The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Spanish Republican Government and Nationalist rebels. The Republicans included socialists, communists, anarchists and Catalan and Basque nationalists, but also many moderates; the Nationalists comprised the conservative elements of Spain, including monarchists, Carlists, Falangists (fascists) and the Roman Catholic Church. The Soviet Union gave the Republicans (especially the communists) active support; the Nationalists were given heavier support by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Many foreigners fought on both sides, especially on behalf of the Republicans, notably in the International Brigade. Britain and France were among countries that pursued a non-interventionist policy. General Francisco Franco (1892–1975) played a vital role in ensuring the Nationalist victory. From September 1936 he served as Generalissimo of the Nationalist forces and after the war became dictator of Spain. The ferocity of the war led to heavy loss of life, directly in the fighting, ‘behind the lines’, and, after the war, in retributive killings and deaths in prison (perhaps some 100,000), a total of some half-million people in all.1
On 10 December 1936, George Orwell wrote the first of a series of short letters to his literary agent, Leonard Moore, making arrangements for his journey to Spain, where he intended to fight on behalf of the Republicans. He confirmed that his bank had allowed him to overdraw to the tune of £50 (which Moore had guaranteed). He asked Moore to try to persuade the Daily Herald (a newspaper that supported the Left) to commission him to write ‘a few articles or something like that’ (327). No agreement was reached with the Herald. The next day he wrote an authorization for his agent giving his wife, Eileen, complete rights over his literary affairs and directed that all payments due to him should be paid to her (328). On 15 December he sent Moore the manuscript of The Road to Wigan Pier. This was processed very rapidly and on Saturday, 19 December, his publisher, Victor Gollancz, sent him a telegram asking him to call at Gollancz’s offices on the following Monday, 21 December, to discuss the book’s publication. Orwell telegraphed back to say he would be there at noon and they then discussed terms for the publication of the book and the inclusion of illustrations (341). Orwell endeavoured to win the support of Harry Pollitt, Secretary-General of the Communist Party, for his journey to Spain, but Pollitt, suspicious of Orwell’s political reliability (as he saw it), declined to help him. He did, however, advise him to obtain a safe-conduct from the Spanish Embassy in Paris. Orwell also obtained a letter of introduction from the Independent Labour Party (the ILP) to John McNair, its representative in Barcelona.2 Orwell arrived in Barcelona about 26 December. He described the journey (and an incident in Paris on the way) in his Tribune column, ‘As I Please’, in 1944. Jennie Lee (1904–88, Baroness Lee of Asheridge, 1970), first Minister of Arts and wife of Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960), under whose forceful leadership the National Health Service had been set up in 1948, described Orwell’s arrival in Barcelona in a letter to Margaret M. Goalby, written shortly after Orwell’s death.