1. The Spanish Revolution was published fortnightly from 10 Rambla de los Estudios, Barcelona, and presented the POUM’s case in the propaganda war being waged within the government forces. It was available in London (from the ILP and the Marxist League) and in New York, Chicago and Toronto. This issue also had a longer article, ‘Fighting Men from Britain’, and one summarizing ‘The Stalinist Position’, ‘The P.O.U.M.’s Position’ and ‘The Anarchist Position’, under the heading ‘If they are not Socialist, nor Communist, nor Marxist, What Are They?’. In addition to explaining why ILP men were fighting under the POUM banner, this and later articles reveal a tone strikingly similar to the propaganda fed people at home during World War I. Training, it was explained, lasted fifteen days, ‘and by that time they should be ready for service at the front’. The food was said to be good but it would ‘take the lads a week to get used to the drinking of wine at practically every meal’. Each man was given a packet of cigarettes a day ‘and the pay received is remarkably good, namely 10 pesetas’. Pay came as a surprise, ‘as all of our lads had volunteered to fight and had never considered the possibility of such a regular sum’. Its frequency is not mentioned. A peseta was worth about fourpence, pre-metrication (see 363, n. 5). Orwell kept copies of The Spanish Revolution among his papers until his death.

[363]

Eileen Blair to her mother

22 March 1937 Handwritten

Seccion Inglesa, 10 Rambla de los Estudios, Barcelona¹

Dearest Mummy,

I enclose a ‘letter’ I began to write to you in the trenches! It ends abruptly – I think I’ve lost a sheet – & is practically illegible but you may as well have a letter written from a real fighting line, & you’ll read enough to get the essential news. I thoroughly enjoyed being at the front. If the doctor had been a good doctor I should have moved heaven & earth to stay (indeed before seeing the doctor I had already pushed heaven & earth a little) as a nurse – the line is still so quiet that he could well have trained me in preparation for the activity that must come. But the doctor is quite ignorant & incredibly dirty. They have a tiny hospital at Monflorite in which he dresses the villagers’ cut fingers etc. & does emergency work on any war wounds that do occur. Used dressings are thrown out of the window unless the window happens to be shut when they rebound onto the floor – & the doctor’s hands have never been known to be washed. So I decided he must have a previously trained assistant (I have one in view – a man). Eric did go to him but he says there is nothing the matter except ‘cold, over-fatigue, etc.’ This of course is quite true. However, the weather is better now & of course the leave is overdue, but another section on the Huesca front made an attack the other day which had rather serious results & leave is stopped there for the moment. Bob Edwards² who commands the I.L.P. contingent has to be away for a couple of weeks & Eric is commanding in his absence, which will be quite fun in a way. My visit to the front ended in a suitable way because Kopp³ decided I must have ‘a few more hours’ & arranged a car to leave Monflorite at 3:15 a.m. We went to bed at 10 or so & at 3 Kopp came & shouted & I got up & George⁴ (I can’t remember which half of the family I write to) went to sleep again I hope. In this way he got 2 nights proper rest & seems much better. The whole visit’s unreality was accentuated by the fact that there were no lights, not a candle or a torch; one got up & went to bed in black dark, & on the last night I emerged in black dark & waded knee deep in mud in & out of strange buildings until I saw the faint glow from the Comité Militar where Kopp was waiting with his car.