History Literature / HomageToCatalonia

* RedScare: Inverted-various "Red" factions accused each other of ''not'' being Red enough. Communist propaganda even accused the POUM of plotting with Franco, a "Brown Scare" if you will (specifically mentioned is a [[https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/explorefurther/digital/scw/more/simpletimeline2/sa12-12-006.jpg political cartoon]] in which a figure representing the POUM pulls a hammer and sickle-marked mask from its face to reveal a monstrous visage adorned with a swastika).

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: A downplayed example with the POUM, more in the sense of exaggerating their presence in events rather than in terms of their actual actions though. They were one of the smaller political groupings on the Republican side and the amount of emphasis they receive in history comes mostly from the fact Orwell just so happened to sign up with them rather than with the CNT militias. The other half is of course that later Trotskyists have lionized the POUM in spite of Trotsky's actual criticism of them at the time.

* OrwellianEditor: The [[BlatantLies horrible distortions of the truth]] which Orwell witnessed in Spain (in particular the idea of the POUM being "Franco's Fifth Column") are the TropeMaker - they inspired the constant rewriting of the past in ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', which in turn [[TropeNamer named this trope]].

* MoralDissonance: Orwell came to Catalonia to fight for freedom and equality... except for the Catholics, who were raped and murdered en masse by the anarchists. While he may not have approved of it, he still knew it was happening and fought on their side anyways.

* MoralDissonance: Orwell came to Catalonia to fight for freedom and equality... except for the Catholics, who were raped and murdered en masse by the anarchists. With his blatant approval.

* VillainProtagonist: Orwell fought on the side of the war that killed Catholics for believing in God, and was trying to help institute communism in Spain.
--> "Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; '''almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen.'''"

* WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide: Sure, the anarchists murdered thousands of Catholics for believing in God and destroyed their churches, but they were part of the bourgeois!

* MoralDissonance: Orwell came to Catalonia to fight for freedom and equality... except for the Catholics, who were raped and murdered en masse. With his blatant approval.

--> Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; '''almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen.'''

* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Near the end of the book, Orwell is in a hotel room with his wife when Nationalist soldiers enter the room and start searching through his belongings. His notes are saved because the men are too polite to search a woman. They also cut the shake-down short to take a nap.

* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified: Propaganda was common on all sides, something Orwell is careful to note.

* Unluckilylucky: Orwell remarks bitterly that the hospital staff consider him "lucky" for surviving a shot through the neck; he maintains it would have been luckier not to have been shot in the first place. Later it transpires it really ''was'' a stroke of luck, as it ensured he was out of Barcelona trying to get a discharge when the Communists purged POUM and likely spared him from imprisonment.

* LuckilyUnlucky: Orwell remarks bitterly that the hospital staff consider him "lucky" for surviving a shot through the neck; he maintains it would have been luckier not to have been shot in the first place. Later it transpires it really ''was'' a stroke of luck, as it ensured he was out of Barcelona trying to get a discharge when the Communists purged POUM and likely spared him from imprisonment.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: When Orwell and his wife's hotel room is being searched by secret police, they refuse to check the bed since the wife was laying in it during their search. Orwell notes this as a sign of the nobility of teh Spanish despite the secret police's normally brutish tactics.

** Orwell comments that the Nationalists weren't all that great at Fascism because the Spanish people were too friendly and easygoing to do it convincingly. He then ominously comments that the results might be very different if the ideology was tried elsewhere.* OrwellianEditor: The [[BlatantLies horrible distortions of the truth]] which Orwell witnessed in Spain (in particular the idea of the POUM being "Franco's Fifth Column") are the TropeMaker - they inspired the constant rewriting of the past in ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', which in turn [[TropeNamer named this trope]].

* OrwellianEditor: The [[BlatantLies horrible distortions of the truth]] which Orwell witnessed in Spain (in particular the idea of the POUM being "Franco's Fifth Column") are the TropeMaker - they inspired the constant rewriting of the past in ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', which in turn [[TropeNamer named this trope]].

* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Everyone in Spain, according to Orwell. 'In this war, everyone always did miss everyone else, when it was humanly possible.' It saved his life on several occasions.