Do you happen to have an example ready to hand? I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious. I don't really know that much about Orwell. I think this is the first work by him I've read since 1984 and Animal Farm in high school or college.

The main reason I read this, btw, is that I picked up a cheap used copy somewhere in the past year or so, and noticed it a week or two ago and thought "Dang it, I'm not going to let that book sit around unread for the next ten years, like half the stuff I buy."

I can't say I'm very surprised, though it's disappointing. If he was ok with destroying the Church in Spain, he clearly had a big blind spot. Or I guess a massive prejudice.

Orwell would have believed his animosity to Catholicism to have rational grounds. With hindsight, one can see it is pure insularity. It's difficult now to imagine how insular the English were before the advent of cheap air travel. And they simply regarded the RC church as foreign.

In our RE class we used to ask the teacher, our CofE chaplain silly questions. One silly question we came up with was, 'would you baptise a child Jesus?" He replied, no Christian minister would baptise a child with the name 'Jesus.' He had simply never encounted Spanish or South American people of that name.

And the Catholic can also take it as history, and as a testimony to the situation of the Church in Spain (and probably in all of Catholic Europe) with regard to the working class. How did it come about that the institution which ought to have worked to aid and protect the poor was, in the eyes of those same poor, so often seen as a tool of the oppressor? I suppose it must in fact have been, at least to some extent, and a scandalous extent, the tool of the oppressor. Orwell says little directly about this, but what he does say is revealing:

One is struck, in Hugh Thomas' history of the Spanish Civil War, of how readily the author confounded low standards of living with some sort of injury done by one stratum to another.

Cross-posted with you, Art. Isn't that a pretty common conclusion? And often but not always a justified one, I would think.

It's ok if you don't take it seriously, but one gets the impression that they did.

Re the little verse about the mustache at the end of the Spectator article, I wonder when Orwell gave up this look. He would have been in his 20s and it was the 1920s when this was taken. I don't know when Hitler's image became familiar.

And often but not always a justified one, I would think.

It depends on the land tenure arrangements and labor laws. What Thomas does not seem to realize is that poor societies are poor societies. That is a function of the general level of technological adaptation, division of labor, and the human capital that influences both. You do have strata in poor societies, as you do in any society. Political action derived from intramural social resentments does not improve general living standards except intermediated through policy which strips an elite of rent seeking opportunities or assets used in a systemically unproductive way. Not really the deal of socialist or communist movements, which tended to turn those assets over to hopeless public bureaucracies not immune to rent seeking.

Latin America has famously maldistributed income streams, but most parts of the globe the economic advantage of the elites might account for 10% or 15% of national income.

Now, if problematic land tenures, compulsory labor services, or debt peonage are part and parcel of your social system, you have a different story. Thomas does not discuss this at all, however. His discussion is of the 'poor', the 'bourgeoisie', etc.

Some make, or used to make, the argument that wherever the Catholic sun doth shine there's a lot of poverty. There's enough in that to give one pause.

Well, there's enough of that in enough other places to keep me from pausing there very long.

AMDG

"What Thomas does not seem to realize is that poor societies are poor societies."

An obvious but important point, if I understand you: that is, the society is poor all the way through, in the aggregate?

"if problematic land tenures, compulsory labor services, or debt peonage are part and parcel of your social system, you have a different story."

This is not something I claim to know anything about, nor does Orwell dwell on it, but he does drop things here and there suggesting that something of that was the case in Spain.

Yes, certainly. I'm not taking a definite side in the argument, just pointing out the differing views, all of which I think have some truth in them.

There is a passage in one of Orwell's essays, something along the lines of 'some positions are rational, but mistaken: like liberalism, conservatism, catholicism ect; and some which are both irrational and mistaken, of which fascism is the most dangerous variety'. that I always thinks captures his attitude to the church.

On Spanish poor stuff, its worth remembering just how big a land-owner the church was in many mediterran countries. Remembering their parents paying rent to the priest seems to lie in the back of the combination of relative devotion and deep anti-clericalism I see in some of my older mediterrain in-laws.

This is not something I claim to know anything about, nor does Orwell dwell on it, but he does drop things here and there suggesting that something of that was the case in Spain.

Cannot say about Spain in particular, but the resolution of land tenures and remission of labor services was standard in Europe by 1906. The concluding measures were adopted under the Stolypin ministry in Russia. In the Hapsburg lands, the important measures were implemented during the period running from 1848 to 1859. In France, earlier still. There were residual problems in the agrarian sector in Roumania.

Some make, or used to make, the argument that wherever the Catholic sun doth shine there's a lot of poverty. There's enough in that to give one pause.

Shall we perhaps define what we mean by poverty? Does poverty necessarily prevent a person from living a good and happy life? I consider a good and happy life to be highly conducive to laughter. I suppose poverty might interfere with the aquiring of red wine. :)

Perhaps, Art, the actual circumstances lagged well behind the changes in law. Maybe something like the way black people in the South remained subjugated after slavery ended. I don't remember anything specific that Orwell said and it would probably take re-reading the book to locate it, because it wasn't much.

Getting back to Orwell - he was a fascinating sort of character - going by his writings. I must read more about him, so thanks for this post, Maclin.

Perhaps, Art, the actual circumstances lagged well behind the changes in law.

The changes in the law would be the extension of allodial rights to rustical lands and the remission of compulsory labor services. The effects of that would have been pretty immediate. The one qualification would be if labor services were replaced with debt peonage. If I understand correctly, that is most likely where share-cropping is common (which it was in the American South). Again, I cannot say about Spain. In Eastern Europe (bar Prussia, which had a landless emancipation), the seigneurs were left with the demesne lands and all kinds of peasant tenures were converted into allodial tenures, so I tend to doubt share-cropping was all that common after 1864. Please note, the United States had a landless emancipation and there was no antecedent distinction between demesne land and rustical land. It was all massa's plantation. Also, there was a working market in seigneurial property in America, which was not the case in continental Europe.

Keep in mind also what did not happen in continental Europe. A whole mess of legal and quasi-legal measures were imposed over the period from 1877 to 1914 (after abortive attempts just after the Civil War) that erected a revised caste system in the South. If I am not mistaken, the decline of the privileges of the nobility in 19th c. Europe was pretty monotonic. An attempt to restore them in France in 1824-30 was a failure.

That's an interesting question, Marianne. I was thinking earlier in the discussion about how Mother Teresa's mission was to serve the poorest of the poor where they were--not to make them less poor.

AMDG

All I can say about Spain is that in Catalonia at least, as reported by Orwell, there were peasants, and they were poor.

In Catalonia and everywhere else in Europe. I would wager the peasants were at least as poor in the Balkans. There were no civil wars in the Balkans in the inter-War period, however, and the political violence therein tended to be rooted in ethnic antagonisms or quite esoteric social and cultural discontents (re the Iron Guard in Roumania).

Very apropos. That in turn makes me think of the Yeats poem about revolution that ends "The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on."

I was only talking about the tendency of the Church to ally itself with the rich folks.

"Ally itself" in which domain and toward what ends?

My understanding of the Spanish Civil War (which is sketchy at best) is that the Republicans were basically persecuting the Church. They killed a number of bishops and many priests and nuns prior to the civil war, so the Catholics who supported the Nationalists were doing so, in many cases, out of a desire to save their fellow Catholics. And Franco was not the original leader, he became the leader after the original general was killed in an aircraft accident (I think).

The details of the Spanish Civil War are not known to a lot of westerners so it's absurd that so many have a set opinion of it. I'm not dogmatic about it myself, given that I've only read one book on the subject.

The majority of priests were (within weeks of the outbreak of the conflict) either in Nationalist territory or in territory held by Basque militias, which were not anticlerical. Of the 40% or so elsewhere in Republican territory, about 1/3 were killed, one third able to flee into exile, and one third prohibited from acting as priests. The mortality rate among the clergy in metropolitan Barcelona was about 80%. Yes, the Church was antagonistic to the Republic.

Another thing that comes to mind - perhaps not relevantly - is a mission estate in southern central Africa, part of a complex that included a school I very briefly taught at. The bursar (a beefy German religious) boasted that he paid his workers the equivalent (international exchange-rate, not purchasing power) of a dollar for a 10-hour day. I have no doubt that Orwell would consider him fair game for revolutionaries. The local landlords hated him, because they were only paying 90 cents for a 12-hour day.

The bursar (a beefy German religious) boasted that he paid his workers the equivalent (international exchange-rate, not purchasing power) of a dollar for a 10-hour day. I have no doubt that Orwell would consider him fair game for revolutionaries. The local landlords hated him, because they were only paying 90 cents for a 12-hour day.

You mean he is fair game for revolutionaries because he pays 11% above the prevailing wage?

But that's not my question. My question is not "why did the Church side against the Republic?" but "why did the Republic persecute the Church?" Just because that's what leftists do? How did it look from their point of view? What justification, if any, did they have, for viewing the Church as an oppressor?

Well, from what occupational strata does the portside hail? It varies from one time and place to another, but the word merchant sector is a common element. Manuel Azana was a literature teacher. The Church is the competition to the counter-magisterium.

could it simply be because the Church owned so much of the land and had so much power?

And the rebels wanted it? Perhaps. Surely a factor, at least. I think that's basically what Chesterbelloc said about Henry VIII's confiscations.

Yes, Eamon Duffy in The Stripping of the Altars demonstrates that the English Catholics were quite satisfied with their religion for the most part.

You have forgotten for purposes of this discussion that the Church and the protestant congregations are in this country loathed by much of the professional-managerial bourgeoisie even though (pace knuckleheads like Robert Hughes) their political activity is generally defensive and they are not notably influential in comparison with (to take several examples) higher education or high finance or the real estate sector.

I am not sure I would frame it in that way. Conflict, intergroup antagonism, and the like are constant in human relations. Sometime they are reactive to systemic injustices and sometime not. Hugh Thomas himself his anti-clerical in a dilued sort of way, but nothing he says persuades me there is much there other than the usual resentments people have in fissured societies

That Orwell was indifferent to it lowers him markedly in my estimation.

The thing is, Louise, it wasn't just Orwell. C.S.Lewis was just as indifferent, at least by Tolkien's account.

Yes, that is exactly what I was referring to. If memory serves, it's in his letter to his son Christopher about meeting Roy Campbell in The Eagle and Child.

While this whole conversation brings to mind nothing so much as "The Carmelites of Toledo".

The thing is, Louise, it wasn't just Orwell. C.S.Lewis was just as indifferent, at least by Tolkien's account.

Well, now CSL has just dropped a rung in my estimation, although he had taken a bit of a dive once I realised he "married" a divorcee.

How anyone can be actually indifferent to the sufferings of civilians in this kind of scenario is beyond me. I mean, I can understand that one's feelings might not be completely engaged ,because of either the overwhelming enormity of the thing or the fact that the people concerned are not right in front of one, but if it comes to a question of not caring on the basis that one has a different religion/world view then I'm pretty appalled really. I don't care much for Muslims (sorry), but it's not like I wouldn't care if they suffered this kind of persecution. I'm certainly not happy that they are attacked by allied forces in Afganistan etc.

Yes, I doubt Lewis would have been as dismissive if present where it was happening (as Orwell was).

How anyone can be actually indifferent to the sufferings of civilians in this kind of scenario is beyond me. I mean, I can understand that one's feelings might not be completely engaged ,

To a degree, one might be disengaged because there was so much blood. Both Jacques Maritain and George Bernanos

http://www.amazon.com/Les-Grands-Cimeti%C3%A8res-Sous-Lune/dp/B008J2H68K

declined to take sides. I think there is something rather twee and pluperfect about that, but one can see the temptation (and, of course, one does not need to know everyone's opinions on everything; we might be better off if there were less public posturing).