i think if you read Koestler and Orwell and Stephen Spender- the overwhelming thing you get about the Spanish Civil WAr is confusion. Communists executing fellow communists. Unbelievably - professed anarchists fighting alongside fascists.

I think anyone would be forced to take a rather cynical view of professed political ideals - right, or left.

i loved Orwell's writing. I loved his literary idealism. He really tried to be worthy of a place alongside his heroes - Dickens, Conan Doyle, etc.

Its fifty years or so since I read most of his stuff. I read Homage to Catalonia, before I went to Spain in my thirties. I didn't want to go while Franco was still in charge.
I'm sorry if you don't get him. I typed out a play about him for a friend of mine that was put on at Bristol Old Vic. So I got to know a fair bit about his life. He was wounded in combat, shot in the throat - so his voice was never again above a whisper. He had his faults.
Writing was the whole game to him. I think maybe he wasn't as understanding to his wife as he could have been during her final illness. ANd I don't suppose he would have a great morris dancer .

still i think he's worthy of our respect.