# Quote — George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

> The only unexpected feature in the Spanish situation – and outside Spain it has caused an immense amount of misunderstanding – is that among the parties on the Government side the Communists stood not upon the extreme Left, but upon the extreme Right.

- Author: [George Orwell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell.md)
- Book: [Homage to Catalonia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/homage-to-catalonia.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Homage_to_Catalonia_(1938)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/homage-to-catalonia/the-only-unexpected

## More from this book

> The workers' militias, based on the trade unions and each composed of people of approximately the same political opinions, had the effect of canalizing into one place all the most revolutionary sentiment in the country. I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/homage-to-catalonia/the-workers-militias.md)

> It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours. Sometimes it is a comfort to me to think that the aeroplane is altering the conditions of war. Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/homage-to-catalonia/it-is-the.md)

> It was queer how the general spirit seemed to change when you got anywhere near the front line. All or nearly all of the vicious hatred of the political parties evaporated.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/homage-to-catalonia/it-was-queer.md)