Notes on the Spanish Militias

*

I joined the POUM militia at the end of 1936. The circumstances of my joining this militia rather than any other were the following. I had intended going to Spain to gather materials for newspaper articles etc., and had also some vague idea of fighting if it seemed worth while, but was doubtful about this owing to my poor health and comparatively small military experience. Just before I started someone told me I should not be able to cross the frontier unless I had papers from some leftwing organisation (this was untrue at that time although party cards etc. undoubtedly made it easier). I applied to John Strachey who took me to see [Harry] Pollitt. P after questioning me evidently decided that I was politically unreliable and refused to help me, also tried to frighten me out of going by talking a lot about Anarchist terrorism. Finally he asked whether I would undertake to join the International Brigade. I said I could not undertake to join anything until I had seen what was happening. He then refused to help me but advised me to get a safe-conduct from the Spanish Embassy in Paris, which I did. Just before leaving England I also rang up the I.L.P., with which I had some slight connections, mainly personal, and asked them to give me some kind of recommendation. They sent me to Paris a letter addressed to John McNair at Barcelona. When I crossed the frontier the passport people and others, at that time Anarchists, did not pay much attention to my safe-conduct but seemed impressed by the letter with I.L.P. heading, which they evidently knew by sight. It was this that made me decide to produce my letter to McNair (whom I did not know) and through this that I joined the P.O.U.M. militia. After one glimpse of the troops in Spain I saw that I had relatively a lot of training as a soldier and decided to join the militia. At that time I was only rather dimly aware of the differences between the political parties, which had been covered up in the English leftwing press. Had I had a complete understanding of the situation I should probably have joined the CNT militia…

George Orwell is the tall figure at the back

‘On December 30th 1936 George Orwell] enlisted in the militia of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (the POUM) at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona. He probably left England on Wednesday, 23 December’ (Peter Davison)

*

As to the actual performance of the POUM militia, I know of this chiefly from others, as I was at the front during the most inactive period of the war. They took part in the taking of Siétamo and the advance on Huesca, and after this the division was split up, some at Huesca, some on the Zaragoza front and a few at Teruel. I believe there was also a handful on the Madrid front. In late February the whole division was concentrated on the eastern side of Huesca. Tactically this was the less important side, and during March–April the part played by the POUM was only raids and holding attacks, affairs involving at most two hundred men and a few score casualties. In some of these they did well, especially the refugee Germans. In the attack on Huesca at the end of June the division lost heavily, 4–600 killed. I was not in this show but heard from others who were that the POUM troops behaved well. By this time the campaigns in the press had begun to produce a certain amount of disaffection. By April even the politically uninterested had grasped that except in their own press and that of the Anarchists no good would be reported of them, whatever their actual performance might be. At the time this produced only a certain irritation, but I know that later, when the division was redistributed, some men who were able to dodge the conscription did so and got civilian jobs on the ground that they were tired of being libelled. A number of men who were in the Huesca attack assured me that General Pozas deliberately withheld the artillery to get as many POUM troops killed as possible—doubtless untrue, but showing the effect of campaigns like that conducted by the Communist press. I do not know what happened to the division after being redistributed, but believe they mostly went to the 26th division. Considering the circumstances and their opportunities, I should say that the performance of the POUM militia was respectable though in no way brilliant.

*

The above are the opening and closing sections of George Orwell’s ‘Notes on the Spanish Militias’, found among his papers after his death.