Of course, this was all back in the early days of the 50's before they became more sophisticated and responsible free-market "news" channels allowed psy-ops specialists into their newsrooms, allowed their reporters to be under army control and didn't raise a shout when all the satellite images were bought by the government (instead of applying for shutter control which is reviewed by the judiiciary the government just purchased all the data by a forced contract!).

Yes, George Orwell would have cried if he could see us now.

Orwell was so disgusted by communists after his experiences in the Spanish Civil War that he ended up working for British intelligence. I'm not sure if he would be as bummed as you think.

Yes... Orwell was DISGUSTED by the nasty 'ol commies... the implication being that he was IMPRESSED by the behavior of the angelic, noble, and politically pristine anarchists... who afterall only burned churches, killed priests, shot their political opponents (which was everyone else, including the democrats in the Spanish Republic). The stupid anarchists so divided the forces battling against Fascism that Franco and his Nazi backers eventually won.

How's that for "spin" on history, anarchist wanker "historian."?

"shot their political opponents..."

haha cause we all know fucking commies would NEEEVER do that! fuck big business! fuck big government! smash the state! no gods , no masters!

@

"shot their political opponents..."

haha cause we all know fucking commies would NEEEVER do that! fuck big business! fuck big government! smash the state! no gods , no masters!

@

"shot their political opponents..."

haha cause we all know fucking commies would NEEEVER do that! fuck big business! fuck big government! smash the state! no gods , no masters!

@

"shot their political opponents..."

haha cause we all know fucking commies would NEEEVER do that! fuck big business! fuck big government! smash the state! no gods , no masters!

@

"shot their political opponents..."

haha cause we all know fucking commies would NEEEVER do that! fuck big business! fuck big government! smash the state! no gods , no masters!

@

"shot their political opponents..."

haha cause we all know fucking commies would NEEEVER do that! fuck big business! fuck big government! smash the state! no gods , no masters!

@

"shot their political opponents..."

haha cause we all know fucking commies would NEEEVER do that! fuck big business! fuck big government! smash the state! no gods , no masters!

@

"shot their political opponents..."

haha cause we all know fucking commies would NEEEVER do that! fuck big business! fuck big government! smash the state! no gods , no masters!

@

I'm sorry to burst your little bubble but I am not an anarchist. If anything I'm a *gasp* liberal. I am also an academically trained and professional historian. To make it clear, people pay me to write about history.

There is no "implication" that Orwell was impressed by the anarchists, he says so directly in "Homage to Catalonia." You honestly need to learn a little about the topics you write about before repeating worn out rhetoric. It's actually quite stangle. You sound like a Stalinist newspaper from the 1930s!

Look, if you really are a historian, there is an abundance of academic material available on the Spanish Civil War from a variety of ideological perspectives. A particularly interesting work is "Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War" by Ronald Radosh. Radosh, like myself, is certainly no anarchist.

Happy reading!

From the Publisher

The Spanish Civil War has long been the stuff of legend. Thousands of brave young men from all over the Western world, most of them organized by their local Communist parties, rushed to Spain to support the democratic Republic against right-wing forces led by rebellious generals in the Spanish officer corps.

Although the Republic was eventually defeated, some observers believed that the effort to defend it was a selfless undertaking of the international Communist movement and the Soviet Union -- a noble crusade against Hitler, Mussolini, and their Spanish puppet Franco.

This book presents a very different view of the role of the Soviet Union in this war. Based on previously unavailable Moscow archives, it provides the first full documentation of that country's duplicitous and self-serving activities.

Documents in the book reveal that the Soviet Union not only swindled the Spanish Republic out of millions of dollars through arms deals but also sought to take over and run the Spanish economy, government, and armed forces in order to make Spain a Soviet possession, thereby effectively destroying the foundations of authentic Spanish antifascism.

The documents also shed light on many other disputed episodes of the war: the timing of the Republican request for assistance from the Soviet Union; the rise and fall of the International Brigades; the internal workings of the Comintern and its influence on Spain; and much more.

Authoritative and startling in the new information it offers, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in Soviet foreign policy or the Spanish Civil War.