I am writing at the same time as this asking my agent to send you a copy of my book on the Spanish war. Parts of it might interest you. I have no doubt I have made a lot of mistakes and misleading statements, but I have tried to indicate all through that the subject is very complicated and that I am extremely fallible as well as biassed. Without answering in detail all the points in your letter, I might indicate more clearly than I could do in the book my position on one or two questions that inevitably come up in a controversy of this kind. I entirely agree with you that the whole business about the P.O.U.M. has had far too much fuss made about it and that the net result of this kind of thing is to prejudice people against the Spanish Government. But my position has always been that this kind of controversy could die a natural death and cause comparatively little harm if people would refrain from telling lies in the beginning. The sequence of events is approximately this. The P.O.U.M. preach a ‘line’ which may or may not make it more difficult to secure military efficiency for the Spanish Government, and which is also rather too like what the C.P. were saying in 1930. The C.P. feel that they have got to silence this at all costs, and therefore begin stating in the press that the P.O.U.M. are Fascists in disguise. This kind of accusation is infinitely more resented than any ordinary polemic could be, with the result that the various people and parties who could be described as ‘Trotskyist’ tend to develop into mere anti-Communists. What complicates it and enormously increases the feeling of bitterness it causes is that the capitalist press will on the whole throw its weight on the Communist side of the controversy. I know that Communists don’t as a rule believe this, because they have got into the habit of feeling that they are persecuted and have hardly noticed that since about 1936 (ie. since the change of ‘line’) the attitude towards them in the democratic countries is very different. Communist doctrine in its present form appeals to wealthy people, at least some wealthy people, and they have a very strong footing in the press in both England and France. In England, for instance, the News Chronicle and New Statesman are under direct Communist influence, there is a considerable press which is actually official C.P., and certain influential papers which are bitterly anti-Socialist nevertheless prefer ‘Stalinism’ to ‘Trotskyism’. On the other side, of course, there is nothing, because what is now called ‘Trotskyism’ (using the word very widely) has no appeal to anyone with over £500 a year. The result is that the most appalling lies can be printed and except in a few papers like the M.G. which keep up the old traditions it is quite impossible to answer them. One’s only resort is to start miserable little rags like the ones the Trotskyists run, which, necessarily, are nothing but anti-Communist papers. There is no question that appalling lies were published about the P.O.U.M., not only by the official C.P. press, but by papers like the N. C. and N.S. &N., which after publishing refuse to print any answers in their correspondence columns. I don’t know whether you have yet seen the accounts of the P.O.U.M. trial. The trial made it clear, as it was bound to do if fairly conducted, that there was no truth in the accusations of espionage, which were for the most part merely silly. One accusation, for instance, had been that several miles of the Aragón front had been entirely deserted for two months – this at a time when I was there myself. This witness broke down in the box. Similarly, after all the statements in papers of the type of the Daily Worker about ‘two hundred signed confessions’ etc., there was complete failure to produce any evidence whatever. Although the trial was conducted more or less in camera, Solidaridad Obrera was allowed afterwards to print a report, and it was made quite clear that the charges of espionage were dismissed and the four men who were sentenced were only convicted of taking part in the May fighting in Barcelona. In the face of all this the C.P. press printed reports that they had been condemned for espionage. In addition this was also done by some pro-C.P. papers, which significantly enough are also pro-Fascist papers. Eg. the Observer reported the verdict in such a way as to let it appear that the verdict was one of espionage, and the French press of this country, which of course is pro-Franco, reported the accusation, stated that it had been ‘proved’ and then failed to report the verdict. You must agree that this kind of thing is likely to cause resentment, and though in the heat of the moment it may seem ‘realistic’ to say ‘These people are obstructing us – therefore they might as well be Fascists – therefore we’ll say they are Fascists’, in the end it may do more harm than good. I am not a Marxist and I don’t hold with all this stuff that boils down to saying ‘Anything is right which advances the cause of the Party’. On the title page of my book you will find two texts from Proverbs3 which sum up the two prevailing theories of how to combat Fascism, and I personally agree with the first and not the second.