At the heart of Homage to Catalonia, his eye-witness account of fighting in a Republican militia during the Spanish Civil War, is Orwell’s anger at the coverage of the conflict by both mainstream and alternative/left newspapers – and his desire to put the record straight. As he writes: ‘One of the dreariest effects of this war has been to teach me that the Left-wing press is every bit as spurious and dishonest as that of the Right’ (though he excludes the Manchester Guardian from this criticism) (Orwell 1962 [1938]: 64). With typical wry humour, he tells of the ‘fat Russian agent’ at the Hotel Continental, in Barcelona: ‘I watched him with some interest, for it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies – unless one counts journalists’ (ibid: 135).

His criticism of left-wing intelligentia ('And from that they will proceed to argue that, after all, democracy is “just the same as” or “just as bad as” totalitarianism.') is just as relevant today as it was in 1941. This was the darkest point of the war for Britain. Orwell is saying here that the war will not be won if the same old upper class fools are in charge, and that a socialist revolution is needed to get the right ruthlessness into the fight. Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), who used the pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.Politics and the Press, 4pm, Sunday 1 April: Gaby Hinsliff, Martin Moore, Lance Price, chaired by Jean Seaton

George Orwell’s response to the outbreak of the Second World War was a highly unusual one. Unlike many other people on the socialist left ˗ and in spite of the vigorous anti-war sentiments expressed in his writings of the late 1930s ˗ Orwell believed that Britain had no choice but to take up arms against Hitler’s Germany and its fascist allies. On the other hand, he rejected the idea that the war could only be won if patriotic Britons rallied around the existing government. Having seen the depths to which market forces had reduced the country during the slump, Orwell firmly believed that Britain would have to abolish capitalism and embrace socialism if the challenge of fascism was to be met. His message to his fellow countrymen was as startling as it was quixotic: War and revolution are two sides of the same coin. Without a socialist government to guide the country at its hour of supreme crisis, Britain may not have the strength it needs to consign Hitler and his armies to the dustbin of history. This is where things become more difficult for reviewing purposes: I can see Orwell’s logic, and how the socialist system could have worked, but this doesn’t make it the only effective path (and we know with hindsight it proved not to be), or that, if it had been established, it would have provided a successful system after the war. His points about socialism in wartime are valid, but a capitalist government can achieve the same things by demanding production (or offering money in return for it) quite easily. We live in a capitalist state, but not an entirely free-market one – the government still has leverage, albeit through capitalistic means, and ultimately this is in large part the approach that they actually implemented. The first part of the essay, " England Your England", is often considered an essay in itself. With the introductory sentence "As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.", [1] the content sheds some light on the process which eventually led Orwell to the writing of his famous dystopia Nineteen Eighty-Four. The text is also influenced partly by his other experiences in the Spanish Civil War, which he published his memoirs of in " Homage to Catalonia". His beliefs molded there of the dangers of totalitarianism and his conviction for democratic socialism to defeat fascism and Soviet communism are evident in all of his future novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm but are expressed here without allegory. Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in ‘the law’ as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.

DV8 physical theatre company at the National Theatre Uses part of our event, ‘What can’t you speak about in the 21st Ce ntury?’

Llevaba mucho tiempo sin leer un libro completo de ensayos. Aunque el género me agrada, estaba destinando mi tiempo libre para abordar algunos textos filosóficos y literarios (me refiero a ficción y poesía) que me llamaban la atención. Ahora, aprovechando la oportunidad de dictar un curso de Ensayos de opinión en la universidad en la que trabajo, decidí abordar algunos textos que había comprado hace tiempo. He proceeds to deconstruct, with polemical vigour, the paper’s pretensions – noting that its proprietor is M. Coty ‘a great industrial capitalist and also proprietor of the Figaro and the Gaulois’. In other words, it is merely putting across ‘the sort of propaganda wanted by M. Coty and his associates’. Some people might blanch at the idea that Orwell was influenced by communist texts, but his debt to the CPGB’s intellectuals is not as surprising as it may seem. The communists were among the only people in inter-war Britain seeking to analyse culture from a socialist perspective. As one of the few other writers whose understanding of culture was shaped by socialist ideas, Orwell naturally paid close attention to what they said. Many of his non-fiction writings either restate, develop or refute the communist position. It is just another example of Orwell’s admirably broad-minded capacity to learn from his enemies. In the short run, equality of sacrifice, ‘war-Communism’, is even more important than radical economic changes. It is very necessary that industry should be nationalized, but it is more urgently necessary that such monstrosities as butlers and ‘private incomes’ should disappear forthwith. Almost certainly the main reason why the Spanish Republic could keep up the fight for two and a half years against impossible odds was that there were no gross contrasts of wealth. The people suffered horribly, but they all suffered alike. When the private soldier had not a cigarette, the general had not one either. Given equality of sacrifice, the morale of a country like England would probably be unbreakable. But at present we have nothing to appeal to except traditional patriotism, which is deeper here than elsewhere, but is not necessarily bottomless. At some point or another you have got to deal with the man who says ‘I should be no worse off under Hitler’. But what answer can you give him – that is, what answer that you can expect him to listen to – while common soldiers risk their lives for two and sixpence a day, and fat women ride about in Rolls-Royce cars, nursing pekineses? Orwell is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His 1938 book Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with numerous essays on politics, literature, language, and culture, have been widely acclaimed.and to those shortlisted for this year’s Paul Foot Award (Paul Foot having won the Orwell Prize in 1995)