I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life – snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc. – had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master. Of course such a state of affairs could not last. It was simply a temporary and local phase in an enormous game that is being played over the whole surface of the earth. But it lasted long enough to have its effect upon anyone who experienced it. However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with something strange and valuable. One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word ‘comrade’ stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy ‘proving’ that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the ‘mystique’ of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. ibid.
But when I see an actual flesh and blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy the policeman I do not have to ask myself which side I am on. ibid.
The horrible atmosphere produced by fear, suspicion, hatred, censored newspapers, crammed jails, enormous food queues, and prowling gangs of armed men. ibid.
A vague feeling that the revolution had been sabotaged. ibid.
There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all. ibid.
The Spanish anarchists – they have been systematically denigrated. ibid.
The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues, because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency. ibid.
They laid me down again while somebody fetched a stretcher. As soon as I knew that the bullet had gone clean through my neck I took it for granted that I was done for. I had never heard of a man or an animal getting a bullet through the middle of the neck and surviving it. The blood was dribbling out of the corner of my mouth. ‘The artery’s gone,’ I thought. I wondered how long you last when your carotid artery is cut; not many minutes, presumably. Everything was very blurry. There must have been about two minutes during which I assumed that I was killed. And that too was interesting – I mean it is interesting to know what your thoughts would be at such a time. My first thought, conventionally enough, was for my wife. My second was a violent resentment at having to leave this world which, when all is said and done, suits me so well. I had time to feel this very vividly. The stupid mischance infuriated me. The meaningless of it! To be bumped off, not even in battle, but in this stale corner of the trenches, thanks to a moment’s carelessness! I thought too, of the man who shot me – wondered what he was like, whether he was a Spaniard or a foreigner, whether he knew he had got me, and so forth. I could not feel any resentment against him. I reflected that as he was a fascist I would have killed him if I could, but that if he had been taken prisoner and brought before me at this moment I would merely have congratulated him on his good shooting. It may be, though that if you were really dying your thoughts would be quite different. ibid.
This was not a round-up of criminals: it was merely a reign of terror. ibid.
The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery hidden by the curve of the earth’s surface. Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wild flowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the barges on the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policemen – all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs. ibid.
‘He went to Spain because he thought we must fight fascism.’ Arena: George Orwell III: Homage to Catalonia, village neighbour, BBC 1983
The Civil War in Spain broke out on the 18th July 1936. General Franco’s attack on the beleaguered Spanish republic had angered a great many English intellectuals on the left. ibid.
I was six years old when they came for my mother. People from the town, Franco supporters. They found her the next day by the side of the road. They couldn’t take her to the cemetery. The townspeople wouldn’t let them. Storyville: Facing Franco’s Crimes: The Silence of Others, old woman, BBC 2019
We call it the Spanish Civil War, and it began with a military coup … Franco was dictator in Spain for almost forty years. The left fought for an amnesty to free political prisoners. And thought they had won. But the new law also granted amnesty for all the crimes of the dictatorship. This came to be known as The Pact of Forgetting. ibid.
‘How can you serve justice for crimes committed by the state?’ ibid. dude
2010: A lawsuit is filed on Franco era crimes in Argentina: 2 plaintiffs … September 2013: 3.5 years after filing the lawsuit: 235 plaintiffs. ibid. caption
‘After Franco’s Death, many of his police, judges and politicians simply continued on.’ ibid. victim
‘In Argentina they estimate 500 children were taken by the military dictatorship.’ ibid. recovery group
What was happening in his beloved Spain was beginning to change his [Hemingway] mind. It was now being torn apart by a Civil War. Early in 1936 reactionary elements of the army eventually led by a fascist general named Francisco Franco and supported by wealthy industrialists, great landowners and the Catholic Church joined forces to try to overthrow the duly elected socialist government. Hitler provided Franco and his rebels with bombers and fighter planes and German pilots to fly them. Their goal was to terrorise the civilian population. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini dispatched tanks and nearly 80,000 troops. Within weeks, Franco’s forces had seized one third of the country from those faithful to the government … Between 30-40,000 men from more than 50 countries would answer the call. Hemingway III, BBC 2021