Pp. 161–242 [pp. 103–27, 138–69, 190–215]. All through these chapters are constant references to ‘Civil Guards’. Should be ‘Assault Guards’ all the way through. I was misled because the Assault Guards in Catalonia wore a different uniform from those afterwards sent from Valencia, and by the Spaniards referring indifferently to all these formations as ‘la guardia’. The remarks on p. 213 [p. 198] lines 14–17 and footnote should be regularised. The undoubted fact that Civil Guards often joined Franco when able to do so makes no reflection on the Assault Guards who were a formation raised since the 2nd Republic. But the general reference to popular hostility to ‘la guardia’ and this having played its part in the Barcelona business should stand.

Orwell’s confusion was shared by many historians. His error was pointed out to him by Geoffrey Gorer on 18 April 1938, but simply replacing ‘Assault’ for ‘Civil’ can lead to even worse confusion. On page 121, line 27 Orwell originally wrote: ‘It was easy enough to dodge the Assault Guard patrols; the danger was the Civil Guards in the “Moka”…’ Change ‘Civil’ to ‘Assault’ and what was happening is obscured. I have therefore distinguished between the ‘local Assault Guards’ and ‘Valencian Assault Guards’ when the sense demands this. In the first edition, Orwell wrote of the ‘hated Civil Guards’; changing ‘Civil’ to ‘Assault’ here switches the object of hatred. At this point the new edition simply reads ‘Assault Guards’ (page 116, line 22) but an opportunity was taken a few pages later (page 121, line 11) to reintroduce ‘hated’ in an appropriate context. Where Orwell wrote of the arrival of Assault Guards from Valencia (page 121, lines 10–11), ‘another formation similar to the Civil Guards’, this has been amended to read ‘another formation similar to the local Assault Guards and the hated Civil Guards’.

Orwell’s list of changes has been drawn on to provide one or two additional footnotes (e.g., those on pages 47 and 99)*. The French edition has a few more explanatory footnotes, evidently the work of the translator though based on information provided by Orwell. These are recorded in the Textual Note to the Complete Works edition, VI/251–61 (Secker & Warburg, 1986). One, subsequently confirmed to the editor in 1984 by Stafford Cottman, Orwell’s youngest colleague in Spain, provides a useful gloss on a puzzling reference. Thomas Parker is said to have come ‘nearer to being a DSO than he cared about’ (page 73, line 11). The French edition explains that DSO parodied ‘Distinguished Service Order’ and meant ‘Dickie Shot Off’ (page 79).

This edition, then, endeavours to put into effect Orwell’s explicit instructions for the revision of Homage to Catalonia and to make these changes as discreetly as is practicable.

Peter Davison

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest

thou also be like unto him.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he

be wise in his own conceit.

Proverbs, xxvi.4–5

I

In the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, the day before I joined the militia, I saw an Italian militiaman standing in front of the Officers’ table.