Spilling the Spanish Beans
Spilling the Spanish Beans is an article, in two parts, by
Background
Orwell travelled to Spain in December 1936, 'to gather material for newspaper articles etc..' and he had also, 'some vague idea of fighting if it seemed worthwhile.' He carried a letter from
Argument of the essay
In the first part of the article Orwell argues that in the case of the
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/George_Orwell_press_photo.jpg/150px-George_Orwell_press_photo.jpg)
Orwell describes the imprisoning of those whose opinions were too much to the left and that the people responsible for putting them there were the Communists: "The real struggle is between revolution and counter-revolution;... Communism is now a counter-revolutionary force;... using the whole of their powerful machinery to crush or discredit any party that shows signs of revolutionary tendencies." "In the face of Franco's foreign mercenaries [the Government] were obliged to turn to Russia for help, and though the quantity of arms supplied by Russia has been greatly exaggerated, the mere fact of their arrival brought the Communists into power... the Russians were able not only to get money for their weapons, but to extort terms as well. Put in their crudest form, the terms were: 'Crush the revolution or you get no more arms'... it may be, that the spectacle of a genuine revolution in Spain would rouse unwanted echoes in Russia."
In the second part of the essay Orwell describes the Communist propaganda that denounced 'Trotskyism' : "In Spain, anyone professing revolutionary Socialism is under suspicion of being a Trotskyist in the pay of Franco or Hitler." If the Communists had saved the Government from October 1936 onwards they had also, Orwell wrote, "succeeded in killing enthusiasm... it is significant that as early as January of this year [1937] voluntary recruiting had practically ceased."
Difficulties finding a publisher
Orwell and his wife
References
- ISBN 9780349115511.
- ^ Bowker. George Orwell. pp. 203, 205.
- ISBN 9780060167097. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
- ^ Shelden. Orwell. p. 292.
External links
- Orwell, George (29 July 1937). "Spilling the Spanish Beans". The Orwell Foundation. Retrieved 14 August 2023.