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George Orwell was the pen name for Eric Arthur Blair (1903–1950), who was a leading English writer and journalist who exposed the evils of communism in two novels published near the end of his life: [[Animal Farm]] and [[Nineteen Eighty-Four]].

George Orwell was the pen name for Eric Arthur Blair (1903–1950), who was a leading English socialist writer and journalist who exposed the evils of Stalinism in two novels published near the end of his life: [[Animal Farm]] and [[Nineteen Eighty-Four]].

A disrespectful liberal as a youth, George Orwell learned about communism when he volunteered to fight the Nationalists to keep them from taking over in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.  Taking a bullet through his neck but surviving, Orwell discovered that the communists (the [[International Brigades]]) fighting in that war were worse than the Nationalists led by [[Francisco Franco]]. Orwell himself was defending the republican form of government, known as the Republicans.

A lifelong socialist, George Orwell learned about Stalinism when he volunteered to fight the Spanish Fascist forces to keep them from overturning the democratically elected socialist government of Spain in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.  Taking a bullet through his neck but surviving, Orwell was dismayed the discover that Russian support for the [[International Brigades]] was curtailed in order to stockpile arms and personnel for the coming war against Germany.  Also, Soviet support for the Republican effort was contingent upon the isolation of Socialist and Anarchist militias who Stalin felt threatened communist interests in western Europe. Orwell himself was a member of the POUM, in Engish, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification.

Orwell had only ten years left in his life when he returned.  During that period he and his wife adopted a baby boy, but then Orwell's wife died shortly thereafter.  In those ten years Orwell wrote his famous anti-communist classics described above, first spending three years on the short story [[Animal Farm]] (1944), and then perhaps five years on the longer novel [[1984]] (1949).  He died of tuberculosis the next year, and requested a full Anglican funeral, reflecting his return to the Christian faith.

Orwell had only ten years left in his life when he returned.  During that period he and his wife adopted a baby boy, but then Orwell's wife died shortly thereafter.  In those ten years Orwell wrote his famous anti-stalinst classics described above, first spending three years on the short story [[Animal Farm]] (1944), and then perhaps five years on the longer novel [[1984]] (1949).  He died of tuberculosis the next year.