> > Orwell's utter disillusionment with official communism in
> > 1936/37 meant that he wandered off into the political
> > wilderness so to speak. His later books like 1984 and Animal
> > Farm really reflect his bitterness born in Spain and no doubt
> > a lack of alternative politics in his time. I think he would
> > have been a more hopeful man today than he was then. One
> > should not underestimate the degree of hatred that was bred
> > within the Republican ranks during the civil war.
Yes. I wonder how many of Orwell's critics have read _Homage to Catalonia_? And unlike many of his later critics Orwell took a bullet in the throat while fighting fascism in Spain; he also came close to taking one from Stalinists only months later.
(On a topical note, it's interesting that in "the civil war within the civil war", the right faction of the socialists and the liberals were allies of the Stalinists, versus an alliance of anarchists, unions and POUM [an orthodox marxist party often mislabelled as Trots].)
Bernard Crick, in his excellent biography _George Orwell: A Life_ (1980), says that Orwell had no problem working (and no doubt arguing) with rank and file CP members, and never betrayed them. But he did have a big problem with naive, pro-Soviet celebrity liberals/socialists who had no first hand experience of Stalinism and would not heed those who had.