No I'm an American with limited knowledge of the spanish civil war, I should know more but I don't. I read half of for whom the bells toll, by Hemingway, didn't particularly like the book either not that much of a hemingway fan, I hate him because he hunted big game animals too.

Just everyone you heard about that fought in the Spanish Civil war for the socialists, and I think it was fairly common for idealists to come to spain to fight with them just like europeans did in the American revolution, they all seemed to have lost their idealism and became pessimistic, like Orwell.

a big part of it was people seeing first hand the Soviet's sabotaging the CNT-FAI's efforts, which I imagine was part of what turned Orwell against communists later in his life.

I still contend that if the Soviet's supported the Syndicalists as much as the Nazis supported the Nationalists, CNT-FAI would have won the war.