FROM ENGLAND
75
aggression. The Spanish civil war went on for two and a half years, and
during that time there was not one country in which the workers staged
even a single strike in aid of their Spanish comrades. So far as I can get
at the figures the British working class subscribed to various "aid Spain"
funds about one per cent of what they spent during the same period in
betting on football and horse-races. Anyone who actually talked to work–
ing men at the time knows that it was virtually impossible to get them to
see that what happened in Spain concerned them in any way. Ditto with
Austria, Manchuria, etc. During the past three months Germany has been
at war with Russia and at the time of writing the Germans have overrun
the greater ·part of the Russian industrial areas.
If
even the shadow of
international working class solidarity existed, Stalin would only have to
call on the German workers in the name of the Socialist Fatherland for
the German war-effort to be sabotaged. Not only does nothing of the kind
happen, but the Russians do not even issue any such appeal. They know
it
is useless. Until Hitler is defeated in the field he can count on the
loyalty of his own working class and can even drag Hungarians, Ruma–
nians and what-not after him. At present the world is atomised and no
form of internationalism has any power or even much appeal. T.his may
be
painful to literary circles in Cambridge, but it is the fact.
"To be effectively anti-war in England now one has to be pro-Hitler."
Of
course this is so. Ask Stalin whether he wants us to be anti-war in
England. Or on the other hand ask Hitler, whose radio praises so warmly
the
efforts of the PPU and (till recently ) the People's Convention.
It
is
a matter of ordinary common sense.
If
you hinder the war effort of your
own side you automatically assist that of the enemy. See Lenin's remarks
on the subject.
The rest of Mr. Moore's letter is froth. The attempted buildup of
myself
as a fashionable "bourgeois leftish" intellectual frequenting
"Tribune
circles" (whatever those may be) and generally saying whatever
it
pays to say at the moment is based on imagination. Mr. Moore has never
eeen me, knows nothing about me, who my friends are, what "circles" I
frequent, what my income is, or how and where I came by my political
opinions. I have no doubt that he did not count on your giving me a
c:hauce
to reply. His motives for writing the letter are, I should say, toler–
lhly
obvious.
Yours,
GEORGE ORWELL
