Editing Homage to Catalonia (section)

===Anti-communist reevaluation (1950s)===
The success of Orwell's novels, and his death in 1950, brought ''Homage'' back into the limelight as people began to reassess the effect that his experiences in Spain had on his work.{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|p=308}} The release of several memoirs by Spanish ex-communists also triggered a reevaluation of the prescience of Orwell's criticisms of Communism, with [[Valentín González]] commenting that his writings had been "confirmed".{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|p=308}} In an obituary on Orwell, British literary critic [[V. S. Pritchett]] commented that "Don Quixote saw the poker face of Communism".{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|p=308}} In June 1950, the anti-communist writer [[Stephen Spender]] praised ''Homage'' as "one of the most serious indictments of Communism which has been written", remarking that the book demonstrated that all ideologies were capable of terrible things, if they are not taken together with "a scrupulous regard for the sacredness of the truth of an individual life."{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|p=308}} He commented that: "politically, the liquidation of the POUM was not an event of great importance; humanly speaking, it was a greater failure for the Republic even than the defeat."{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|p=308}} Spender even argued that ''Homage'' was a better book than ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', as it depicted "real horrors and real betrayals".{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|p=314}}

Upon the publication of the book's first American edition in 1952, American literary critic [[Lionel Trilling]] exalted Orwell as a "[[secular saint]]", who was wholly committed to [[truth]] and [[journalistic objectivity]]. Historian [[John Rodden]] argued that Trilling's introduction to ''Homage'' was instrumental in bringing the book to prominence, as the American intelligentsia of the period had been in search of a "moral and political condemnation" of Spanish communism.{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|pp=308-309}} American reviews re-conceived the book as a key piece of context for understanding Orwell's later work, presenting it as about "the making of an [[anti-authoritarianism|anti-totalitarian]]".{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|pp=308-309}} Some understood it as a demonstration of communist tactics for seizing power, placing it within the post-WWII context of the formation of the [[Eastern Bloc]] and the [[People's Republic of China]].{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|pp=308-309}} American journalist [[Herbert Matthews]] was sharply critical of the book's re-contextualisation by Americans during the Cold War, arguing that its importance as an account of the Spanish Civil War had been eclipsed by its status as an anti-communist exposé.{{Sfn|Buchanan|2002|p=309}}