, tion—strikesandboycotts.Nosuchthingeverevenbeganto
and because this was Spain everything was issued piecemeal, happen. The Labour and Communist leaders everywhere de-
so that it was never quite certain who had received what, clared that it was unthinkable; and no doubt they were right,
and various of the things we most needed, such as belts so long as they were also shouting at the tops of their voices
and cartridge-boxes, were not issued till the last moment, that’ red’ Spain was not ‘red’. Since 1914–18 ‘war for democ-
when the train was actually waiting to take us to the front. racy’hashadasinistersound.ForyearspasttheCommunists
I have spoken of the militia ‘uniform’, which probably gives themselveshadbeenteachingthemilitantworkersinallcoun-
a wrong impression. It was not exactly a uniform. Perhaps triesthat‘democracy’wasapolitenameforcapitalism.Tosay
a ‘multiform’ would be the proper name for it. Everyone’s first‘Democracyisaswindle’,andthen‘Fightfordemocracy!’
clothes followed the same general plan, but they were never is not good tactics. If, with the huge prestige of Soviet Russia
quite the same in any two cases. Practically everyone in the behind them, they had appealed to the workers of the world
army wore corduroy knee-breeches, but there the uniformity in the name not of ‘democratic Spain’, but of ‘revolutionary
ended. Some wore puttees, others corduroy gaiters, others Spain’, it is hard to believe that they would not have got a re-
leatherleggingsorhighboots.Everyoneworeazipperjacket, sponse.
but some of the jackets were of leather, others of wool and But what was most important of all, with a non-
of every conceivable colour. The kinds of cap were about as revolutionary policy it was difficult, if not impossible, to
numerous as their wearers. It was usual to adorn the front of strike at Franco’s rear. By the summer of 1937 Franco was
yourcapwithapartybadge,andinadditionnearlyeveryman. controllingalargerpopulationthantheGovernment—much
wore a red or red and black handkerchief round his throat. larger, if one counts in the colonies — with about the same
A militia column at that time was an extraordinary-looking number of troops. As everyone knows, with a hostile popula-
rabble. But the clothes had to be issued as this or that factory tion at your back it is impossible to keep an army in the field
rushed them out, and they were not bad clothes considering withoutanequallylargearmytoguardyourcommunications,
thecircumstances.Theshirtsandsockswerewretchedcotton suppresssabotage,etc.Obviously,therefore,therewasnoreal
things, however, quite useless against cold. I hate to think of popular movement in Franco’s rear. It was inconceivable that
what the militiamen must have gone through in the earlier the people in his territory, at any rate the town-workers and
months before anything was organized. I remember coming the poorer peasants, liked or wanted Franco, but with every
uponanewspaperofonlyabouttwomonthsearlierinwhich swing to the Right the Government’s superiority became less
one of the P.O.U.M. leaders, after a visit to the front, said that apparent. What clinches everything is the case of Morocco.
hewouldtrytoseetoitthat‘everymilitiamanhadablanket’. WhywastherenorisinginMorocco?Francowastryingtoset
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