The intellectuals and writers of enlightened Europe generated shelf upon shelf of prose and poetry during the Spanish Civil War, but it is absolutely safe to say that most of this stuff would not bear reprinting except as a textbook in credulity and/or bad faith. There is barely a sentence, however, in this collection which causes a wince or a shudder. Orwell, who did not share the febrile enthusiasm of the clenched-fist cheerleaders and propagandists (see page 248), none the less had a deeper belief than they did in the capacities of the Spanish people. His work also acts as a prophylactic against the efforts of a certain revisionist school, which now likes to argue that the victory of Franco was preferable after all, because the alternative would have been a prototype ‘Peoples’ Democracy’ of the order of Czechoslovakia in 1948. Orwell, who had grasped the nature of ‘Peoples’ Democracy’ more acutely than most, argued to the contrary. An awful tyranny was possible in either case, he granted, but:

Given a Government victory, it seems much likelier that Spain will develop into a capitalist Republic of the type of France than into a socialist state. What seems certain, however, is that no regression to a semi-feudal, priest-ridden régime of the kind that existed up to 1931 or, indeed, up to 1936 is now possible. Such régimes, by their nature, depend upon a general apathy and ignorance which no longer exist in Spain. The people have seen and learned too much. At the lowest estimate, there are several million people who have become impregnated with ideas which make them bad material for an authoritarian state.

In the event of a Franco victory, as Orwell also noted, ‘the desire for liberty, for knowledge and for a decent standard of living has spread far too widely to be killed by obscurantism or persecution’. Those who assert that Spain would have become Stalinized in the event of a Franco defeat are also fond of arguing that Franco’s regime was relatively benign, as against Hitler’s, say, and that it gave way in the end to democratic evolution from below. Why could not this be true in the opposing case, and for much the same reasons? The missing element in the calculation is the ability of people to make their own history, an ability which Orwell did not doubt since he had seen it demonstrated. Dystopia might win, but it did not have to, and it might not last. In this sense, the courage and bearing of the Catalans taught Orwell to argue against his own direst premonitions.

He was prescient even in the smaller things, writing in 1943 that it was mistaken to believe, as many did, ‘that Franco will fight for the Axis if the Allies invade Europe. Fidelity is not the strong point of the minor dictators.’ To combat Franco in 1937 was to hope for a reverse of European fascism tout court: once that struggle had been betrayed by Stalin and Chamberlain and Daladier, matters resumed the banal shape of realpolitik and local compromise. Excess of zeal is a poor guide, especially for the ideologically inclined.