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Chapter 1

George Orwell goes to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He arrives at a barracks and meets an Italian man who is examining a map. They talk for a while, realizing that they’re both foreigners: Orwell is English and the other man is Italian. After talking for just a few minutes, Orwell feels deeply connected to this stranger as if he were his brother or best friend.

George Orwell writes about his experience in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. He explains that he is writing this book more than seven months after the events have taken place, because he wants to explain how it felt to be there at that time. He mentions an Italian militiaman who was fierce-looking and unkempt, but who embodied what Orwell perceived as the general atmosphere of that time: a lot of red flags and troops traveling by train to fight at the front lines.

Orwell describes the context of his involvement in the war. Initially, he believed that he would serve as a journalist in Spain but then decided to join the militia because it was something that had to be done at that time.

George Orwell arrives in Barcelona and finds that the working class has taken over. He sees buildings covered with red flags, churches demolished, shops collectivized, and people address each other informally. Everyone is dressed in working-class clothing except for a few women and foreigners.

George Orwell is surprised and impressed by how well everyone gets along in Barcelona. He believes that the workers’ revolution has created a society where people are equal, so he joins the fight against Franco’s fascist forces. But later he realizes that there were still many members of the upper class in Barcelona who didn’t want to join either side or get hurt during fighting between them.

In addition, despite the revolutionary atmosphere in Barcelona, Orwell sees the city as a place that is suffering from war. The town looks run-down and there are shortages of essential goods like meat and coal. Nevertheless, people seem satisfied with their lives because they have very little unemployment and low costs of living. They are uplifted by their revolutionary ideals about freedom and equality for all.

Orwell was sent to the city during those early days. He had to wait for a week before he could be sent off to battle. The Lenin Barracks were once elegant, but they are now disorganized and dirty because of the revolution.

The Spanish Civil War was disorganized. They had a hard time getting supplies to the troops, so uniforms were made out of whatever they could find. As a result, when Orwell saw his fellow soldiers in uniform, he described them as an “extraordinary-looking rabble.”

George Orwell is surprised to learn that the men in his new regiment are mostly teenagers and young adults. However, he’s even more surprised when they begin speaking about their political views. They also have no discipline or military training, which upsets him greatly. He discovers that this lack of training has a simple explanation: there aren’t enough rifles for everyone to practice with them.

After a few days, the militia is paraded throughout Barcelona for the first time. Orwell felt that they were not ready, but he was pleased to be treated as an Englishman in public. However, his status did not help him with machine gun training and he asked his lieutenant about it many times. The lieutenant told him “Mañana” (tomorrow), but of course that day never came.

Orwell struggles with the Spanish language while he is in Spain. He has to use a dictionary when he wants to talk to locals, but even then they are friendly and helpful. The locals prove warm towards him and other foreigners, despite their differences in nationality and politics. They share food with people who would otherwise be enemies of theirs because they believe that all humans deserve respect for being human beings regardless of race or class.