JFC, Orwell literally fought a war for socialism (and against fascism) in Spain (a country he wasn't born in) as a member of the centrist marxist Independent Labour Party (a party that was left of the mainstream Democratic Socialist Labour party.)
He fought with the similarly centrist marxist POUM.
This is what their flag looked like.
His real ideological sympathies were with the anarcho-syndicalist CNT-FAI.
Is this flag familiar?
And this is literally what he said a year before his death.
| "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 [Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four were written in 1945 and 1949 respectively] has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for Democratic Socialism, as I understand it." |
What happened in 1936? That's when he fought in the Spanish Civil War and revolution for socialism.
He is well to the left of so-called "far-leftists" in American politics like Bernie Sanders, Zohran Mamdani and AOC.
All of this could be gleaned if one read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.
| Covering the period between December 1936 and June 1937, Orwell recounts Catalonia's revolutionary fervor during his training in Barcelona, his boredom on the front lines in Aragon, his involvement in the interfactional May Days conflict back in Barcelona on leave, his getting shot in the throat back on the front lines, and his escape to France after the POUM was declared an illegal organization. The war was one of the defining events of his political outlook and a significant part of what led him to write in 1946, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." |
We don't need to speculate on Orwell's politics, he told (and showed) us what they were. He literally fought a war against fascists and fascism.
Last edited by sc94597 - on 16 September 2025
