Did George Orwell's Government Respond To The Rise Of The Spanish Republic?

1931 saw the fall of the Spanish monarchy who was then replaced by a democratically elected government dedicated to the restructuring of the social stratification of Spain. This newly elected government became known as La Segunda Republica Espanola, the Second Spanish Republic. The newly formed government was largely comprised of people of low and middle socio-economic status and promoted policies which aimed to end the traditionalist Spanish culture. Their amendments included the restructuring and redistribution of land, the separation of church and state, and a pacifist, antiviolence policy dedicated to undermining the power of the nobility, the Catholic Church, and the armed forces (“”). This, of course, led to the aristocracy’s, the Catholic

The Nationalists, the rightist opponents of the Second Republic government, soon revolted against the Republicans, the antimonarchist supporters of the Second Republic.

George Orwell first arrived in Barcelona, Spain near the end of 1936, which was only month after the Spanish Civil War had started. After having arrived in the main are of the revolutionary Spain in one of the regions of Spain called Catalonia, Orwell began to record what he experiences in what he would later title Homage to Catalonia. Homage to Catalonia provides a first-hand account of what was more than a war, but a

The Republican group had components that were keen of revolution, and they made up many of the Republican's ranks. Anarchists were certainly eager to have a revolution, as were communists (like Orwell, who joined the POUM), however, they did not make up the majority of the Republican's. Revolution was not really a purpose in the Basque territories of Spain, and many Catalan Republicans were not really revolutionaries. From Orwell's perspective, his statement makes perfect sense, but this again shows how his recollection and view of the war is limited to the times and places of which he was a part of and not the war as a whole. There is also the fact that the Republicans were made up of many different groups and their priorities and cause often differed. Some highlighted victory and had no problem with waiting for their revolutionary reforms to be implemented. Others, on the other hand, believed that revolution was tremendously important, and further assumed that revolution was only the way to triumph.

While Orwell does put aside the broader picture of the many reasons and factions behind the Spanish Civil War, such as the background involvements of Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini, in order to simply emphasize the political and social differences between the different parties involved in the civil war, he does provide a good description of Catalonia