A document found by chance in a Spanish archive has revealed how close the author and journalist George Orwell may have come to being liquidated by the communists during the Spanish Civil War.
Orwell, whose real name was Eric Blair, went to Spain in December 1936 to fight for the Republicans. He fought on the Aragon and Huesca fronts, and while on leave in Barcelona was caught up in a communist purge against the anarchist militia with which he had enlisted.The newly discovered security police report to the Tribunal for Espionage and High Treason in Valencia is dated July 13, 1937. Headed "Enric (sic) Blair and his wife Eileen Blair," it declares that they are are "known Trotskyists" and "linking agents of the ILP (International Labor Party) and the POUM."