Orwell & Spain

To the Editors:

Mark Falcoff, in his interesting article on Andr‚ Malraux (November 1992), says on page 33 that George Orwell served with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. This is not so. He served with a battalion of the anti-Stalinist revolutionary Partido Obrero de Unificaci¢n Marxista (POUM). The International Brigades, of course, were organized, dominated, and controlled by the Stalinist Comintern.

When asked to join the International Brigades, Orwell refused because, as he said, he might be asked to shoot fellow socialists. He was as usual right. The IB served as recruiting ground in Spain for the Russian NKVD, whose main objective was not the liquidation of fascists and Francoists but that of the POUM and other anti-Stalinist revolutionaries.

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