commies

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Sunrise 31 : TRUE, JUSTICE, and REPAIR.

Orwell in Catalonia: joining the POUM militia :​

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In January 1936, a few days after his arrival in Barcelona, George Orwell made a decision that would mark his subsequent participation in the Spanish Civil War: he decided to join the military, because " at that time and in that environment it seemed the only logical thing to do ."

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Orwell travelled to Spain with the firm intention of " killing fascists because someone has to do it ."
These were years of great tension and political radicalisation, where the liberal systems collapsed in the face of the rise of Nazi and fascist authoritarianism. In 1922 Benito Mussolini acceded to the government of Italy with the approval of his king, Victor Emmanuel III, and in 1933 Adolf Hitler did the same in Germany, helped by the conservative right.

In an international climate of tense polarisation, south of the Pyrenees a battle seemed to be taking place between opposing ideals: the II Spanish Republic, which represented democracy and a system of rights and freedoms, or the authoritarianism of the military who rose up against it.
On one side was Joseph Stalin's USSR, on the other the Nazi-fascist axis, and in the middle, fearful of igniting the flame of a new conflict on a global scale, were the liberal powers, especially France and Great Britain, which adopted a neutral policy, thereby condemning the Spanish republican government, in which Soviet influence was decisive.

Orwell arrived in Barcelona on December 26, 1936 with a letter of recommendation from the Independent Labour Party (ILP), a British organization with a Trotskyist orientation that he joined in 1938, after his experience in the Spanish Civil War.

Independent Labour Party - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It is therefore not surprising that he chose the militias of the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM), whose political line was similar to that of the ILP, as his space for fighting against Spanish fascism.

Communist Left of Spain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Workers and Peasants' Bloc - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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POUM - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

His entry into the militia, although described with a certain romantic air, is presented to us in a crude way, close to the reality that he knew so well.

« How easy it is to make friends in Spain! Within a day or two there were already twenty militiamen who called me by my first name, taught me all sorts of tricks and overwhelmed me with their hospitality. This is not a propaganda book and I do not intend to idealise the POUM militia. The organisation of the militia had serious defects and among the men themselves there was everything, because at that time voluntary isolation was beginning to diminish and many of the best were already dead or at the front. Among us there was always a certain percentage who were totally useless. There were fifteen-year-old boys who had been enlisted by their parents for the ten pesetas a day of wages and for the bread that the militiamen received in abundance and could sneak home. But I challenge anyone to mix with the Spanish workers as I did - although perhaps I should say Catalans, because apart from a few Aragonese and Andalusians I only associated with Catalans - without being impressed by their basic honesty and, above all, their frankness and generosity .
Homage to Catalonia (1938), George Orwell

George Orwell (el más alto al fondo a la izquierda), cuando formaba parte de la milicia del POUM en 1937 en Barcelona
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In early January, Orwell entered the Lenin Barracks, the centre of operations of the POUM militias, where new members were being trained.
Six months had already passed since the outbreak of war and some things, so characteristic of the first moments of the conflict, were beginning to change, including the military participation of women, which was decisive in July 1936, but disdained in January 1937.
View attachment 19078746 « There must have been about a thousand men in the barracks and about twenty women, not counting the wives of the militiamen who cooked. There were still women serving in the militia, although not many. In the first battles they had fought side by side with the men without anyone being surprised, because in a revolution it seems the most natural thing to do. But ideas were beginning to change. When women were doing training, the militiamen were not allowed to go to because they were laughed at and distracted. A few months earlier no one would have thought it funny to see a woman holding a rifle .»
Homage to Catalonia (1938), George Orwell

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Orwell spent his first days as a militiaman undergoing training.
Soon, the time would come to leave for the front.

Orwell, en el centro, con bigote y el brazo derecho cruzado, con un grupo de milicianos en el frente de Aragón.

https://www.amanecer31.org/post/orwell-en-catalunya-ingreso-en-la-milicia-del-poum

orwell , eric blair , another member of the fabian society .

again these are not men of the people , merely puppets of the establishment

 

[Eltitoguay]

(Another different view of George Orwel in the Spanish Civil War):

George Orwell (1903-1950) The writer Eric Arthur Blair, known as Orwell, is one of the greatest disasters that could have happened to the Spanish Second Republic during the war. This writer and combatant of the POUM militias for a few months on the Huesca front, contributed immensely to the fact that in the Spanish Civil War, everything was upside down, as we often say. Let me explain : Blair was born in India into the English caste. After various vicissitudes and travels he joined the British imperial police in Burma. There he fell ill with tuberculosis while becoming increasingly aware of the hardship of the natives. On his return from the East, penniless, trying to make a living from his writing between London and Paris, he became even more radical. He wrote several novels and short stories, with little success but great interest, which already revealed his good writing. His political affiliation at that time could be that of the left-wing Labour Party, which represented a small but very active party, the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Blair's hobbyhorse up to the present day was standing on two legs, the fight against colonialism (imperialism) and the fight against the patriarchal and authoritarian society that always tells us what to think. Meanwhile his illness progressed and he remained penniless. By 1936, Blair had already adopted the pseudonym of Orwell and had a relatively important literary work. He decided to participate in the events that were taking place in Spain, and obtained a letter of recommendation from the ILP to be able to move with a certain freedom around the CNT Catalonia. It was December 1936. It seems that he had planned to join the International Column, but in Barcelona he decided to join the POUM militia, a small revolutionary party, close to Trotskyism, but which Trotsky himself abhorred, for its activism without real objectives. At the Lenin headquarters of the POUM he was assigned to the Third Century of these militias and sent to the Huesca Front where the POUM militias officiated with little or no military success. After months of inactivity and some sporadic action, the POUM militias were militarized, despite the bitter resistance of the POUM leaders, and converted into the 29th division commanded by Rovira. In the spring of 1937 he received a severe throat wound and was evacuated to Barcelona. There he experienced first-hand the events of May 1937, when the POUM, the FAI and sectors of the CNT (contradicting their leaders) rose up in Barcelona and after a week of fire, were defeated in their attempt to keep power in Catalonia, which the government and the governing party were taking away from them day by day with complete legitimacy. The main victim of this defeat was the POUM and its leaders who were imprisoned or captured. Andreu Nin was kidnapped by the Russian and Spanish police affiliated with the PCE, and after, probably, torturing him with impunity, they murdered him and disposed of his body. The other leaders of the POUM were later tried and sentenced with little severity. The government, which knew what had happened with Nin, had to swallow its guilt, as it could not do without the PCE and its older brothers, and although it commissioned an investigation, the USSR's policy of dependence hampered the investigation. Negrin, recently appointed President of the Council of Ministers, and quite angry, dismissed Antonio Ortega as Director General of Security. The POUM members of any relevance fled or went into hiding. Orwell did too. After a few months hiding in Barcelona he managed to return to England where he wrote his book Homage to Catalonia. In a country with little inclination to defend the Spanish Second Republic and generally fascinated with anarchists, the book was a hit and changed Orwell's life.

Orwell's observations on the little war he lived through in the POUM column are excellently written, easy to read, but they contain many falsehoods and some inventions, as researchers have shown (most recently, Paul Preston).

Paul Preston - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Homage to Catalonia is primarily a book by a patriarchal imperialist who continually tells the reader what to think, precisely what the author criticised.
Orwell's good pen and wit make the trance very smooth and I would even say entertaining, but it is a failed historical essay despite its popularity.
When Orwell took pity on the poor in Burma and took the left, the extreme left of the ILP, as a good petty bourgeois, he still carried an imperial policeman in his vest. And so, friend Orwell, an icon of the bourgeoisie and of the Western secret services, entered the division of defenders of the extreme left, because of his furious anti-communism.
What a strange journey these guys have!
It seems that the government of the Second Republic, in order not to be Stalinist and all that, should have let itself be torn apart, on the one hand by the Francoists and on the other by the extremists of the POUM and the FAI (and part of the CNT).
So, for all intents and purposes, the extreme right and the extreme left were as much enemies of the II Spanish Republic, and in my opinion, the government was very soft with these guys, except in the case of Nin, which was an extrajudicial execution decided by the Russians and which the Republic had to cover up so as not to alienate the only one who helped them, "the evil father Stalin."
What things!
There is evidence that Homage to Catalonia was written in haste and with a hot head, and that Orwell later rectified many of his statements.
But as the honest journalist Mathews said, not at all suspected of being a communist, it was one of the books that did the most damage to the Second Republic, even if it was unintentional.
Orwell, despite his poor health, became the censor in England of books about the Spanish Civil War that he did not like, ranting as he pleased, but unfairly, although with the approval of the British forces.
And so he put Koestler down for his book "Spanish Testament" which was not exactly pro-communist, but he also harshly criticized Jellinek who defended some of the bad times that the Republic had to go through during the war.

Orwell became completely unfair with the Spanish Republic on the path of fierce anti-communism.
A bad path.

Orwell had spent a few months on an inactive front, wounded in the throat and present at the events in Barcelona. That was all his baggage, and with that baggage he sentenced the struggle of the Spanish people.

Orwell did not see beyond his nose although he told it very beautifully :
The events of May 1937 were an armed rebellion against the legitimate government by the FAI, a part of the CNT and the adventurous POUM (which Trotsky himself never stopped cursing), when the Generalitat wanted to regain control of the Barcelona Telephone Company.

When confronting the legal government, the May 1937 rebels objectively took the rebel side, no matter how many red and black flags and hammers and sickles they carried.

And when you take up arms against a legal, democratic and constituted government, formed by a political pact called the Popular Front of practically the entire left-wing political spectrum, then you cannot go around saying how harshly they treat you, at war!!

Popular Front (Spain) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

​

 

[Eltitoguay]

Another different view of George Orwel in the Spanish Civil War):

HISPANIA NOVA. First online magazine of contemporary history in Spanish. Second Period

1. HISPANIA NOVA. Nº 16 (2018)

Deceptions and errors in the Orwell' s Tribute to Catalonia.

• Paul Preston ; London School of Economics
• 

  Paul Preston - Wikipedia

  en.wikipedia.org

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20318/hn.2018.4033

Summary​

Abstract:
Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is included in most lists of important books on the Spanish Civil War despite being simply a vivid eye-witness account of just two fragments of the war. It demonstrates little understanding of Spanish or Catalan politics and does not present a reliable analysis of the broader politics of the war and particularly of its international determinants. Its underlying notion that the crushing of revolution in Barcelona would contribute to eventual Republican defeat makes it too easy to forget the contribution of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and the pusillanimous self-interest of the British, French and American governments. Based on the partisan views of anarchist and POUM comrades as well as ignorance of the wider context, Orwell’s analysis and prediction is misleading. This article aims to raise awareness that the views expressed in his book are often wrong because they are based on insufficient information and prior prejudice.

Engaños y errores en el Homenaje a Cataluña | HISPANIA NOVA. Primera Revista de Historia Contemporánea on-line en castellano. Segunda Época

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Critical Sociology​

Articles and texts for debate and analysis of social reality​

Lights and shadows in the “Homage to Catalonia” (I) / Paul Preston​

Paul Preston - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Orwell's Homage to Catalonia , despite a title that lends itself somewhat to misunderstanding, is the best-selling and most widely read book on the Spanish Civil War.[1] It is a vivid account of some fragments of the war, elegantly written by a very perceptive witness. Its subject is the valuable experience of a militiaman on the Aragonese front. In powerful sentences Orwell recreated in a very graphic way the fear, the cold and, above all, the misery of the trenches, the excrement and the lice. Two examples: “ We were now much closer to the front, close enough to notice the characteristic smell of war (in my experience, a smell of excrement and rotten food) ” and “ the landscape was impressive, provided one managed to overlook the fact that all the peaks were occupied by soldiers and, therefore, covered with tin cans and encrusted with excrement ”. He also complained about the lack of training and the poor armament. “ It was horrible that the defenders of the Republic were a bunch of ragged children armed with broken rifles that they did not even know how to use ”[2].

A biographer of Josep Rovira, commander of the 29th Division in which Orwell served, wrote that “ in his sleepy and distant traverse, he manifested himself entirely with an eagerness to observe, like a curious child .”[3] Orwell’s vivid observations of agricultural backwardness, of primitive pre-medieval farming implements, of ploughs that merely scratched the soil without making furrows, his evocations of the sights and sounds of the countryside are worthy of a great travel book and of great value to the historian.[4] As for his repeated comments about wasted food, “ terribly so, especially bread. In my barracks alone we threw away a whole basket of bread at every meal, which was shameful when you consider how scarce it was among the civilian population .”
If the POUM unit in which Orwell served could afford to waste food, it must have been a rarity among Republican forces.[5]

Photo: Andy Durgan, «With the POUM International volunteers on the Aragon Front (1936-1937)

Orwell's eyewitness account warrants inclusion on any list of important books on the Spanish Civil War. However, it would not rank there as an example of credible analysis of the wider political environment of the conflict and, in particular, its international conditions. In his book, Orwell combined a mass of high-quality personal observations with a devastating critique of the distortions and falsehoods of the press. It is, however, his political analysis and predictions that suffer most from his wholesale acceptance of the partisan views of his fellow anarchists and the POUM, coupled with his own ignorance of the wider context in which the conflict was set. At best, his book is a misleading contribution to the central debate over whether the priority of the Spanish Republic should have been revolution or perseverance in the conventional war effort against Franco and his Axis allies.

Herbert Matthews (right) with Ernest Hemingway
and Hugh Slater

Herbert Matthews, the great New York Times correspondent, summed up the problems following the publication of Homage to Catalonia as follows : “ The book did far more to blacken the loyalist cause than anything else written by the enemies of the Second Republic – a result which Orwell did not intend, as he showed in some of his later writings. In Homage Orwell wrote in the heat of the moment about a confused, unimportant and somewhat obscure incident in a war which he did not at all understand. All he saw between January and May 1937 was a minimal period of ‘quasi-war’ on the small Huesca front and a bloody clash between communists and anarchists in Barcelona. He had volunteered through the Independent Labour Party (PLI), a left-wing formation which had links with the POUM. This was a dissident group, very Marxist, not treacherous but somewhat revolutionary and subversive, which was proving dangerous to the Republican Government .” Matthews, who considered Orwell “a brave, even-tempered and honest man ,” also stated: “ I would say that very few people have read the scraps – essays, reviews, letters – that Orwell wrote about Spain in later years. Such scraps show a much better understanding of events than he had when he was in Spain .”[6]

Certainly Matthews was right, and yet Orwell’s book has had an enormous influence on perceptions aroused by the Spanish Civil War.[7] For example, Robert Stradling claims that “the two ‘analytical’ chapters of Homage are justly renowned as a condensed political treatise on the whole of the twentieth century.”[8] Orwell himself wrote: “ The most striking thing about books on the Civil War, at least those written in English, is their overwhelming poor quality and soporific boredom. But more significant still is that nearly all of them, whether right or left, are written from a political point of view by very self-assured people who tell the reader what to think .”[9] Homage to Catalonia is neither boring nor bad, but it is written from a political point of view by someone who is very self-assured and who tells the reader what to think.

P.O.U.M. building

Many distinguished readers were prepared to accept what Orwell told them. These included many who knew little about the Spanish Civil War, such as Lionel Trilling, Noam Chomsky, Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson.[10] One who had been to Spain and later became a fierce anti-Communist was Arthur Koestler, who was drawn to Orwell's writings. However, Koestler's relations with the latter were based on their mutual hatred of the Soviet Union rather than on a considered consideration of events in Spain.[11]

The widespread admiration for Homage to Catalonia is all the more surprising given that the book is confined entirely to the time and place in which Orwell was in Spain. He evidently knew nothing of the origins of the war, of the long-running political conflicts between left-wing groups in Barcelona, and even less of the problems underlying the relations at that time between the Republican government in Valencia and the various political forces in Catalonia. As Robert Stradling writes, “ As a study of the Spanish civil war Homage to Catalonia is of dubious value. Not only did the author avoid any basic research, but he also lacked the necessary qualifications to carry it out .”[12] Orwell himself acknowledged the shortcomings of his summary of the political situation of the time towards the end of Homage to Catalonia , writing: “ If I have not said it before, I am saying it now: beware of my bias, my errors, and the inevitable distortion caused by having witnessed only part of the events. And I say the same about any other book about this period of the Spanish war ”[13].

There are other reasons to question some of what Orwell wrote. There are many encounters with staff in his book which are described in detail but which he could only have accurately recorded if he had spoken Spanish well. The fact that there is very little reason to think that this was the case casts doubt on his intellectual honesty. He himself admitted that his Spanish was “atrocious” and this is highly probable given that he did not know the language when he arrived in Spain and spent virtually all his time there in the company of people who spoke English. The PLI liaison in Barcelona, John McNair, recalled in a scarcely credible way that Orwell “ spoke a good deal of Spanish and enough French to understand a lot of Catalan ”. It is rare for French ears, let alone English ears, to easily understand spoken Catalan. The captain of the unit in which Orwell served, Benjamin Lewinski, told biographer Michael Shelden that the French-speaking Orwell quickly picked up enough Catalan to be able to communicate with his comrades. However, Orwell himself wrote of his first days in Spain: “ All the while I continued to have my usual difficulties with Spanish. Apart from me, there was only one Englishman in the barracks, and no one, not even among the officers, spoke a word of French. And I found it even more difficult when my comrades spoke Catalan to each other .”

Orwell with leaders of the POUM (Nin, Gorkin, Bonet), PSOP (Marceau Pivert), ILP (John McNair) and Colette Audry, Barcelona, July 1936 (photo: «Julian Gorkin, testimony of a professional revolutionary»)

Even assuming that McNair and Lewinski's recollections of Orwell speaking Catalan were correct, they could only have done so at a level that would permit easy conversations but not sufficient to explain how Orwell, as he claimed in his book, was able to carry on complex discussions with Spanish officials in his efforts to secure the release of his friend Georges Kopp and even, when wounded and half-conscious, to have understood the comment of a Spanish comrade “ behind him that the bullet had gone clean through my neck .”[14] It is striking that the only Catalan word that Orwell might have been expected to know – la Generalitat – is always listed as the “Generalite.”* It is also noteworthy that in his collection of letters, reviews and essays there is no indication that before the civil war he had the slightest contact with Spanish or that he had ever read a book in Spanish, whether on the war or any other subject.

His precise and perfectly justified denunciations of the absurd claims of the communist and bourgeois press do not invalidate his failure to understand the general situation. Orwell claimed that the fact that the POUM was being persecuted meant that the Republican government was “ virtually in the hands of the communists .” And yet, a few pages later, he admitted that “ the majority of members of the Spanish government have denied believing the accusations made against the POUM. The Council of Ministers recently decided by five votes to two to release the anti-fascist political prisoners; the two ministers who voted against were communists .” He acknowledged that Indalecio Prieto, Minister of National Defense; Manuel Irujo, Minister of Justice; Julián Zugazagoitia, Minister of the Interior, among others, “ denied believing that the leaders of the POUM were guilty of espionage .”[15]

Despite this statement, in a text riddled with contradictions, Orwell did not hesitate to make a prediction, totally unfounded, about what would have happened if the Republic had won the war: “ As for the newspaper chatter that this was a “war for democracy,” it was pure nonsense. No one in his right mind thought there was the slightest hope that, when the war was over, there could be democracy, even as it is understood in England or France, in a country as divided and exhausted as Spain. There would have to be a dictatorship, and it was obvious that the opportunity for a dictatorship of the proletariat had already passed. That meant it would be some form of fascism .”

A few pages after this huge mistake, Orwell nevertheless wrote: “ I must add that I now have a much higher opinion of Negrin’s government than when he came to power. He has fought back with enormous courage and shown greater political tolerance than anyone expected. Even so, I remain convinced that, unless Spain ends up split in two with unpredictable consequences, the tendency of the post-war government will be fascist .”[16] After condemning the Spanish Republic as an incipient Stalinist dictatorship in late 1938 or early 1939, Orwell praised the fact that democratic norms had been maintained: “In governmental Spain the forms and spirit of democracy have survived to a degree that no one could have foreseen. It would even be correct to say that they were developing during the first year of the war .”[17]

Juan Negrín during a visit to the Ebro front in 1938 (photo: Archive of the Juan Negrín Foundation)

Juan Negrín - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

es.wikipedia.org

Juan Negrín - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In August 1952 Herbert Matthews wrote to the former president of the Republican government in exile, Dr. Juan Negrín, to ask him about his relations with Orwell. While preparing an article about the publication in the United States of Homage to Catalonia , Matthews had learned that the socialist journalist and historian Antonio Ramos Oliveira had introduced Negrín to Orwell. After his time as press adviser at the Republican embassy in London under Pablo de Azcárate, Ramos Oliveira had remained in England and during this period had become friends with Orwell. Ramos Oliveira had told Matthews that Orwell had gotten on well with Negrín and that once Negrín had explained the big themes to him, Orwell began to “ remember his experiences in a different light and better understand the position of the Communists .” Matthews therefore wrote to Negrín to ask for more information.[18]

Negrín replied two weeks later: “ As far as I can remember I first met Orwell sometime after August or September 1940. He was introduced to me as an editorialist for the Observer and I was told that he had been in Spain during our war. I did not realise that he had been there not as a journalist or writer but as a volunteer in a combat unit and I think it was only when I read his book on Catalonia, months after his death, that I realised this. Since we met we saw each other several times and I dare say that a mutual current of esteem, sympathy and even friendship soon established itself between us .” Throughout their conversations Orwell bombarded Negrín with questions about the problems of the civil war that he had ignored in Homage to Catalonia .

Negrín explained to him that “ our foreign policy, especially our relations with Russia, took into account that the USSR was the only great power that supported us internationally and that was willing to supply us with the necessary weapons in cash (we never asked for gifts from anyone) . He also informed him of the problems and difficulties that arose from the “ heterogeneous conglomerate of parties, unions and dissident groups that were incompatible with each other, as well as the regional and local “governments” that were often self-appointed and unconstitutional ” with which he had to deal. Negrín concluded by stating that Orwell was “idealistic” and weltfremd (unrealistic). However, the fact that he did not say anything about his links with the POUM suggests that Orwell was not entirely honest with the former president.

Photo: Andy Durgan, With the POUM International volunteers on the Aragon Front (1936-1937)

Negrín wrote to Matthews that, had he read the book at the time of their conversations, “ I would have been more inquisitive, in order to clarify some of the events I narrated, trying to see through a frank and open discussion to what extent the interpretation of the facts he witnessed was correct. After reading your book, I have not changed my opinion of Orwell: a respectable and honest man but very biased by a point of view that was too rigid, puritanical, endowed with a candor that borders on naïveté, very critical but too credulous with respect to the religious community within which he moves and acts; “extremely individualistic (an Englishman!) but accepting too easily and without any discernment of his own the inspirations coming from the somewhat gregarious collective in which he voluntarily and instinctively wants to take root, and so extraordinarily honest and self-sacrificing that he would not hesitate for a moment to change his mind as soon as he realised that he was wrong (….) He arrived at the chaotic front (?) of Aragon under the tutelage of a group (…) controlled certainly by elements who were not only very allergic to Stalinism - this was often (sic) no more than a mere protest - but also to anything that implied a supreme and united direction of the struggle and under a common discipline. When all this is combined with the already mentioned factors of “astigmatism” one easily comes to justify the distorted image in Orwell’s mind of the events of 1937 in Barcelona ”[19] .

The honesty attributed to Orwell's book has been one of the pillars of its success, along with, naturally, its clear anti-communist stance. Even so, the veracity of some of the episodes described in the work has been questioned. In fact, shortly after publishing it, Orwell himself began to cast doubt on the things he had written. On December 20, 1938, in a letter to Frank Jellinek, he wrote about his book: “ I have no doubt that I have made a lot of mistakes and that I have made misleading statements, but I have also tried to indicate throughout the work that the subject is very complicated and that I am extremely fallible as well as biased .” He also confessed to Jellinek: “ I have actually written a much more sympathetic account for the POUM than I really felt because I always told them that they were deceiving themselves and I refused to join. However, I had to write with the greatest possible sympathy because the capitalist press has not paid the slightest attention to them and the left-wing press has piled up insults. In fact, considering how things have gone in Spain, I think there was some truth in what they said, although there is no doubt that their way of saying it was extremely boring and provocative ”[20].

POUM headquarters in Barcelona

There is something irresponsible in this spirit of “fair play” behind Orwell’s decision to play down as much as possible the degree to which the POUM’s attitude was detrimental to the Republic. It is all the more remarkable since Orwell admitted that, before the events in Barcelona, “ he generally shared the opinion of the communists, which was summed up by saying that ‘there is no point in talking about revolution until we win the war’” and “he tried to move from the POUM to the International Brigades. Of course, he wanted to go to Madrid. Everybody, whatever their political opinions, wanted to go to Madrid (…) For the moment, of course, I had to stay at the front, but I always said that, when I went on leave, I would try to go over to the International Brigades, which was equivalent to putting myself under communist control. Many tried to dissuade me, but nobody tried to stop me. It must be said in fairness that in the POUM there was little persecution of dissidents, perhaps too little given the circumstances; Unless one was pro-fascist, no one was punished for holding wrong political opinions. While I was in the militia I spent a lot of time bitterly criticizing the POUM “line,” but it never caused me the slightest trouble .”[21]

Orwell’s ILP commander, Bob Edwards, commented precisely in this vein: “ He made known on several occasions his intention to leave the International Militia and join the Communist-controlled International Column on the Madrid front. During this period most of the volunteers wanted to fight in Madrid because the big battles were taking place there .” Edwards, moreover, adopted a somewhat cynical stance because he believed that Orwell “ was putting his needs as a writer before his duty as a soldier (…) and I called him out on this quite clearly to the point that on one occasion after a very heated debate I told him that he was a “bloody second-rate writer” with no experience of working-class struggles other than that of a journalist who merely observed them .”[22]

Harry Pollitt (photo: Communist
Party of Great Britain Archives)

Orwell had initially written, “ If I joined their militia [the POUM] and not any other it was only because I arrived in Barcelona with PLI papers .”[23] That the POUM accepted him had much to do with his literary fame even though the book presents him as an anonymous volunteer. Believing that he would need left-wing party credentials to go to Spain, Orwell asked John Strachey to introduce him to Harry Pollitt, the general secretary of the CPGB. Pollitt, “ after asking me several questions evidently decided that I was not to be trusted politically and refused to help me .”[24] Pollitt was probably resentful of what he perceived in Orwell as the snobbery of an Eton-educated boy.

This is how Orwell found his way to the PLI where he was given letters of introduction to John McNair, the representative in Barcelona. At first McNair, a Tyneside proletarian, was somewhat put off by Orwell's typical Eton accent, as had Pollitt. However, letters from Fenner Brockway and H.N. Brailsford alerted McNair that he was talking to the author of Burmese Days and Down and Out in Paris and London , which he had read and liked very much. He immediately realised Orwell's value in propaganda and agreed to take him quickly to the POUM militia base at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona[25]. The enlistment of such a famous author was soon used as a means of stimulating recruitment in the English-language POUM newsletter, The Spanish Revolution [26].

Lenin Barracks in Barcelona (photo: Agustí Centelles). Orwell's head stands out above the recruits in the last rows, on the left.

In a later, unpublished memoir, McNair recalled that when he asked what he could do to help, Orwell supposedly replied: “ I have come to Spain to join the militia and fight against fascism .” He also claimed that Orwell said that “ he would like to write about the situation and try to stimulate the opinion of the workers in England and France .” McNair suggested that he take up residence in his office and visit Madrid, Valencia and the Aragonese front where the POUM was stationed “ and then write his book .” Orwell replied that writing a book “ was a very secondary thing and that his main reason for going to Spain was to fight against fascism .”[27]

Jennie Lee (photo:
Elliott & Fry, National Portrait
Gallery)

The British Labour MP Jennie Lee, wife of Aneurin Bevan, recalled in 1950: “ In the first year of the Spanish Civil War I was sitting with friends in a hotel in Barcelona when a tall, thin man with a dazzling complexion came to our table. He asked me if I was Jennie Lee and if so could I tell him where to enlist. He also said he was a writer. He had been given an advance for a book by [Victor] Gollancz and had come prepared to drive a car or do anything, preferably to fight on the front line. I thought this was suspicious and asked him if he had any papers from England. From what I saw he had none. He had not spoken to anyone and had paid his own way. He convinced me when he showed me the boots he was carrying over his shoulder. I knew he would have a hard time finding boots in his size as he was tall and over six feet tall. It was George Orwell in his boots, ready to fight in Spain .” The money advanced to him by Victor Gollancz was most likely for his work The Road to Wigan Pier and not for a book about Spain[28]

The same reasons that had been behind Pollitt's rejection and McNair's initial hostility contributed to Orwell's unpopularity with his British comrades in the militia who were well aware of the significance of " a crystal-clear Eton accent ". It might have been different with the Spanish, although Orwell recalled that some volunteers called him a fascist for resisting his efforts to impose discipline. His comrade Stafford Cottman put forward the thesis that Orwell adopted a contemptuous air about what he regarded as the political naivety of other volunteers. Frank Frankford, from the working-class suburbs of East London, said that the "supercilious bastard" disliked him as soon as he laid eyes on him. " He didn't really like workers... What I didn't like about him was his attitude in discussions, his attitude towards the working class. Two or three of us said that he was not with his own people, that he should be on the other side (…) I think that perhaps he saw himself as another Bernard Shaw (…) His socialism had no depth at all ”[29].

POUM volunteers (photo: Andy Durgan Andy Durgan, With the POUM International volunteers on the Aragon Front (1936-1937)

In fact, Orwell wrote that when he was preparing to leave Barcelona on 25 April, “ I tracked down a communist friend with ties to the Spanish Red Aid and explained my case to him. He seemed very keen to recruit me and asked me if possible to try to persuade some other Englishmen in the ILP to follow my example .”[30] The friend was Hugh O’Donnell, the CPGB man charged with keeping an eye on the POUM. After discussing the matter primarily with McNair two days later Orwell approached a more senior communist in Barcelona, Wally Tapsell, who had been instructed to keep a close eye on the ILP members. Tapsell sent Harry Pollitt a report on people connected with the POUM in which he also described his meeting with Orwell and Orwell’s motives for joining the International Brigades: “ The most distinguished and most respected person in the contingent at the moment is Eric Blair. She is a novelist and has written a number of books on the life of the English proletarians. She has little understanding of political issues and “is not interested in party politics. She came to Spain as an anti-fascist to fight fascism.” However, as a result of her experiences she has come to dislike the POUM and is trying to get herself discharged from the POUM militia ”[31].

It was not long before Orwell changed his mind about joining the International Brigades after what he saw in Barcelona during the events of May 1937. What he did not see was that the Spanish Republic was not only fighting Franco and his armed forces but also the military and economic power of Mussolini and Hitler in a context of Franco-British hostility. Surrounded from outside, the Republic also had to face enormous internal problems, unknown in the area that Franco had militarily brutalised. The collapse of the bourgeois state in the first days of the war occurred at the same time as the rapid eruption of revolutionary organs of a parallel power. There was a massive and popular collectivisation of agriculture and industry. Although it filled participants and observers like George Orwell with enthusiasm, the great experiments in collectivisation in the autumn of 1936 did little to create a war machine. Socialist leaders such as Indalecio Prieto and Juan Negrín were convinced that a conventional state, with centralized control of the economy and the institutional instruments necessary to mobilize the masses, was essential to generate and sustain an effective war effort. Communists and Soviet advisers agreed. Not only was this a common-sense approach, but the reduction of the revolutionary activities of the anarchists and the anti-Stalinist POUM was necessary to reassure the bourgeois democracies with which both the Soviet Union and the Spanish Republican government sought an understanding. The events of May that Orwell witnessed were provoked by the need to remove the obstacles that impeded the efficient conduct of the war. Despite the incorporation of proletarian militias into the regular army forces and the dismantling of collectivizations, Negrín's government could not achieve victory, not because the policy was wrong but because outside forces continued to encircle the Republic.

Thus, in Ken Loach's Homage to Catalonia and its film version Land and Freedom , a secondary episode pushes the major problems of the war to one side and, in doing so, presents a totally perverse explanation of the reasons for the Republican defeat. With a Republic abandoned by the Western powers and attacked by Franco, Hitler and Mussolini, only the Soviet Union decided to help it. Naturally, Stalin did not act in this way out of idealism or sentimentality. Rather, because, threatened by an expansionist Germany, he hoped, like his Tsarist predecessors, to be able to limit the risk by means of an alliance with France that would in turn encircle Hitler. He feared, with reason, that if Franco won the war with Hitler's help, France would collapse. He therefore set about providing just enough aid to the Republic to keep it alive while preventing revolutionary elements in Spain from justifying conservative decision-makers in London in continuing their appeasement of the Axis in the framework of an anti-Bolshevik crusade. Without Soviet arms and the International Brigades Madrid would probably have fallen in November 1936 and Franco would have won the war months before the anarchists and Trotskyists in Barcelona became a problem.

The reasoning behind both the book and the film is that it was Stalinist repression that brought Franco victory. However, Orwell himself completely demolished it in his 1942 essay Looking Back on the Spanish War : “ The hatred that the Spanish Republic aroused in millionaires, dukes, cardinals, playboys, reactionary sanctimonious people and the like should be enough to understand the situation. It was, in essence, a class war. Had it been won, the cause of the people throughout the world would have been decisively strengthened. It was lost, and those who live on its dividends throughout the world could rub their hands and celebrate. That was the bottom line, and everything else is foam on the surface (…) The outcome of the Spanish Civil War was decided in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin… In any case, it was not decided in Spain. After the summer of 1937, those with common sense realized that the government could not win the war unless there was a very profound change in the international panorama (…) The Trotskyist thesis that the war could have been won if the revolution had not been the victim of sabotage is probably a mistake and a lie. Nationalizing the factories, demolishing the churches, issuing revolutionary manifestos would not have made the armies more effective. The fascists won the war because they were stronger. They had modern weapons that the other side did not possess. There is no political strategy that can compensate for such a deficiency ”[32].

It is clear that even before his 1942 essay and indeed by the time his book was published, Orwell had substantially modified the views he had expressed in it. When he died in January 1950 the initial print run of 1,500 copies had still not been sold out. According to Peter Davison, the meticulous editor of his papers, Orwell had hoped that there might be a second, revised edition. The first step he took towards correcting his text came in the summer of 1938 in his correspondence with Yvonne Davet, the translator of the French edition which was not published, with corrections, until 1955.

As Davison explains before his death, Orwell “ left notes for his literary executor indicating what he wanted changed ” and also sent an annotated copy of the book to Roger Senhouse, a director at Secker & Warburg. “ Unfortunately Senhouse ignored Orwell’s request and the standard edition simply reproduced the 1938 text (with a few additional errors). The most obvious of these was the removal of Chapters V and XI from the body of the book and their relocation as appendices at the end, where Orwell felt it more appropriate to insert the historical and political discussion of what was otherwise nothing more than a personal account of his own experiences .”

These modifications did not appear until the edition prepared by Davison in 1986. The changes made in line with Orwell's notes - the relocation of the two chapters and the correction of some minor factual errors such as the confusion between the pro-Franco Civil Guard and the Assault Guards - did little to bring the text into line with the views expressed in many letters and articles he wrote after finishing the work. The impression that remains is that the fiercely anti-communist Orwell of the civil war was content to leave Homage to Catalonia more or less as it was despite knowing full well that his interpretation in the work erred considerably regarding the position of the Spanish Republic.[33]

It must be said to Orwell's credit that in his essay Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War he came to a conclusion which reflects his conversations in London with Dr. Negrín. In 1937 his interpretation was based on ignorance. An example which illustrates this is found in his numerous references in Homage to Catalonia to Lérida, “ the main stronghold of the POUM ”[34], where he was hospitalised after being wounded and the city in which, while waiting for his discharge papers to be issued, he spent some time practically as a tourist.

POUM leaders on the Aragon front:
Pere Bonet, Julian Gomez "Gorkin"
and Josep Rovira

What Orwell did not mention was that Lérida suffered terrible atrocities at the hands of both the local POUM and the anarchist columns from Barcelona. Uncontrolled terror was the norm for a brief period when dozens of civilians, army officers, civil guards, priests and novices were shot. When the anarchist columns passed through the province of Lérida on their way to Aragon in the first months of the war they executed everyone they considered to be a fascist, including all members of the clergy or practising Catholics, landowners and merchants. Individual terrorism in Lérida gave way to collective terrorism when the POUM cooperated with the CNT and UGT in setting up a Committee of Public Safety which did little to prevent either the burning of most of the city's churches or a wave of murders. The POUM commissioner for public order, Josep Rodés Bley, collaborated with the faistas in launching a wave of acts of pure vandalism in the city. By the end of October 1936 more than two hundred and fifty people had been killed.[35] Elsewhere in the province the POUM seizure of power led to many crops rotting and factories being abandoned. All those who called for the economy to be organised were denounced as reactionaries. The POUM committee seemed more concerned with sticking to the good life in the homes requisitioned from the rich.[36]

FOUNTAINS :
[1] George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (Barcelona: Debate, May 2017 printing, translation by Miguel Temprano García). References in this article are made to the previous edition.

[2] Tribute , pp. 42, 45.

[3] Josep Pané, “George Orwell, soldat de Rovira” in Josep Coll & Josep Pané, Josep Rovira. A life in the service of Catalonia and socialism (Barcelona: Ariel, 1978), p. 129.

[4] Tribute, pp. 81ff.

[5] Homage , p. 34. Bill Alexander, “George Orwell and Spain” in Christopher Norris (ed.), Inside the Myth. Orwell. Views from the Left (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1984), pp. 95-98.

[6] Herbert L. Matthews, A World in Revolution. A Newspaperman's Memoir (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), pp. 43s.

[7] Raymond Carr, “Orwell and the Spanish Civil War,” in Miriam Gross, The World of George Orwell (London: Weidenfeld Nicolson, 1971), p. 70.

[8] Robert Stradling, “The Spies Who Loved Them: the Blairs in Barcelona, 1937,” Intelligence and National Security , vol. 25, no. 5, October 2010, p. 639.

[9] George Orwell, “Inside the Whale,” in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell , volume I. An Age Like This 1920-1940 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1968), p. 501. This paragraph, which corresponds to note 9 of the original essay, does not appear in his translation, “In the Belly of the Whale,” in George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Essays (Madrid: Turner and Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2006).

[10] Noam Chomsky, American Power and the New Mandarins (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969), pp., 85s, 118s (there is a Spanish translation); Robert A. Stradling, History and Legend. Writing the International Brigades (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), pp. 49s.

[11] David Cesarani, Arthur Koestler. The Homeless Mind (New York: The Free Press, 1998), pp. 250-256.

[12] Robert A. Stradling, “Orwell and the Spanish Civil War. A Historical Critique,” in Christopher Norris (ed.), Inside the Myth. Orwell. Views from the Left (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1984), pp. 108s.

[13] Tribute , p. 206.

[14] Michael Shelden, Orwell. The Authorised Biography (London: Heinemann, 1991), p. 280; John McNair, Spanish Diary , edited with a commentary by Don Bateman (Manchester: Greater Manchester ILP, n.d.), p. 14. The issue of Orwell's linguistic competence is taken up by Stradling, “Orwell and the Spanish Civil War,” pp. 107f.; Homenaje, pp. 37 and 160.

*In the Spanish translations of Homenaje, the translators or editors have avoided the original term and replaced it with Generalitat or Generalidad.

[15] Tribute , pp. 259 and 262.

[16] Tribute , pp. 154-156.

[17] George Orwell, “Caesarian Section in Spain,” The Highway , March 1939. The journal claims that the article was written before the fall of Catalonia. Reprinted in Peter Davison, The Complete Works of George Orwell, Volume XI, Facing Unpleasant Facts 1937-1939 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1998), pp. 332-335.

[18] Matthews to Negrín, August 22, 1952, Documentary Collection of the Juan Negrín Foundation Archive (FJN), folder 93-41ª, no. 320. See also the prologue by Ángel Viñas to Antonio Ramos Oliveira, Controversy over Spain. Three Essays on the Civil War (Seville: Editorial Renacimiento, 2015), pp. 7-17.

[19] Negrín to Matthews, September 5, 1953. Documentary collection of the Juan Negrín Foundation Archive (FJN), folder 93-41ª, no. 270. Matthews commented on this letter both in A World in Revolution , pp. 43-45, and in Half of Spain Died. A Reappraisal of the Spanish Civil War (New York: Charles Scribner´s Sons, 1973), p. 231.

[20] Reproduced in Davison, Facing Unpleasant Facts , pp. 254-256.

[21] Tribute , pp. 231 and 235. See also a letter to his wife dated April 5, 1937, and another from her to her brother dated May 1, 1937. Facing Unpleasant Facts , pp. 15ff. and 23.

[22] Bob Edwards, Introduction, George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (London: Folio Society, 1970), p. 8.

[23] p. 210.

[24] Orwell, “Notes on the Spanish Militias”, Facing , pp. 135-145.

[25] Bernard Crick, George Orwell. A Life (London: Secker & Warburg, 1980), pp. 208-210; Shelden, Orwell, pp. 274-279; McNair, Spanish Diary, pp. 13-15; Richard Baxell , Unlikely Warriors. The British in the Spanish Civil War and the Struggle Against Fascism (London: Aurum Press, 2012), pp. 183-185.

[26] “British author with the Militia”, The Spanish Revolution , vol. II, no. 2, February 3, 1937, p. 2.



27 John McNair, Manuscript, 'George Orwell: The Man I Knew', dated March 1965, Newcastle upon Tyne University Library, cited by Crick, George Orwell , pp. 317-18.

28 Jennie Lee to Margaret M. Goalby, 23 June 1950 : 'Orwell's Arrival in Barcelona' , reprinted in Davison, Facing Unpleasant Facts , p. 5.

[29] Baxell, Unlikely Warriors , p. 187. Orwell replied to Frankford's criticisms of the POUM. See Davison, Facing Unpleasant Facts , pp. 82-85.

[30] Tribute , p. 121.

[31] Baxell, Unlikely Warriors , p. 188; Bill Alexander, “George Orwell and Spain”, Norris, Inside the Myth , pp. 92s.

[32] Written in 1941 and first published in abridged form in New Road , June 1943. Davison, Orwell in Spain , pp. 343-364. The publication history is on pp. 343ff. The translation, by Miguel Martínez-Laje, is taken from the Spanish version Memories of the Spanish Civil War , in George Orwell, Killing an Elephant and Other Essays (Madrid: Turner and Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2006). The quotations are on pp. 182ff.

[33] Facing Unpleasant Facts, pp. 133-135; Davison, Orwell in Spain , pp. 28-30; Davison's revised edition appears in Orwell in Spain , pp. 31-215.

[34] Tribute , p. 249.

[35] Frederic Escofet, Al servei de Catalunya i de la República , two volumes (Paris: Edicions Catalanes, 1973), II, p. 376; Jaume Barrull Pelegrí, Popular violence and revolutionary justice. The Popular Court of Lleída (1936-1937) (Lleída: Edicions de l'Universitat de Lleída, 1995), pp. 19-33; Jaume Barrull Pelegrí & Conxita Mir Cucó, Political violence and social rupture in Spain 1936-1939 (Lleída: Edicions de l'Universitat de Lleída, 1994), pp. 67-79; Solé & Villarroya, La repressió a la reraguarda , I, pp. 87s, pp. 467-484; Montero Moreno, History of religious persecution , pp. 369-373; Joan Pons Garlandí, Un republicà enmig de Faistes (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 2008) pp. 80-83; Francesc Viadiu i Vendrell, Delegat d´Ordre Públic a ´Lleída la Roja´ (Barcelona: Rafel Dalmau, 1979), pp. 29-40 and 83-98.

[36] Tomàs Pàmies & Teresa Pàmies, Testament to Prague (Barcelona: Edicions Destino, 1971), pp. 128-131, 135-139; Sole & Villarroya, La repressió a la reraguarda , II, pp. 447-449.

Source: Historia Nova, no. 16 (2018)

Luces y sombras en el “Homenaje a Cataluña” (I) / Paul Preston

Paul Preston – Fuente: Historia Nova, nº 16 (2018) La obra de Orwell Homenaje a Cataluña, a pesar de un título que se presta algo al equívoco, es el libro más vendido y leído sobre la guerra …

sociologiacritica.es

 

[Eltitoguay]

One of the songs that George Orwell hummed on the Aragon and Ebro river front, when he fought against fascism, alongside the militias of the Second Spanish Republic:

 

[right]

One of the songs that George Orwell hummed on the Aragon and Ebro river front, when he fought against fascism, alongside the militias of the Second Spanish Republic:

View attachment 19079311

Do you have an opinion?
Use your own words.

 

[Eltitoguay]

One of the songs that George Orwell hummed on the Aragon and Ebro river front, when he fought against fascism, alongside the militias of the Second Spanish Republic:

View attachment 19079311

The song was originally dedicated to the III Mixed Brigade, which is the one in the photo.

3.ª Brigada Mixta (Ejército Popular de la República) - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

es.wikipedia.org

3rd Mixed Brigade - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My maternal grandfather He fought in the I Mixed Brigade of the XI Division, where he arrived from the V Regiment aka The Steel Regiment :

Quinto Regimiento - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

es.wikipedia.org

Fifth Regiment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1.ª Brigada Mixta (Ejército Popular de la República) - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

es.wikipedia.org

1st Mixed Brigade - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

11.ª División (Ejército Popular de la República) - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

es.wikipedia.org

11th Division (Spain) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Eltitoguay]

...As for my personal opinion, in the unlikely event that someone had an interest in it, on the main historical question of debate and Cainite division among Spanish Marxists...:

The Spanish tortilla; With onion or without onion?:

The CIS (Center for Sociological Research of Spain) has asked Spain if it prefers Spanish tortilla with or without onions.​

And Spain has been relentless​

Definitely resolved how the Spanish believe potato omelette should be made :​

WHITH ONION, ALWAYS !

 

[Eltitoguay]

NOTE : This is not intended with any double intention...

Another song that my grandfather liked (Orwell could not hum this one, since it was composed during the Franco regime, in 1963, in homage to all the political prisoners who crowded the concentration and forced labor camps, and Franco's prisons. My grandfather, who spent several years in Franco's concentration camps in the former Spanish Western Sahara, listened to it secretly on the illegal Radio Pirenaica, which broadcast from abroad):

The black rooster represents the far right & fascism of Franco's coup plotters, and their German and Italian fascist allies and invaders (to whom the Francoists had to resort after the failure of their coup d'état against Spanish republican democracy).
The red rooster, the progressive forces of the Second Republic :

Red rooster, black rooster :
When the black rooster crows
the day is almost over.
If the red rooster sang
another rooster would crow.
Oh, if I'm lying,
that the song that I sing
the wind erased it.
Oh, what a disappointment
If the wind erased me
what I sing.
They met in the sand
the two roosters face to face.
The black rooster was big
but the red one was brave.
Oh, if I'm lying,
that the song that I sing
the wind erased it.
Oh, what a disappointment
If the wind erased me
what I sing.
They looked at each other face to face
and black attacked first.
The red rooster is brave
but black is treacherous.
Oh, if I'm lying,
that the song that I sing
the wind erased it.
Oh, what a disappointment
If the wind erased me
what I sing.
Black rooster, black rooster,
black rooster, I warn you:
A red rooster does not surrender
more than when he is already dead !
Oh, if I'm lying,
that the song that I sing
the wind erased it.
Oh, what a disappointment
If the wind erased me
what I sing.



My favorite version :



​

 

[Eltitoguay]

...and we Marxists also have a little heart for beauty... Other different versions of the same song by the same interpreter, the divine Silvia Pérez Cruz, and by Luciana la Wawa, in honor of my grandfather (and who don't like it , nor this class of "Republicans", then turn on FascistOX TV, where I think Trump is coming out saying that he is going to grab the pussy of any woman he wants, and that Mexico will then pay for future lawsuits...)





Ufffff... Mi other favorite version :

 

[Cannavore]

 

[right]

The majority of Americans are employed by small businesses, almost %50.
%15 of Americans are employed by the government.
When you punish a large corporation they shrug the burden off of their shoulders and the little guy ends up being the one punished

 

[audiohi]

 

[Cannavore]

 

[moose eater]

But after 70 years of propaganda and conditioning starting post WWII, what level of idiocy and blindness do you expect from the willingly led-astray-and-propagandized?

Imagine how much healthier we'd be if they had the same uninformed, ignorant, knee-jerk reaction to hot dogs, French fries, super-sized Slurpees, and fried chicken? And heart disease from poor diets kills hundreds of thousands each year in the US alone.

 

[right]

Back in the 80s Ronald Reagan and the Pope formed a secret alliance to fight communism. They called it forgive and forget.