| Introduction
George Orwell was a British author who was born
in India. His original name was Eric Arthur Blair
while Orwell is his pen name. He is attached to
the middle class since his birth as he was born
to a middle class English Parents in India. From
the period of 1922-1927 he served the Indian Imperial
Police of Burma. Furthermore, the major part of
his life was spent in England. This creative political
writer of the century was basically a democratic
socialist and hated the communist ideology as
well as totalitarianism. However, communism is
related to such a community system of a society
where every person is united together for morally
being good to every other person. Here individuals
are not recognized as a person independently nor
they achieve any reward or personal gain and interest
for their skills and efforts. Furthermore, these
communist approaches when reach to an extreme
phase they form a totalitarian society. Now totalitarian
society is one where an individual has no say
of its own, neither freedom of expression nor
any individual rights are given to the people
with in the society. All such rights are preserved
with the ruling authority of the state. Therefore,
totalitarianism is simply the rule of dictatorship
and tyranny. On the other hand, democracy is such
a social system that introduced freedom of speech,
expression and provided various social, political,
cultural, religious and health rights to an individual.
In order to understand the broad vision of Orwell
regarding the relationship between the classes
and totalitarianism and the importance of democracy
and capitalism against communism and totalitarianism,
we need to clear our concept about these ideologies.
Therefore, America is the birthplace of democracy
as it provided various rights to its people, even
property and intellectual rights. The other European
countries followed the same capitalist approach
with the end of the World War II. Later on capitalism
was recognized to be the principle element for
a society that is economically as well as politically
and socially sound and healthy. So with the end
of the Cold War between the communist Russia and
the capitalist USA, Capitalism flourished with
the new, modernized and changing trends of international
order called as globalization. Now every state
is following the capitalist ideology, even China
yet being politically communist follows capitalism
as its economic policy, due to which china is
dominant over the global market. So a democratic
society is such a society where the people run
the government for the people and by the people.
Therefore, totalitarianism and communist societies,
being rigid, selfish and tyrant societies are
poles apart from democratic societies.
Therefore, being influenced by the political
and social ideologies and the repercussions of
both these schools of thoughts on the societies,
George Orwell, has gifted his prolific writings
to the readers of political history of the 20th
century. On the other hand, he achieved fame with
his two brilliant satires during the late 1940’s.
He is also recognized for writing documentaries,
essays as well as critical issues during 1930’s
that made him popular and an influential writer
of the century. Homage to Catalonia is one of
his great works that consists of 9 chapters.
Homage to Catalonia
George Orwell was basically a journalist so his
writing style is very much objective as a journalist
style usually is. He captures his personal experiences
and understandings of the political and social
conditions during and after the war in Spain.
Though he read a lot about socialism and its society
but this was the first experience he got to understand
socialism practically. Therefore, many things
became an influence of his expressions in Homage
To Catalonia. Though he went as a reporter to
Spain but soon joined himself to the Republican
Party and becomes a member of “The Workers
Party of Marxist Unification”, which was
a revolutionary party against Stalin. Later on
he is sent to the battlefield where he is caught
by cold, which made him inactive, at the same
time he was not well-equipped and lacked adequate
weapons to fight. At the same time, he and the
Spanish troops were suffering from serious heat,
cold, dirt, parasites, deprivation from basic
food and health care, boredom and other occasional
dangers. Therefore, in Homage to Catalonia, he
observes Russians as true conservatives and communists,
as they rhetorically used and radicalized the
Spanish people during war.
Orwell: Class and Totalitarianism
Homage to Catalonia is based on the experiences
he gained during the Spanish Civil War. There
he noticed the true nature of Russian ideology
and realized it is basically a communist and conservative
state rather then what it posses to be a socialist.
What basically motivated this artistic political
journalist to write in a different style then
his other works was his desire to separate socialism
from communism and promote democracy against totalitarianism,
as he was feared by the rise of totalitarianism
via the Stalinist Russia. So when writing this
book, he also provided the readers with his personal
opinions with the happenings side by side the
information he was adding. Therefore, in Homage
to Catalonia, he seriously observes the relationship
between classes and totalitarianism, which made
him realized the strong need of socialist democracy.
Though bourgeoisie class was not prominently
present but he noticed a spontaneous rise in the
working class that was intense in the arm forces,
during the Spanish Civil War. However, Borkenau
was the chief city if Catalonia during the war,
where the Spanish army was discriminated by the
Stalinist Russians. The Russian communists started
torturing the Spanish people via police, discriminating
them in the arm forces, closing and burning their
shops etc. altogether these events were a cause
for a revolution against the politically proletariat
Russians. Therefore, Orwell noticed a spilt in
the anti-fascist forces that were divided into
3 main groups. One was the Socialist Party of
the left wing, other was the socialist organization
and the anarchists called as FAI, while the third
class was their Trade Union Confederation.
Though the socialist party of the left wing was
not in favor to overthrow the workers of the Republican
Party but it was necessary to crush the military
to continue a revolution. Therefore, the FAI became
dominant over the first group. However, many other
changes occurred in these classes that reversed
the revolutionary process. It was the Russian
Military Political party that liquidated all the
revolutionary gains of the past as it supported
the Republican Middle class and the Spanish Communist
Party.
Therefore, Orwell felt a division in the working
class it self though the bourgeoisie and the revolutionary
groups were struggling against fascism and fighting
to achieve the same goals. Both these groups of
the same class were pro-capitalism and socialism
and ant-communism and totalitarianism. At the
same time he felt the need to bring awareness
among the classes about a social system where
democracy is openly practiced and the rights of
individuals are recognized with out any discrimination.
This is the capitalist system, which is based
on the rights of individual gains depending upon
their capacities and skills to promote the national
interest of the country.
Therefore, capitalist socialism was opposite to
communism and totalitarianism. At that time the
people were deprived to express freely what they
want and were treated like animals in a farm.
The ruling class had all the powers and was the
sole decision making authority. So dictatorship
and totalitarianism were strengthening its roots
under communism. These political authorities decide
the future of the masses and massively practiced
class discrimination. All this was felt by Orwell,
which he tried to express in Homage to Catalonia.
So when the revolutionaries were rising, at the
same time, he notices a twist in the Russian foreign
policy. Now Russia was in quest of a compromise
to join an alliance with Britain and France. So
it followed a policy, compromising with international
capital and over supported the left wing of the
revolutionary group that ceased the whole movement
for the time being.
Therefore, Orwell realized many classes including
many individual anarchists and a small revolutionary
party, named “POUM” that was working
independently. However, Orwell strongly felt the
need to complete the revolution to cease totalitarianism
and communism for a prosperous future of the various
discriminated classes in the Spanish society.
At this stage he felt to participate in the revolutionary
movement against fascism.
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