A Delicate Truth The latest Le Carre abridged Radion 4

A Delicate Truth is the latest novel by John Le Carré serialised in episodes on Radio 4 and where the story is based on an incident in Gibraltar, the British land where both my parents were born. By coincidence I am writing this as Channel begin a series about the residents and visitors to Gibraltar and about which I shall comment when the hour long first episode ends.

The story of A Delicate Truth like the Bourne Films is about the web we weave what we attempt to deceive about a bad mistake, and i similar to the Bourne Films the bad mistake is a Black Ops. A government Minister by passes the required rules and regs which I have referred to earlier and uses a private security firm to apprehend a sought after Terrorist suspect where intelligence has indicated they are visiting the Rock. The plan is for a USA Seal team to come offshore and rendition the suspect. What happened is that the intelligence is false and the team fire on and kill a woman and her child who panics when being approached because she is an illegal immigrant.

The story is told by civil servant with a security services contact who under the impression he is doing the right thing bugs the Minister’s office when he is having an unofficial meeting with the man from the Security firm involved and an operative heading the British mercenaries.

When he attempts to take action and mentions his concerns to his security service contact he is warned that he was mistaken and not to repeat the allegations to anyone else. His home searched ad the recording disappears but he took the precaution to make copies.

Years pass and another civil servant involved with the Minister and the covering up of the project based on inaccurate information provided him has retired to a country village in Cornwall where John Le Carré has live since his own retirement. He attends a country fare and there comes across one of the men he met at the Minister’s office who is on hard times and makes comments and then leave a note in the handbag purchased by the wife of the former civil servants referring to the deaths of woman and her daughter. Supported by his wife the civil servant makes enquires and is eventually warned off. However by then he has brought back the story teller with the copy of the recording. The daughter of the former civil servants and his wife becomes involved, protective of her father although her role and notices are not clear at first. The man who sells the handbag is murdered but another witness, member of the team is able to complete the picture which the story teller had suspected. He too is warned about his future.

The book ends as he elects to reveal all via an Internet cafe as the sound of police sirens is heard, The BBC radio abridgment ends, as I assume the book, without indicating the actual ending, but the assumption is that he man is prosecuted and imprisoned. Whether the media is able to establish the story with an impact on those direct involved bearing in mind that it was not a government sanction operation is left to the reader/listener to decide.

The Cruel Sea Part 1

From War of the Worlds, possibly in the future I move back in time to the World at War and begin with the opening of Nicholas Monserrat’s important tribute to Navy vessels that attempted protect the convoys of supply vessels travelling between the UK and the USA and Canada, The Cruel Sea. 

 

As a school boy I bought an edited edition of the book after seeing the important film with Jack Hawkins in the role of Lieutenant Commander George Eastwood Erickson R.N.R. The film played to packed audiences throughout the UK and Commonwealth. I saw the film again recently shortly before the BBC replayed on Four extra its two one hour dramatizations. I will comment on the film and he radio plays  as I work through the original book which I recently purchased for one penny plus postage,  a 1987 reprint in The Penguin Great  Novel War at Sea series.

 

Some readers may want to skip the first part of 74 pages because there is no action at such, no excitement or events of significance in the great scheme of the war at sea and yet from my perspective it provides one of the most important  insights of what it was like for young men to move out of their warm offices, garages or shops into the ice cold stormy winds of north Atlantic in Winter, together with the steps necessary  for a new  crew and a new ship to be authorised to put to sea and to go to war, that is to kill the enemy and avoid being killed. Today the navy is rapidly becoming redundant except in hunting pirates and stop immigrant boats, and smuggled goods especially drugs. Yet it is not so long ago to me (30 years) that ships and men were lost during the Falklands War to Exorcet Missiles made and supplied by France to the then enemy Argentina and even as recently as 2011 naval ships were used off the coast of Libya to attack with rockets as well as bringing supplies to the rebels. Over seventy years ago it was little ships like the Corvettes and the crew of cargo vessels which kept the UK supplied with sufficient for the home population not to lose morale and for the Services to function.

 

Recently at the excellent Curtis Auditorium lecture theatre at Newcastle University I listened to former catholic Priest and chair of the CND, Bruce Kent on the subject of Is War Inevitable? He replied to one questioner who said he had agreed with almost everything Bruce had said but what was his response to the people of the Tyne if the government suddenly offered the building of a new aircraft carrier. The reply was why not press for a hospital ship instead to travel the world to wherever there was a natural or man made disaster? While I agree with his answer today in 1939 and 1940 the challenge was to build, equip and crew as many new ships as possible if the UK and the Commonwealth nations were to survive.

 

The Corvets were the best available in a difficult situation little more than trawlers with a limited top speed and with cramped conditions for the crew eating and sleeping in one area where it was difficult to keep dry from the condensation and with limited armaments of a four inch power, a two inch anti aircraft and a machine gun plus depth charges. The crew comprised a captain, a First Lieutenant with two subs, one responsible for communications and depth charges and the other for course and the guns. In the film a third sub is added, played by Denholm Elliot,

 

The small group of officers meant that any of the four could find themselves in charge of vessel alone for a period of up to four hours although there would usually be two officers on the watch. The officers were supported by a small team of senior ratings, middle managers, the chief responsible for the boiler room and the engines, the teams responsible for depth charges and the guns, for communications and the asdic later the radar, the supplies and kitchen.

 

Monsarrat describes the day from 6.30 until 10pm with first the process of working with ship builders and fitters and then sea trials to ensure the everything worked to the required standards and then formal trials to get the guns on target and the important coordination between the Captain, the Asdic crew and the depth charge team to ensure that as quickly as a target was identified and the order given depth charges would immediately be dropped  on target and to do all this taking account of the wind, the sea current and the position of the enemy both with different speeds and manoeuvrability and tactics.

 

While the film, and I felt the BBC play paid some attention to the process of finishing the ship, providing equipment and supplies, and the various levels of trials of ship and of the crew, it is only in the book that we are able to gain a depth of insight into the preparations and the naval traditions and culture and the complex problems facing those who had never been sea let alone to war and who were strangers one day and living in great physical and emotional intimacy the next and away from families, friends, and everything that had previously been familiar to them.

 

However important the role of the officers, the success and survival of the ship was dependent on team working at all levels. Towards the end of the sea trials we learn that the admiral responsible for certifying that ships and their crews are ready for war writes his report on the officers of the Compass Rose, a copy of which he shows to the captain. He has gained this knowledge from his personal unannounced visits at various times and from the communication with the Captain although the chain of command and responsibility is such that once commissioned as an officer in the fleet every individual is expected to function to the highest standards within the culture of the service.

 

Monsarrat provides a summary of what we have learned about the Captain and his officer’s team. There were two inter-related problems, The First Lieutenant; a former car salesman is a bully, workshy and a sponger. How he talked his way from officer training course to an instant promotion is beyond the Captain and the reader, except that it is war and men with self confidence, ambition and aggression will be needed. Similarly the man he bullies Ferraby, married only weeks before departure,  should never have been accepted for officer training or once accepted should not have been allowed to complete the course although again it was an unplanned war and it is important not  judge how recruitment and deployment was approached then rather than since.

 

Oddly in the radio play there is little reference to the First Lieutenant while in the film the crack included, not in book, about Ferraby having left a bun in the oven as well as the man’s obsession with “snorkers, good ho,” his passion for tinned sausages at least for one meal a day.  However in fairness to number 1 the depth charge crew also have no confidence in their officer and the senior naval rating attempts to take charge something which the young sub finds it also difficult to cope with.

 

It is the mature mid twenties other sub Lieutenant Lockhart who provides the buffer. A single man, former self employed  journalist, no longer innocent about the ways  of men and women, who sides steps and ignores Bennett played in the film brilliantly by Stanley Baker. He is not prepared to tolerate the way the First Lieutenant expects one of the subs to buy his drinks and at one point her cannot resist suggesting that if he wants to get the best out of Ferraby he needs to support and help his confidence and not constantly undermine. When Bennett insists on reporting Lockhart to the Captain, Erickson is faced with a dilemma. Lockhart was out of line but he is only too well aware of the behaviour of Bennett who he feels obliged to support but the rebuke he gives fails to satisfy the bully who insisting on pressing his concern once he is with the captain on his own but Erickson is not prepared to take the matter further which is of itself a message to Bennett.

 

The other aspect of the book is that the line between officers and crew is kept pretty tight  and it is Ferraby who engages in conversation with a rating, just as young and new as himself over a mug of cocoa the night he is left in charge for a couple of hours while the skipper catches up on sleep. He is sufficiently confident to alter course away from the Scottish coast when they encounter a fishing fleet. The manoeuvre wakes the captain who calls the bridge to know what happened having been awakened as the change of course affected the noise of the engines. That he went straight back to sleep was a proud moment for the young man revealing that in normal circumstances   he was able cope but the circumstances are not normal.

 

Captain Erickson (in the film was played by Jack Hawkins), immediately inspires confidence despite the  fact that he has been out of the Royal Navy for ten years and worked as the captain of a cargo ship before his recall as a reservist. He is a strong disciplinarian determined to get the ship and the crew in condition to go to a war which fears is going to be a long one. He has reservations about the ability of the ship as designed to do the job required, especially its lack of speed and tendency to roll badly.  He can be sharp and comes down hard when mistakes are made and individuals fail to reach the standard required if they are to survive and cope with what is likely to come their way.

 

Monsarrat, himself a naval officer during World War II also understood the need that seamen have to separate the lives they lead, and in fairness to Bennett he also appreciated the distinction to be made, a man with his mind on matters ashore, was no good to his colleagues when things go wrong, in moments of crisis and as the were to find when involved with the War at sea. From the start the sea is their demanding mistress and dominates their lives rather than the enemy who face the same challenges as themselves.

 

It is the partners left at home who also have to learn to cope in their own way. Ferraby’s young newly married wife appears stronger and more understanding than her husband. She is disappointed when Bennett refuses permission for her to join him, more for the sake of her husband than herself. Erickson’s wife has become experienced as coping with the separations, she has her knitting. She knows that however much her husband enjoyed being with her when ashore, there always comes a time when his real mistress demands  attention 24 hours a day, weeks on end. Lockhart also appears to have adjusted quickly to what is expected of him and has no intention of complicating his life even with a casual relationship. Bennett on the other hand brings someone unsuitable, probably picked up at his hotel to the wardroom party just before they set off for their sea trials on Christmas Day. (To be continued)

The Real George Orwell Homage to Catalona 3

After Georges Kopp had arranged for Eileen, Orwell’s wife to visit him at the front after which he had his first experience of close action, Spring brought warm days which turned to hot and with cherries forming in their clusters and bathing in the river no longer agony. He comments on the gnarled rustic looking men from Andalusia, the homeland of my maternal great grandmother and that two fellow Englishmen were laid low with sun stroke. The Andalusians were described as illiterate, simple but knew how to make cigarettes out of dried fibre.

The Republican government doubled the number of men outside of Huesca to thirty thousand, and used  lots of planes to bomb and shoot but the city refused to fall. This could be said was an important turning point in the defence of the democratic republic against the nationalist forces of Franco. Then the Republic commenced to implode.

After 115 days at the front Eric Blair the combatant was given leave to join his wife in Barcelona and found that the workers’ revolution was coming to its end. The bourgeoisie were back on the streets and the workers were back to their jobs or their homes. The civilian population had lost interest in the war with voluntary enlistment dwindled.  

Worse perhaps than this while the hotels and restuarnts in the city centre appeared to have no difficulty in feeding their guests able to pay, in the working class districts there were queues for bread, olive oil and other necessities one hundred yards long, and children barefooted waited all over the city clamouring for scraps of food,  People went about their own business and greeting of strangers as comrades disappeared.  He came across a shop full of bon bons and pastries at ridiculous prices not out of place in Bond Street or Paris and marvelled at the extremes of means now openly displayed. It was during the week that he waited for his new pair of boots that his original enthusiams came apart as the street fighting involving comrades commenced. 

The sense of trouble brewing was not just between the Stalinist Communists and POUM anarcho syndicalism but between all the factions and differences in views about the kind fo society that should deveop once Franco was defeated. The spark was the arrival of several lorry loads of armed civil guards  driven to the telephone exchange and taken control from the CNT workers there. Two barricades were then created by the people and the war between the government and the nationalist became an open conflict between Government supported by the Communists and Stalin and the anarchists, the Syndicalist, the Trotskyists, POUM and in particular the second city of Spain Barcelona

Civil guards occupied a cafe next to the POUM building as a prelude to attacking the headquarters. There is a disussion between a Civil guard and Georges Kopp over unexploded bombs lying in the street. Orwell fires his only shot of these “troubles” in a failed attempt to explode one of them. He worries about his wife back at the hotel. There is chat between Orwell’s comrades at the top of one building and Civil guards occupying another and who explained that they did not want to shoot at them because they were all workers.

Orwell, the writer describes the changed atmopshere in the city from May5th with very few pedestrians on the street. One of main papers  called for everyone to return to work. There was rumours of Government forces and POUM men coming to the city to fight it out.  After sixty hours without sleep he is in a “ghastly state of mind.”       

Back at the hotel spy mania gripped everyone. There was only one sardine each for one meal, also mentioned in the radio programme. He and his wife breakfasted  only on goats cheese three mornings in succession and the hotel had no bread for days and nothing to drink. There was                                                                                                                        a chorus of there is no more food, we much “go back to work.”

The rumour of government troops, Assault Guards, from Valencia proved accurate and suddenly they appeared  taking control of the streets, with the outbreak of street fighting giving the government the opportunity to assume fuller control of Catalonia. In the press POUM was declared a Fascist organisation in disguise.

After describing his personal experience Blair used the next chapter, the longest in the book, to try and explain what was happening in terms of the wider picture but makes the point that working out what happened accurately is impossible because there are no records, either not made, or destroyed. Frustration and disappointment on the part of the working class once it was appreciated that the former gulf between wealth and poverty was continuing coupled with the Government orders for personal weapons to be handed in and the growth of non political well armed government forces from which trade unionists were excluded were among the factors he lists.

He describes the tactics of the Communists but not those of the secret Nationalists who would have remained in the to spy. Until he comes to writing 1984 and the role of 0’Brien Orwell, from what I have read so far, does not appear to appreciate that all sides will have undercover people joining the organisations they are against, sometimes holding major roles in an organisation and undertaking illegal  action. It is rare of these individuals to become known or for the practices to be admitted while they are taking place. Both as a young man practicing non violent direct action, in later life as local authority chief officer and since in the age when what we do and say can be viewed and listened to, recorded and changed by anyone, anywhere with the technology, I quickly came to assume that this was so, acted in accordance to what I felt and believed, and regarded as fair and good, but I also sometimes laid trails so see who and how they were followed. Eric Blair to me always remained the idealist despite the realism that became his experience  and never appears to have got stuck in until he went to Spain followed by World War Ii when his ingrained patriotism resurfaced and his anti totalitarianism governed his remaining years.

Orwell reports that people started to leave barricades almost as soon as they had been created. POUM leaders appeared ambivalent and unsure in that while they encouraged followers to remain at the barricades they had argued against insurrection until the war against Franco was won. He noted that the Communist press, highlighting the Daily Worker in the UK, put the entire blame for the street fighting in Barcleona on POUM as a France’s Fifth Column and goes in to considerable detail examining various articles and statements.

He also comments on Trotskyist tactics of causing disorder and bloodhsed to undermine the position of anarchists and syndicalists in Barcelona. This reminds of my single experience when I got to hear the demagogue tirade of Socialist Labour League Leader Gerry Healey at the annual meeting of the organisation at the Friends Meeting House in London in 1961( I think I have the year right). I was invited by Harry Mister, the manager of the Peace News Bookshop to spend the day looking after a  Bookstall at their annual meeting as Pat Arrowsmith had been invited to talk about the role of the Direct Action Committee campaign against the possession and potential deployment of weapons of mass destruction. In order to listen to Pat I had to complete a delegate’s card and having done so and no one showing any interest in the  books, I stayed inside the hall to listen to an address by Healey that went on for the rest of the morning.

He first told the delegates that the movement should support the action to reduce the power of capitalist countries but it was essential that the soviets did not reduce their position. He denounced the volunteering to go to prison as unproductive and wasteful.

As Orwell explains in Chapter 11 the Trotskyists like the SLL were little different from the Stalinist in both supporting the dictatorship of the proletariart and that their ends justified any means. The essential difference  being that the SLL and similar groups believed that socialism was impossible unless it existed within every country an  approach in principle, no different from the Facists,  fundamenal Christians and Muslims. Without a world wide approach the capitalists would continue to do everything they could to undermine and destroy socialism.

A major part of the speech of  the SLL leader was to report on progress achieved during the year and the various struggles many of them small scale that had taken place and that in the coming year the priority was to enter the machine tool industry. It was evident from what was said that known members of the League were black listed by employer organisatuions and therefore the approach  was to quickly move into an area, cause as much mayhem as  possible in terms of getting the employers, the capitalists to show their true colours by turning on the worker and this would have the effect of educationg the workers in to the reality of capitalism and moving them into their camp. A short time afterwards an elderly man called to see me unexpectedly at the home of the aunties first confirming that that I had attended the annual meeting. I explained the circumstances and my response to what I had heard. We argued over many issues and as I had come to appreciate from previous situations I lacked the general education and communication skills to match his eloquence although I thought I managed to hold my own as by then I had read and reflected sufficiently to be clear what I was for and what I was against. I have always wondered if the man was from the SLL or MI5!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Orwell does  report that during the month of the uprising in Barcelona, the former Monarchist flag appeared on several balconies in Barcelona thus fuelling the allegations against POUM. Poum became an illegal organisation over  15th and  16th June and one of the first acts of the Negrin  led government that came into power in May. The Executive Committee  was imprisoned as was George Kopp.

Blair wrote his analysis  six months after returning to the UK and he reports that the leadership of POUM was still in jail although within the small Spanish Cabinet they had voted by five votes to two (both Communist Ministers) to release the prisoners. There had been a number of delegations from the UK and elsewhere visiting the Republican government including one by the Socialist Labour Member of Parliament, James Maxton. And also John McGovern when he visited was told that that because they had received aid from Russia “ we had to permit certain actions which we did not like,”  the words of the Spanish Minister of the Interior. McGovern had not be able to gain admission to the secret prisons held by the Communists in Barcelona despite having a signed order from the Minster of the Interior to do so,

Three days after the fighting in Barcleona ended Orwell and his comrades in Barcelona returned to the front. He found ity difficult for anyone returning to look at the war in the same way as before.  He was stationed  back outside of Huesca, a little to the right than previously and he had been promoted to acting second Lieutenant  i.e. had he been in the British Army, an officer, and in command of about thirty men. His friend Benjamin had been officially  promoted to Captain, the same rank as a cousin and Georges Kopp to Major, the same rank as one of my uncles.   

It was five oclock in the morning always a dangerous time because with the dawn at their backs if you put your head above the parapet it was clearly outlined against the sky, He felt, although hard to remember or describe how he felt at the moment that a bullet went into and through his throat.  What surprised him was not being in pain.

As a school boy  I had  entered  the school House boxing competition, never  having boxed or been in a fight of any kind before. I was hit and hit hard but the odd thing was  I did not feel pain and considered it an odd experience and keen to have joined the school boxing club which the head of house recommended. I was stopped by the aunties.

Less than a decade later I was picked up by police as I sat  at a pier across from a Polaris Submarine supply vessel and tossed in the air on top of other protestors and the action was repeated several times. I was calm  as I had been when another prisoner at Stafford had taken offence at my manner when working in the prisoner Library and placed a neck lock intended to cause me harm. In  these incidents there was neither fear or pain, surprise yes and in retrospect  being bemused by my reaction.

He is taken to hospital where he remembers a nurse trying to feed him a large meal and two of his troop expressing relief that he was alive but then taking away his  watch, revolver, knife and electric torch, all valuable at the front, knowing that even as a survivor his war was over.   After a few days he was able to get up and walk with his arm in a sling which had become paralysed.

He was able to subsequently comment that hosptials near the front line were treated as cl;earing stations rather than as places of treatment which led to hundreds if not thousands of wounded dying prematurely or being disabled unnecessarily.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Doctors were too busy to examine  wounds  commenting that will be looked when you get to Barcelona as they rushed by. There were no trained nurses in Spain as the work of caring was undertaken by nuns with the consequence that men too ill look after themselves  were shamefully neglected.

He was able to wire Eileen  before departing to Barcleona  via a bus to the station only to discover they were being taken to Tarragona instead presumably because that was where the train driver was prepared to go. The heat and lack of care meant that a number of the wounded died on the journey. It was ony eight or nine days after the shooting that his wound was properly looked at. The doctor told him he would never get his voice back. Although for two months he could not speak beyond a whisper, audible speech then returned. 

When he returned to Barcelona, there was a special evil in the air. Sinster rumours of all kinds rebounded. There was fear that  Franco force would attempt to invade Barcelona.  Bands of armed Assasult gurds raopmed everywhere while Civil Guards controlled buildings and strategic places with papers constantly being requested. Fortunately he had been warned  not to show his POUM doucmentation. There was a bad shortage of food. And there was no small change which meant those with large denomination currency might have wait for hours after queuing for hours to get the right change. He was taken to a sanitorium run by POUM where there were several other Englishmen.

His wife Eileen continued to stay at the Continental and he came into  the city centre by day attending the General Hospital for electric shock treatment on his arm where he could move his fingers and the treatment reduces the pain. The couple decided to return to England as soon as possible, because of his desire to get away from what was happening, the atmosphere of hatred and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            suspicion. He had been certified by the doctors as medically unfit to continue fighting.  He had to get  the position confirmed by POUM at Seitamo. Georges Kopp was back from the front in a good mood believing that at last Huesca was to fall and he had received  an invitation from the Government to go to Valencia for a special assignment leaving on the same day as Eric Blair.

It was five days before he got back with his discharge but at the POUM HQ in Barcelona everyone was issued with riffles and cartridges because an attack on the city was feared. He had to go from hospital place to hospital place to sort out his discharge . When his papers was eventually stamped he descided to take a look at Spain for the first time and he appears to have made visits to Lerida and Barbastro during the day or over a day before returning very late  to Barcelona although it is confusing given what he said about Eileen‘s concern and the wish to return to England quickly and also because of what was happening in Barcelona.  Without taxis it was too late to go to the Sanitoirum so he made his way to where Eileen was staying, stopping for dinner beforehand.

When he got to hotel he found Eileen looking relaxed in the louneg rising to greet him without emotion she put her arm tound his neck and whispered Get Out.

Get out of here at once after he had  exclaimed what? Don’t stand there you must go outside quickly. She ws leading him out and going down the stairs where  he met a Frenchman he knew who confirmed what Eileen had been trying to say, You must not come in here Get out and hide yourself before they ring the police.  He then met a member of he hotel staff also a POUM supporter who explained that the Government had suppressed POUM, seizing the buildings and putting members in prison. “They say they are shooting people already,” he added.   He and Eileen found a quiet cafe and she explained what had happened while he was away.

On June 15th the police had arrested the head of POUM in Barcelona and arrested everyone at the Hotel Falcon mostly militia men on leave. The hotel was converted into a prison. Next day POUM was declared an illegal organisation and the offices, book stalls, sanatoria and Red Aid centres were seized. The police arresting all members and associates. Almost all forty members of the Executive committee were in prison within a couple of days. Eileen had heard that some 400 hundred had been arrested in Barcelona alone. They had dragged wounded men from the hospitals. There were rumnours  that some of those arrested had been shot.  The arrests continued for months after he had departed and ran into thousands. He mentions one couple both arrested where the husband immediate disappeared and his wife remained in jail for two months, without a trial. She started a hunger strike for news of her husband and was told he was dead.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        She was released and then rearrested.

Some of their English friends and other foreigners had got immediately across the border. Others the police had taken including Georges Kopp.  I will look at the role of  Kopp and what happened to him later although on the run Orwell and his wife got to see Kopp in prison before they departed. They established that Kopp had returned from Valencia after visiting  the Ministry of War with a letter to the commander of  the Engineering operations on the eastern front. It had not occurred to him he would be arrested  on his way to the front with papers  for a special mission and came back to the Hotel for his kit bag, missing Eileen who was out at the time and  the hotel staff had notified the police as requested.

Eileen remained at the hotel and was not arrested, the couple taking the view that she was  being watched as a means of capturing Blair.  Their room had been searhed by plain clothed policemen in the middle of the night. They had removed all papers except their passport and cheque book. These included his diaries, their books and press cuttings  and letters. He later learned that the police had raided the sanitorium removing his possessions. It was agreed it was safer for her to remain at the hotel after this but he needed somewhere to stay for a good night’s sleep.  He destroyed papers  connecting  him to POUM except his official discharge papers  so it could not be claimed he was a deserter. He had difficulty finding somewhere to sleep and learned what is was like to be on the run.  He spent time  at a public bath until learning that the police had raised one and arrested a number of alleged Trotsyists with  the same idea as Eric. It was a place to relax and keep warm.

The couple arranged a meeting at the British Embassy attended also by John McNair.. McNair  born on Tyneside had become organising secretary of the Independent Labour Party and its International representative. In this capacity he had gone to Spain with John McGovern to investigate the role of the Catholic Church in the Civil War and  stayed to run the ILP office in Barcelona, greeting Blair on his arrival and later giving a job to Eileen.  Also present at the meeting was Stafford Cottman another volunteer. They learned that Bob Smillie, gradson of Robert Smillie the Labour Member of Parliament, had been arrested. He died in prison immediately after the arrest and buried, it is presumed to cover up how he died. The young man had left Glasgow Universirty where he was a student to fight Fascism  His death angered Eric.  It was in the afternoon they were able to see Kopp in prison. He was  described as being in excellent despite assuming they were all going to be shot.  Kopp explained the important of fhe letter from the War Ministry that had been taken from him. Blair went to see the Commanding officer to explain the mistake of arresting Kopp on the special government mission in an effort to retrieve the letter. Despite his  limited Spanish mixed with French, the letter was duly forwarded  to the Commander of the Engineers but his superiors failed to get him released from prison, as Orwell was to later find out.   

That same evening Orwell, McNair and Cottman slept on the grass at the edge of a derellict building lot. He comments that the Gaudi Cathedral building was hideous and regretted that it had not been blown up by the anarchists. He and his two comrades were leading an insane existence, criminals by night and by day prosperous English visitors. A  bath, shave and a shoe shine does wonder for an appearance. If I appear at my door in old clothes unshaved without my hair sorted I gain a very different reaction when in a suit, collar and tie. There was a warrant  out for the arrest of Mcnair and it was presumed Blair and the others were also on a list. The British consul got their passports in order with a train arranged from Port Bou at seven thirty in the evening so  an eighty thiorty start was probably the earliest time of actual departure. It was proposed to collect Eileen and pay her bill at the last possible moment as it was likely the hotel was required to notify the police of her departure. The train  left at ten to seven! Fortunately they managed to warn his wife  in time The three men had  dinner at a small hotel near the station and find that  the owner was politically friendly thay were given a three bedded room without notifying the police.

They left early the following morning meting up with his wife at the station. He wrote to the Ministry of War while they waited for the train to leave arguing that the arrest of Kopp was a mistake. In the radio play it was Eileen who pressed him about  trying to release Kopp.

They cross the frontier without incident. There were detectives on the train taking the names of foreigners but seeing the group in the dining car they were assumed respectable and not questioned. On his journey to Spain he had been warned  to take off his bourgeoise clothes for the anarchists would tear them off him, an exaggeration although at the broder the guards had turned back a smartly dressed couple. At the customs office they were checked on the list of the wanted but because of the general inefficiency thay  had not been included. The first newspaper they saw mentioned the warrant for the arrest of John McNair for espionage.

What is the first thing you do when setting foot outside  a war zone in which you have been involved? He rushed to robacco-kiosk (unaware of course that this act was far more dangerous than for much of the time he had spent in Spain. After this they had their first cup of tea with fresh milk for months. It was several days before he got used to the idea he could buy tobacco whenever and wherever he wanted. Their two companion went on to Paris which became the base of the ILP.

McNair was born in Boston Lincolnshire in 1887  and moved to here on Tyneside with his family at an early age. He left school at 13 years and became an errand boy. And my earliest memories after the war when I assisted my care mother as she struggled to work out  bills and change in a various shops along the main Wallington High Street was to see errand boys with their bicycles and  baskets delivering purchases all day and every day except Sundays and Wednesday afternoons.  

McNair became General Secrteary of the Independent Labout Party in 1939 and held the post until 1955, the year I left school, having moved their officers to Glasgow.  He then returned to Tyneside and complete a first degree at the University of Durham, studying French and English History, Greek and Roman Culture at the age of 72. He then obtained a master’s degree on the work of George Orwell    

And Eric Blair, Eileen and Georges Kopp, theirs is another story

The Real George Orwell in Spain part 2

I decided to take a break from reading and writing about George Orwell’s participation in the Spanish Civil War Homage to Catalonia. In the time between the first writing and this I reached he conclusion that because of his rush to get to the front he had no time to examine how the worker’s city of Barcelona functioned in practice and when he returned its functioning was already being dismantled. For those of us with a leaning towards non violent local based syndicalism it was the first and the last occasion that a major city on the western democracies had moved in such a direction. The only examples there has been in the UK is the way miners tended to run their communities, especially in Fife in Scotland, nut in  communities in South Wales, in Yorkshire and Durham in particular miners and their families became a tribe part from the rest much like prison officers and the military and their encampments. Go to the supermarket at the centre of Catterick Camp and experience at first hand what I mean. Those engaged in direct action in the UK against weapons of mass destruction or the civil rights movement in the USA also understand the sense of being part of something yet also separate.  In Spain, Eric Blair who had spent all his life feeling apart from the majority  experience being one of many, perhaps the majority.

I have only visited Barcelona on day visits, at night to see the fountains, a daytime visit to a bullfight where  I left at half time having seen enough to confirm my prejudices. I have  visited the Gaudi Cathedral, still in its making and the site of the Olympic Games, walked the Rambalas, and driven past the magnificent Football stadium. My impression is of a city of apartments although.  I saw little of the outskirts or the industrial plants to obtain any meaningful impression without having stayed in the city and walked more or engaged with its people. It is a very different place from the coastal resorts where I have stayed in the North or had one quick hot and tiring trip along the coast in the South on an escorted trip from Gibraltar.

Reflecting on what I had read and written so far my main reaction was at the Black and White which Orwell had approached the War and so far he did not appear to appreciate that this was country of man against country man, neighbour and work mate against neighbour and workmate, soldier and against soldier, catholic against catholic and division within extended families and indeed within some nuclear families. Is it surprising that the ordinary people were reluctant to try and kill each other, apart from the ideological fanatics, and personal power seekers? Is it surprising that they attempted to persuade each other to change sides rather than kill?

The fourth chapter ends with a Fascist aeroplane coming over their position and instead of dropping bombs, there was a leaflet which announced the fall of the city of Malaga. It is my understanding that the Republican forces and most of the population decided to withdraw, leaving the remaining population to the fate of the advancing Italian troops who without the same understanding that these were fellow countrymen, women and children, set about machine gunning down the civilian population  including those who had already fled the city.

In mid February Blair and the others made a fifty mile truck ride to join the forces attempting to take the town of Huesca. Having taken another town in the area the promise was made that tomorrow, we will have coffee in Huesca. There had been several bloody attacks but the city had not fallen and Orwell says that if he was to return to Spain he would make a point of visiting Huesca to enjoy coffee one morning. Clearly he did not do so at the time.

It is on reading the next chapter that I find Orwell recognised the shortcomings of his original reaction to the political situation in Barcelona and the rest of Spain. He had not been interested in the political and was unaware of it. He had no notion of what kind of war it was.

The reason I have become so interested in the life as much as the writings of Eric Blair is that the more I read the more I believe there is considerable similarity between  our personalities and the development of our political outlook. Like Blair I rushed into supporting the extreme end of those involved in the Gandhian Satyagraha rooted direct action protests against weapons of mass destruction and it was only after I had been to prison that I commenced to take a more in depth look at the interests involved and the motives of the individuals  involved. It is a good coincidence that for different reasons I checked my birth name on Google once more and discovered that a book was published in 2011 by Sean Scalmar looking at the rise of radical Protest in the UK and the USA based on Gandhian Satyagraha which makes reference in one of his copious footnotes to the letters written to the Direct Action Committee on behalf of Peter Brown (the author of Smallcreeps Day) and I proposing a Gandhian style march ending with a direct action protest at the USA nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch and our response to the protest after it had taken place. We had the same belief and commitment as those workers in Barcelona, despite having recently volunteered to spend six months in prison rather than giving an oral undertaking not to participate in protests for a period of two years. It was only then I began to fully understand the extent of the differences between the various factions making up the leadership of the anti nuclear movement. We were both to improve our understanding and adapt our position to changed circumstances

On returning from Spain, based on his diaries and memories, Blair wrote  that the revolutionary atmosphere of Barcelona “attracted me deeply but I had made no attempt to understand it,” and he was exasperated by the number of political parties and trade union with their different names which he considered tiresome. It only on arriving outside Huesca when someone said that the Socialists were  positioned on their left that he queried,” I thought we were socialists? “

Orwell uses this event to introduce his understanding of the Civil War and its origins, he confirms my understanding outlined in the first part that Franco did not come to power to introduce Fascism in Spain but with  help of the  church and the aristocracy to return Spain to is Feudalism before the first mild democratic government had taken office. The consequence of this is that Franco had against him not just the working class but also various sections of the liberal bourgeoisie and I suspect many who would not describe themselves as liberal. Orwell incorrectly assumed that it was only the bourgeoisie who supported Fascism thus not appreciating the traditionalism, the conservatism, patriotism, anti outsider and tribalism of the working class, particularly the politicised and trade union working class. I also had found this in prison and in my work with poor families with multiple problems when I worked for a Family Service Unit  in Salford throughout the summer of 1962.

What happened in Spain is that the working class opposition to the arrival of Franco was to move from accepting the democracy to engaging in revolution.  Land was sized,  factories seized, often by the trade unions, and churches wrecked with many priests killed. This led to the reaction by the Catholic church and their support for Franco. The opposition to Franco was not the elected government as such but the trade unions. Blair reports that in the street fighting 3000 people were killed in a single day. Once the blood letting starts it is difficult to stop. For purposes of propoganda to the outside world the civil war was represented as Christian patriots versus blood letting Bolsheviks, which in many respects it was, or at least became, and good republicans (Orwell says gentlemanly) quelling a military revolt against the democratic  government, which it also was. The reality was that not just the western capitalist countries but Stalinist Russia was opposed to the kind of workers revolutuion that had  taken place.  More recently we have seen how this kind of revolt in Egypt although brought down one regime has been quickly replaced by another with the help of a other countries whose systems and motives are often in conflict.  Importantly In Egypt the revolt was non violent and therefore the leaders who emerged remain whereas in Spain it was more easy to get rid of them because they has used force and committed atrocities.

Through the various phases of Government during the first  year of the Spanish civil war it had moved more and more to the right  ending with a right wing socialists Liberals and the Stalinist communists. POUM, the syndicalists and the anarchists  were moved out. This appears to be part of the deal with Russia as they commenced to supply weaponry to the official government for its defence.  The arms were made available through the Communist party and those allied to the Communist Party and the Communists openly said they were non revolutionary in their approach and thus gained support from many on the left who were also not revolutionaries. By the autumn of 1937 the Socialists organisations were claiming that they respected  private property, When the tide turned and even after Franco won, it was the Communists who led the hunt to track down and eliminate the revolutionaries. 

POUM which Orwell was part of its forces because of the ILP links was not just fully behind the revolution that had taken place in Barcelona, and  elsewhere, but rightly in my view believed that any comrpomise on what they had achieved would be their doom. They resisted the “bourgeoisifying” of the  workers   militia   and police force. If the workers did not control the armed forces the armed forces would control the workers. 

Orwell then explains the problem with people calling themselves anarchists and belonging to organisations and  groups which the pure anarchist will argue is contradiction.  Orwell explains that the two million strong grouping of the anarchist was  largely made up of former socialists against the centralised state, whether a capitalist or socialist state, and were more interested in workers controls than parliamentary government. Orwell argues that the anarchism of liberty and equality  was so deep rooted in Spain that it would outlive Communism. I wonder what in fact happened to this significant anarchist movement and what the position is now.

I have only read the Wikipedia article on  the subject and it is a good one making the point that the anarchism was not ideological but borne out of fhe rural economy in Spain with its Federal and individualistic history. The CNT party, now split into two groups is said to have some 50000 members.  a significant number  in terms of the generality of political involvement as Party members that exists today in most west European countries. This may be because of the extent to which the Communists and then Franco persecuted the anarahcists with hundreds of thousands executed or imprisoned. Apparently there were 30 attempts to kill Franco, none succeeding and violent resistence to his regime until the early 1960’s.

This was the context which Orwell says he became aware of the feuding that was going on between the different groups and interests which made up the Anti Franco coalition. Thus he came to appreciate that the Communists and those allied were saying with slogans, posters, radio propoganda  that he and his comrades were Trotskyists, Fascists, Traitors, Murderers, Spies                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   and more.  He ends the chapter reflecting that he had never joined POUM as a party and given subsequent events he wishes that he had. I like that about                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           the man.      

Blair returns to his war experience in Chapter six admitting that at the time he was still of a mind to join an International Brigade and place himself under effective  communist control because  of the military inactivity of his front the time. He describes becoming vermin infested and the shortages and that as the end of March came he had developed a poisoned hand that had to be lanced. I had such an experienced in childhood. His infection was more serious and he spent ten days away from the line at a clearing station hospital.

And then there were the rats. Some as big as cats. They were  big  that they did not run away unless you shot at them. In the radio drama he is criticised for wasting a  bullet attempting to shoot one. He may therefore write about rats again and this experience according to the Drama Jura about the writing of 1984 is what led to have used the rats in  the room 101 torture scene at the end of  the story, after his sister encountered rats on the island.

It has also remembered that the revolution that took place in Spain occurred in the countryside as much as the town and Orwell in describing the arrival of Spring noted that the “peasants” ( his word) were spring  ploughing fields where the land owners had gone and fields appeared to be divided up between the agricultural workers rather than collectivised as happened in Russia and then in China, taking several decades to understand that this was a recipe for disaster. Blair`` was struck by the friendliness of  agricultural workers.

So far I had also found little written about religion by Orwell but in chapter six he observes that there appeared to be little religious feeling in this part of Spain and he never saw anyone cross themselves during his whole time in Spain. He does anticipate the return of Catholicism and its Spanish Church despite its collapse and refers to the Church of England in an aside as moribund. He describes the Church of the Inquisition as having become a racket and replaced by anarchism.`

Hr describes that in May on the cold night he had experienced the line was moved, quietly to a  new trench close to the Fascist line. He also mentions that ambulances would not come to the front because it was understood by  both sides that they  were being used carry ammunition and therefore were regarded as fair targets. We are then back to the rats which were swarming in the trench and he noted with pride being able to punch one flying.

His hand having repaired in time for participating in a small group participating in an attack for which he prepared with a hunk of bread, three inches of red sausage and a cigar which his wife had sent from Barcelona via George Kopp who come to direct action, addressing him in Spanish and then in English. In order not to shoot each other they were to wear white armbands except it was discovered these had not yet arrived.

In the radio play there is reference to the arrival of Eileen in Barcelona to work at the ILP office, the meeting with George Kopp and that her his accepted his offer to go for a meal. There was to be talk  that the two had an affair, and Eric thought so accusing his wife. I speculate why Kopp chose Orwell and his group to undertake a dangerous mission to capture a Nationalist position partly up a hillside.

Meanwhile Orwell was getting his wish for action and found himself throwing not one but two grenade bombs as another landed close to him from the other side wounding those around him. He threw and then ducked quickly not looking to see where his throws had landed. The enemy was firing their riffles as were comrades behind, one going close to his position. After throwing his third grenade bomb which landed on the target the order was given to charge, although his description was that of a lumber. On arrival he found that everyone had departed with  the exception of one man he chased as he successfully escaped to a higher position  where his comrades provided safety.

Eric mentions using a small electric torch his wife had purchased for him in Barcelona. Although they found plenty of ammunition they wanted riffles to replace their own which jammed from the mud and general lack of good condition. More importantly they wanted the machine gun that fired at them but it had been removed leaving only the tripod. The enemy was counter attacking from above as were  comrades below on several places along the line and his small group was now in the middle with their only booty a powerful telescope. He throws a grenade  bomb at someone firing towards him and the cries indicated the man is wounded which causes him some regret. Then the order comes for them to go back to their line. He failed to understand why.

With Kopp anxious about an officer, his friend, who had not returned, Eric and a couple of Spanish comrades volunteer to bring the wounded or dead man back. Finding themselves under attack they retreat with finding anyone. He estimated that the Fascists had thrown  a couple of hundred men into the counter attack although a deserter said the number had been six hundred. Eric Blair could now write as George Orwell he had fought in a war and survived.

Homage to Catalonia -1

During writing about Keep the Aspidistra Flying I explained that in 1935 Eric Blair had met Eileen O’Shaughnessy from  South Shields and swept her of her feet after meeting at party held by the lady who rented him a room at her home. No sooner had they met and she agreed to marry him did he accept a commission from Victor Gollancz to travel to Yorkshire and Lancashire to gain first hand knowledge of the conditions of the  manual working classes, and what happened to them when there was no work. On his return in the summer of 1936  an aunt made available a cottage at Wallington in Hertfordshire about 35 miles from central London (not my Wallington or Wallington Hall in Northumberland) for the inexpensive rent of £2 month.  The cottage is described as tiny and adjacent to the closed village store which after his marriage to Eileen and their return from Spain and Morocco she opened and ran to supplement his income as a writer. However much was to happen to both of them fundamentally change Orwell’s views although I have no information  on the impact on his wife.

Eric Blair then went to Spain although getting there proved a challenge in order to report on the Civil War but he quickly became involved in  the fighting at the front which may have been his intention all along. Why did he do this? His wife came out to Barcelona and staying while her husband was at the front being entertained by George Kopp the man who was in charge and who became his friend. Eric appears to have believed that she had a sex based affair with Kopp who was subsequently imprisoned and accused of being a Fascist plant by the Stalin directed Spanish Communist party who turned on the popular front POUM. Blair  who was shot in the throat and lucky to be alive escaped with and his wife  and subsequently went to French speaking Morocco.

I have listened to the two part dramatization of Orwell’s account of his experiences in Spain as part of the BBC The Real George Orwell series and am now reading the book, Homage to Catalonia, again as well as having heard a BBC book club question and session on the book and listened to the BBC dramatization of their visit to Morocco and the meeting with George Kopp although I am not sure if this actually took place. Nearly twenty years ago I saw the Len Loach film Land and Freedom about the Spanish Civil War and I may have the video recording somewhere. The film drew on Orwell’s book which was seen at the picture house in Richmond on Thames during a short visit  to the Wallington to stay with  my birth and care mothers.

I have been interested in the Spanish Civil war for the greater part of my life because  the Aunties were living in Gibraltar throughout the that time with my birth mother coming to England in 1938 and four of her sisters coming to the UK in 1939 to live in Wallington at her home of another sister, her husband and at the time their four children. Another sister briefly remained in Gibraltar marrying a young professional soldier who became an officer with the war and later moved to married quarters at Catterick camp in north Yorkshire, where I was to be evacuated during the worst of the VI and V2 rocket attacks with more falling around Croydon airport where we lived than anywhere else in the UK.

The youngest of my aunts, Ethel, was engaged to  someone who was studying to be a doctor at the University of Madrid but who disappeared during  the war with no trace of what happened to him. Later when I became more politically aware the War Interested me because for a brief period a genuine workers cooperative state began to emerge especially in Barcelona until  on the orders of Stalin the Communists took control and who in turn were then crushed by the forces of General Franco, imposing his military dictatorship for several decades with the  full support of the Catholic church. My maternal great grandmother was Spanish and although born in Gibraltar my maternal grandmother was  from a Spanish and Italian background family. Having declared such an interest I was  surprised to find that I do not have one book on the civil war and various factions that were  involved  although I do have, The Return to Civil Society the Victor Pérez-Diaz book, Harvard University press and John Hoopers The New Spaniards which looks at all aspects of Spanish life after the end of the Franco regime, in addition to the 1950‘s Morton’s Travel book on his journey to Spain  A stranger in Spain undertaken during the post war Franco era and which was my second stream form prize in my last year at the John Fisher School..

The BBC discussed the Civil War in the Melvin Bragg series In Out Time first broadcast in 2003 and a still available for another year in which Paul Preston, Principe  de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish History at the London School of Economics, Helen Graham Professor of Spanish History at Royal Holloway, University of London, Dr Mary Vincent, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at Sheffield University.

The abolition of the Monarchy was less a factor in causing the war than the attempts to remove the power of the Catholic Church and the status and control the army as well as those who wanted  to introduce a British kind of Welfare State.  The Right embodying traditional vested interests attempted to regain power democratically between 1931 and 1936 and it was the failure to do so in the 1936 elections which led to the successful Military coup by General Franco with the help of Hitler and Mussolini, the subsequent intervention of Russia and the horrendous failure of the British government to tell Russian and Italy  not to intervene with the exception Churchill who recognised that by not doing so Britain was weakened, as was France, and where according to Preston Goering told Hitler that Franco had three week to triumph before any British intervention would mean it was wise for them to withdraw support.
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It was Hitler who facilitated the coup by providing air transport for Franco’s North African Army to cross the Straits of Gibraltar and who then provided arms notably  planes which led to Guernica (the Picasso picture which dominated the room in which I work) and control of the airspace. For Mussolini it was another Mediterranean/African adventure and he  provided on the ground military support. Once they controlled  the south Franco’s supporters in the military commenced to raid villages and eliminate those on the left in the most brutal and dramatic of fashion while in the north the Falange (Fascist) party supporters did likewise and there was much revenge and settling of local scores.

It was suggested by Preston that had the UK insisted on a general neutrality  the second World war might not have occurred, although whether this would have still meant Hitler exterminated the Jewish people and other groups he opposed within German territorial borders is a separate issue. However non intervention may not have prevented  the establishment of Franco’s Dictatorship given the quantity of groups on the left within Spain. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight the amazing aspects was that the disorganised and fragmented Popular Front managed to stop Franco’s for three years although the cost was great. However the great majority of lives were lost not on the battlefield but through summary executions, assassinations and extermination of prisoners after periods of torture and imprisonment. The role of the catholic church in denouncing those on the left is inexcusable despite the murdering of priests and  nuns by those on the left, giving the teachings the Catholic are supposed to endorse.

It is general agreed that the media world wide reported the war according to the positions being taken by editors and  governments, with Orwell account first written for the new Statesmen rejected because it was considered inappropriate for the time and one has to remember that for the greater part of World War II Russia was  an ally of the UK and the USA. In the BBC programme the Road to 1984, it was pointed out that when Hitler and Russia signed their pact at the beginning of the War, the Communist party Line in the UK was to be against the War,  calling it  Imperialist and capitalist, but as soon as Russia changed sides, there was national official support with a famous Wilfred Pickles programme at a factory providing supplies to Russia which commenced with the playing of the Internationale. This is why Orwell’s book has become one of the few reliable contemporary accounts of what went on and it is only now that the new generation in Spain is facing up to what happened and seeking to find out the truth, including digging up the mass graves to work out the number of murdered souls even if individual identities will remain a mystery through the destruction of church and civil records at that time.

Even after reading some of the summaries of information about the Civil War I have made little progress  adding to previous impressionism about what happened between 1936 and 1939 when Franco formally took charge of the country and the persecution of anyone associated with the previously democratically elected government, left wing movement and fighting for the Republication cause commenced.

It has to remembered that the Republic did run the military, the navy and airforce and that Franco rebelled with his African based forces but was then joined by many officers with others remaining with the Republican forces. The involvement of forces from other countries and volunteers added to the complications as well as factional groups often related to particular areas and one has only to look at recent history with the quick development of a united front militia and its success against Gaddafi and  his Libyan regime supported by a consortium of other countries in various ways compared to fragmented opposition against a well equipped and disciplined force of the Syrian president and where other countries remain hesitant about intervention because the outcome is so uncertain

Communist parties in other countries were encouraged o recruit volunteers to fight on the Republican side in late 1936 with the main centre located in Paris. The man who became Marshal Tito organised passports, money and travel for those from eastern Europe who went via train or ship from France  although many also went by themselves. The first 500 mainly French arrived in October 1936. The French Communist party also provided uniforms and  the volunteers were trained and equipped and  formal discipline was established although there was no form of contract which meant individuals were free to come and to go. Less than ten percent of the 40000 republican forces which took Madrid were internationals. Also fighting were the Anarchist Militia who in one attack were faced by Moroccans and Spanish Foreign Legionnaires. It is estimated that in total some 32000 “foreigners” were involved with the elected Republicans Government forces and the militia - France 9000, Belgium 1600, Italy 3000 and Germany/Austria 3000 Poland 3000., the Soviets 2000-3000, the USA and Canada around 5000 Cuba 1100, and the UK MI5 estimated 4000 although other sources put the figure as low as 1800/2000  with the Swiss sending 400 to 800 and the Irish 250, there were 100 from China and 90 Mexicans. There were over 30 Brigades with the British brigade included those from commonwealth Countries and the Irish Free State, The International aspects is highlighted in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which includes British, Cypriots and Chilean volunteers as well as those from the USA and Canada and the Veinte brigade also included British, American, Italian Bulgarians and from Yugoslavia. In addition to 0rwell, British participants included James Robertson Justice and Stephen Spender and Laurie Lee plus the Trade Unionist Leader Jack Jones. From other nations,  Will Brandt who became West German Chancellor, the grandson of Paul Gauguin and Kurt Veil. Paul Robson went to sing. The was also a man who became Prime Minister of Albania, another the Prime Minister of Iran, one became Chairman of Hungarian Council of Ministers, and another the Vice President of Yugoslavia. Arthur Koestler was imprisoned by Nationalists although an official war correspondent and Ernest Hemingway also went as a war Correspondent after Orwell  visited him in Paris as he was making his way to Spain.

Those whose political experience is limited to major political parties such as Republicans and democrats the in the USA, the British Labour and Conservatives  and Liberal Democrat parties will not appreciate the extent of fragmentation  in other countries especially among parties of the left where difference often relate to personalities, and to issue of ways and means rather than  major policies. In Spain in 1936 a broad coalition of parties formed the Popular front. I do not have the representation terms of number of seat or official supporters to hand but there were several broad groupings representing ideologies, interests and regions.

The regional interest parties were the Catalonia Region parties based on Barcelona- the ERC Republican Left of Catalonia and the PSUC Unified Socialist party of  Catalonia; the Basque Separatist the PNB Basque Nationalist, the ANV Basque Separatist Action and the STV Basque Workers Solidarity.

The communists were the PCE The Communist party of Spain  which became the major force aided by the SRI International Red Aid, the Russian led Comintern group who effectively  also controlled the  Spanish Communist party and the Communist members of the International Brigades.

One of the most influential parties in that members formed the bulk of the first government and supporters were drawn from the civil service as well as  small businesses and skilled workers was the IR Izquierda Republicana  Republican Left, itself made of from mergers  of three parties. In addition there was the UR Union Republicana  Republican Union was supported by skilled workers and progressive businessmen. The PSOE the Spanish Workers Party had itself split left and Right and became the second largest party in the Cortes and comprised mainly urban manual workers. The UGT General Workers Union was linked with the PSOE as was the Federation of Socialist Youth  one of four youth orientated groups  the JSU United Socialist Youth a mixture of Communists and Socialist youth groups and the FIJL representing Libertarian Youth and POUM see below also had a youth movement.

There was the anarchist and syndicalism groups ( hesitate to use party in this context) the CNT National Confederation of Labour representing anarchist and syndicalism orientated trade unions; The FAI Iberian Anarchist federation representing groups active in the republican militia; The Mureres Libre  Anarchist Feminist Group,  and the PS Syndicalist party a splinter group from CNT

The Union Militar was formed of military Officers supporting the Republicans

POUM - the Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista, the anti Stalin revolutionary Party of former Trotskyists with the JCI  Iberian Community Youth their your  movement and which the British Independent Labour Party was associated and who in turn sponsored  Orwell.

They were opposed by the Nationalist Union Militar Espaliola made up of army officers, the Monarchists Alfonsist, the Spanish restoration party,, The Spanish Action and the National Block (Militia) and the Monarchists Carlists  with a party of this name  plus its militia Reqestés, its youth the Pelayos and its women‘s movement the Margaritas; and the Fascists the  Falange  FE, the OJE Fascists youth and their women’s section. There was also a traditionalist Falange party. There was also CEDA a coalition of Christian based parties, plus the wealth and the power of the Catholic Church hierarchy.

As mentioned in previous writings although Blair described himself as a socialist with notions of quality and freedom for all, he was not a member of any political party until after returning from Spain and although he attended some political meetings, including that of the Communist Party and one meeting at which Oswald Moseley spoke he was not a political activist and was hostile to other middle and upper class intellectuals who attempt to lead the socialist movement in the UK, believing that true socialism could only emerge from the actions of the proletariat.

It is my understanding that Orwell’s interest in the civil War as much concerned with the intervention of General Franco and  the support he received from  Hitler, Mussolini and the Falange as he was with the populist support for the new republic. When he arrived he found he had reached a socialist Utopia.

According to the Radio programme Blair believed he had to obtain papers from some left wing organisation to be admitted to the Republican controlled areas and he went to see the General Secretary of British Communist Party with a view to going to Madrid and joining an International Brigade. Politt understandably and correctly appreciated that Blair was not one of them and a potential enemy. His next approach was to the Independent Labour Party who seeing the opportunity to cash in on the man’s increasing status within the UK labour movement because of his books agreed to provide him was the credentials, albeit not necessary, to journey to Barcelona where they had an office.

I know from his previous writings that Blair structured his books carefully not always following a chronology and his responses  have to judged as after thoughts as much as contemporary response at the time. Blair wrote about this aspect and the extent to which any writing, including his own could be described as objective truth. Therefore any individual work should be considered alongside any diaries, letters, remembered contemporary conversations by others and any other writings made at the time.

In the first chapter of the book Orwell, the writer, notes that on his arrival in Barcelona the city has the appearance of a worker’s state. The bourgeois are in hiding or adopting the clothes of the workers. The buildings are draped in red the socialists and red and black  for the anarchists with slogans for the Republic. The churches are being demolished and entering a cafe the waiters look you in the and do not call you sir. Tipping forbidden. Food was in short supply meat scarce, milk  almost unobtainable and bread queues could be several hundred yards long. Work was found for everyone and everyone individually received the same amount, that is each worker, non worker, aged parent and young child, and there were no beggars apart from the gypsies.

Almost immediately he joined the militia and was told he would quickly be moving to the frontline but this did no happen. There was no discipline and instruction useless with the main problem the absence of weaponry, Russia is  estimated to have contributed half a million riffles and ammunition plus other supplies but this went to the Stalin direct Communists and the Stalin controlled International brigades supporting the forces at Madrid. The POUM militia which he joined was badly organised and equipped but he quickly made friends. He noted that sometimes parents brought their 15 year olds to join because the lad received bread, where there was sufficient for some  to get back to their families. He comments on the Spanish approach to getting things done on time and ‘Manana’ and then without proper equipment  they were given two hours notice of moving to the front.

He describes the excitement with the women folk coming to help their men and all the flags waving in the torchlight with a political speech in Catalan before the late departure from that planned. He was off to war and to kill Fascists.

At the town where the  militia waited for trucks to take the front line outside Zaragoza which is  midway between the Catalans and the Basques and the city head of the Aragon region. They still did not have riffles to fight and the main excitement was the arrival of small groups of deserters from the ranks of the Fascist forces, scared of what would happened to them and usually men who did not have close families still in Fascist  controlled territories. I say Fascists but as  I have explained it would be better to say Nationalists, because there were Monarchists factions, Army factions and Christian factions and then the Fascists although there were many cross over. Orwell  immediately learns his first lesson of war, of any kind, the enemy are the same  as you, they look the same apart from the different uniforms and they behave the same unless instructed to behave otherwise. The front line was on a hill with the enemy occupying another hill well out of the range of a riffle.

The third chapter begins with a  list of their priorities in the trenches, firewood above everything else as Winter approached, then food then tobacco, then candles and then  along way fifth, the enemy, He saw no fighting in January and February and played on a minor part in fighting which took place in March. Aeroplanes dropped no bombs near him and no shell exploded within fifty yards. The other side had machine guns but by taking  precautions this was not a problem and he spent much of his time looking across the Wintry landscape at the futility of it all. The scenery was stupendous with the snow capped Pyrenees in the distance.

On arrival eh was made a capo, corporal, in charge of 12 men, mostly teenagers and notes that children as young as eleven were involved with militia, usually having escaped from the Fascists and looked after as   means of providing for them and kept out of harm’s way, but sometimes they managed to get themselves in the front line and were a menace to everyone. He felt that boy scouts and girl guides armed with airguns or battledores( racket for playing badminton but also a horn like book reading aid) could have overcome his position. Having expressed his concern that they were not equipped or organised to overcome the enemy, he pointed out that bourgeois armies were then run on a mixture of obedience  through drill, bullying and fear where his colleagues were driven by class loyalty and commitment to the cause and the men would not have tolerated bullying and other abuses of power. By May he had become an acting Lieutenant in charge of 30 men English and Spanish and had no difficult in in getting an order obey or getting volunteers.

Having said that firewood was the priority he explains just how cold he became despite pullovers  jackets and coats, thick socks and boots, gloves and headgear.   They were dirty often everything caked in mud with limited first water to drink brought by mules and excrement was everywhere. He took of his clothes at night only three times in eighty days and although too cold for lice as yet but they were plagued by mice and rats and rats became the enemy, leading to the rat being used to torture in 1984. There was  enough food and wine with cigarettes at a packet a day. (Men confined together in close quarters  smoke more I mentioned as a personal aside) The main point of the  chapter is that there were not allowed to attack the enemy and Georges Kopp when he toured the lines would say it was a comic opera with an occasional death  Without heavy weapons they had no choice but to stay out of reach  about 400 yards and make occasional night sorties which  had no  impact on the overall position

He lists what they did not have, maps or charts, no range finders, binoculars, no wire cutters, flares and  nothing to maintain their riffles. The greatest threat was from accidental firing of their own weapons and he records a machine gun going off close to his face.

Returning to the chronology after three weeks with another English man he was sent to join a party of  20 to 30 men sent out by the ILP from England and this brought him close to the town. He notes that the English got on well with the Spanish  despite the language difficulties and who  only knew two expressions one from English sailors regarding professional sex workers! And the other OK Baby which suggests American Hollywood influence. nadOrwell seems to use English to mean English speaking rather than geographical location.

He explains how tired they all became and the accumulative effect of being on guard for hours without sleep, remembering twenty four hour periods without sleep occurring on average every ten days and he fired only three shots during one period of three weeks with the estimate that it would take a thousand rounds to kill one man and on this basis twenty years before he killed one fascist. His Spanish colleagues  appeared to spend most for the time calling on the enemy to desert and join them and this rather shocked Orwell. Recently I watched for the umpteenth time that great film of the Second World battle for the Atlantic convoy, The Cruel Sea with Jack Hawkins. and when they see the survivors of only the second Germany submarine they were to destroy throughout the war, and saw their enemy  at close quarters, one observed they don’t seem different from us.