• Heartwotalk@lemmynsfw.com
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    5 months ago

    Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell would also be a good read for someone looking favorably on the Soviets during the Spanish Civil War.

      • lugal@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        He was radicalized against the Soviets because they did not support the socialist revolution led by anarchosyndicalists. Instead Stalin supported the liberals because he said it wasn’t time for revolution yet which is BS since Barcelona and big parts of Catalonia did well under anarchists. An anarchist revolution would undermine the “ends justify the means” and “there is no other way to socialism than ours” rhetoric of the bolsheviks.

        TLDR He was an anti-Soviet agitator but from the left

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          He was radicalized against the Soviets because they did not support the socialist revolution

          Was this before or after he served as a British intelligence officer in colonial-era Burma?

          • lugal@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            It was after. That also radicalized him towards class solidarity and socialism. He empathized with the suppressed indigenous peoples there and in the next step with the suppressed in his own country. He went to meet them and live with them as documented in his book The Road to Wigan Pier. Then, as a vaguely socialist, he went to Spain as documented in Homage to Catalonia. I read both books btw