Editing Homage to Catalonia (section)

=== Chapter nine (orig. ch. 10) ===
Orwell relates his involvement in the "May Days"' Barcelona street fighting that began on 3 May when the [[Guardia de Asalto|Government Assault Guards]] tried to take the Telephone Exchange from the CNT workers who controlled it. For his part, Orwell acted as part of the POUM, guarding a POUM-controlled building. Although he realises that he is fighting on the side of the working class, Orwell describes his dismay at coming back to Barcelona on leave from the front only to get mixed up in street fighting. Assault Guards from Valencia arrive—"All of them were armed with brand-new rifles ... vastly better than the dreadful old [[blunderbuss]]es we had at the front." The Communist-controlled [[Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia]] newspapers declare POUM to be a disguised Fascist organisation—"No one who was in Barcelona then, or for months later, will forget the horrible atmosphere produced by fear, suspicion, hatred, censored newspapers, crammed jails, enormous food queues, and prowling gangs of armed men."<ref>George Orwell ''Homage to Catalonia''. Penguin Books 2013. p. 135.</ref> In his second appendix to the book, Orwell discusses the political issues at stake in the May 1937 Barcelona fighting, as he saw them at the time and later on, looking back.