The Spanish Civil War: A Fight Between Revolution and Fascism

What stuck me most about Homage to Catalonia was how much Orwell changed politically as a result of the Spanish Civil War.  At the beginning of the war, Orwell was not only unaware of the true complexity of the politics behind the anti-fascist forces, but he lacked interest in it.  He had joined the war for the noble purpose of stemming the tide of fascism in Europe.  Orwell, like many others, believed that stopping Franco from taking power was the highest priority so the question of which of the many Socialist-tinged parties would take control of the Spanish government should take a backseat until the fighting was over.   However, soon enough, Orwell was forced to become better acquainted with the battle between the Communist forces backed by Stalinist Russia (ex: P.S.U.C.) and the more revolutionary Communist forces (ex: P.O.U.M.) and the Anarchists (ex: C.N.T.-F.A.I.). 

During his leave time in Barcelona, he saw just how contentious and debilitating this power struggle within the anti-fascist forces was.  Orwell saw firsthand that resources were being horded and energy was being drained in the Communists' pursuit to quash all revolutionary notions and to limit the influence of P.O.U.M. and C.N.T.  Witnessing the seemingly senseless street fighting between the left wing factions and the right wing factions,initiated by the Communist backed Civil Guards' desire to wrestle control of the Telephone Exchange away from the C.NT. ,changed Orwell.  Orwell went from being a man, who, if he had to pick a political preference, would have picked the Communists (P.S.U.C.) due to the fact "they were the only people who looked capable of winning the war" to being disgusted by the Communists and in favor of the more revolutionary P.O.U.M (63).  In essence, Orwell now believed that the war was a fight between revolution and fascism, not just a fight against fascism.

Witnessing Orwell's political awakening during the Spanish Civil War was extremely interesting to me.  He never stopped believing that fascism was an evil that must be rooted out, but the mechanism for rooting it out changed in his mind.  Orwell began to realize that the working class people of Spain viewed a return to the status quo as only slightly better than the feudalism that Franco would bring.  He also realized that the promise of revolution had energized the fight against Franco in the first place.  Before the war took full swing, minor factions of Anarchists were the ones who took to the streets and fought back Franco's forces, not the government backed armed forces.  The hope that a true revolution would someday come to Spain had given the Spanish working class the strength to continue to fight, even though they lacked proper training and weaponry.  Once the Russian backed Communists had extinguished the revolutionary flame in favor of a capitalistic democracy, the working class felt less determined to defeat Franco.  By using brutality and force to destroy P.O.U.M. and any and all revolutionary parties, the Communists (P.S.U.C.)  broke the will of the working class people to fight.

The Communists' obsession with destroying revolutionaries ended up costing them the war.  As history has shown us, Franco won the Spanish Civil War in 1939.  Franco ruled Spain under a dictatorship until his death thirty-six years later.  One of the ways he managed to hold onto his power was by playing political factions against each other.  Clearly, he learned this tactic during the war, as his victory was, in part, due to the fighting amongst political parties within the anti-fascist forces.  Perhaps, if the Communists weren't so fixated on fighting all the revolutionary factions, the anti-fascist forces might have beaten Franco.  The Communists not only broke the necessary spirit of the working class, but it diverted valuable men and resources away from the front to round up and imprison P.O.U.M members and soldiers, including valuable P.O.U.M. soldiers fighting on the front. So, in the end, Orwell was right to turn against the Communists.  He was right to think that the Communists were turning this important war against fascism into senseless fighting and persecution. Orwell was right to think that, at least, the promise of revolution was essential to beating Franco.