Franco’s brand of fascism was not necessarily fascism as it favored the aristocracy and the interests of the Church. As Orwell saw it, it was not so much an attempt to impose fascism as it was to restore feudalism. Orwell finds a very strange war in Spain. It is a war between Franco’s fascists and a collective army of Socialists, Anarchists, workers, and the dominant government Communists.

Orwell came to Spain as a journalist, but he is so disillusioned by the propagandist journalism on both Spanish sides and by the biased, inconsistent, and misinformed foreign coverage, that as an idealist, he is forced to join the war to find out the truth for himself. He finds himself willing to kill fascists because of his love for humanity and his strict ideals. The politcal life, under Orwell’s definition, cannot be an idle life. The book is a testimony to the love of life, freedom, justice and, in a world of backwards priorities, revolution. In fact, he sees the war as more a revolution than a civil war, and he feels the revolutionary spirit drove the Spanish and foreign anti-fascists so that when it died, so did the cause. However at no time must his book be taken primarily as a document of history and morality, but instead as a testament to people joining together against threats to freedom. It also documents barriers people who fight for the same cause can put in front of each other before the battle is won. It is, as Orwell would have put it, the testament of one man who wished desperately to reveal the truth.

Orwell enlists as a member of the leftist socialist party, the POUM, a group that opposed many of the policies of the dominant Communist Party (The PSUC). Orwell is captured by the revolutionary spirit immediately when he sees the enthusiasm his fellow soldiers have for each other, their cause, equality, and revolution. He is excited that the militias were structured in such a way that officers and grunts shared the same uniforms, food, barracks, and weapons. He sees it as an attempt to establish a small scale classless society(p. 27). Orders in these militias were followed not because of punitive measures, but because each soldier comprehended the broad system: The cause, the need for order in a war, the importance of each task in regard to the overall scope of the situation. Soldiers were to understand not simply who to obey, but why orders were to be obeyed.

He gets to "the front" (in fact he is way behind the front line) and is surprised at how boring it is. There is more concern finding firewood than with fighting the enemy. Orwell talks of how he joined the POUM militia with the hopes of one day joining the Communist militia which would put him 1. On the front line, and 2. Around people who shared his political ideologies. However as he spends his time with the POUM he is touched by their sympathy, generosity, and zeal while simultaneously being disgusted by the propaganda and military force that the Communist organizations employ against other anti-fascist groups to maintain their dominance.

The Revolutionary Spirit is high when Orwell joins, and when he is enveloped by it, he is optimistic about the war, but as he sees the increasing suppression of anti-fascist groups by the PSUC (communists) and the result this has (the deterioration of the revolutionary spirit), he is "surprised" and frutstrated. He feels a major flaw in the anti-fascist military establishment was that each groups’ militias were distributed among the ranks of The Popular Army (PSUC) which was in fact a subversive method that the Communists used to prevent the other groups from establishing armies of any significance for themselves. This had a direct effect on the poorer, working class Anarchists who saw their limited funds, manpower, and equipment diffused all around Spain. Orwell identified with the Anarchists the most because they were non-bourgeois, they were the most miserable and honest, and they harbored the most authentic, enthusiastic, and unflinching revolutionary mentality, and he feels terrible for them as he sees their power taken away. Furthermore, the increasingly evident hierarchy would have the indirect effect of sucking power away from Orwell’s POUM as the PSUC’s argument for centrality became stronger, the workers became weaker, and the POUM was stuck somewhere in a precarious middle. When Orwell goes on leave and travels to Barcelona the city is taken by the communists who first seize the anarchist controlled telephone exchange and pit the POUM and anarchist groups (FAI-CNT) against the Civil Guard. The most sickening result of this aggression for Orwell is how the opportunistic Government uses it as a chance to denounce the Anarchists as aggressors (while in fact it was the aggressor) and begin rumors that the POUM was made up of fascist spies. (This would lead to the eventual suppression and outlawing of the POUM by the PSUC.) Orwell sees the Communist aggression as an unnecessary means of displaying Communist military dominance to the Spanish people. "Undoubtedly," says Orwell, "When you are fighting against a deadly enemy, it is beter not to begin fighting amongst yourselves," (157) but he goes on to admit the difficulty of this notion when your forces are made up of groups with many interests, many of which oppose each other. The PSUC then outlaws the POUM as fascist spies and Orwell effectively loses his faith in Communism over Socialism.

Orwell then returns to the Sietamo front and is shot in the neck. He lives (Que suerte, no), returns to Barcelona to find his wife, and learns that the Communists are not only suppressing the POUM and Anarchists, but are arresting them without cause, jailing them, possibly even shooting some of them. Many of Orwells comrades, both Spanish and foreign, are jailed. Some die or disappear mysteriously. Orwell is forced to roam the streets of Barcelona for a couple of days, which is somewhat difficult after a bullet has gone clean through your neck. He desperately tries to have some of his friends freed, even at one time confronting the chief of police, admitting that he is POUM, and pleading the case of his buddy, Kopp. He is surprised when the officer says he’ll do his best and even shakes his hand. Orwell escapes into France and goes on to be one of the great limeys/writers of the 20^th century.

Major points of this work include frustration with the present order and hierarchy of the world that forces workers to effectively live in opposition to the identity placed upon them by power and aristocracy (see Foucault); exasperation over the difficulty of putting aside ideological barriers in the name of fighting for justice; and disgust at the cowardly forces of media and party propaganda who deliberately use lies as a means of warfare.