May Days in the context of "POUM"

The phrase Spanish Republic at war refers to the Second Spanish Republic during the Civil War of 1936–1939. It represents the last stage in this war's history. The territory that remained under its control after the coup of July 1936—which was called the republican zone or the loyalist zone—gradually reduced as the rebel zone spread, until it was finally occupied in its entirety by the Francoist side (which had referred to the areas as the red zone throughout the civil war).

During this time, there were three consecutive governments: the one presided over by José Giral, from Republican Left, although during his short term (July–September 1936), real power was actually in the hands of the hundreds of committees that were created when the social revolution of 1936 broke out. The next government was presided over by Francisco Largo Caballero, the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), one of the two trade unions that had led the revolution. Finally, the third government was presided over by Juan Negrín, also from the PSOE, as a consequence of the fall of Largo Caballero's government after the events of May 1937. Negrín governed until early March 1939, when Colonel Segismundo Casado's coup took place, putting an end to the Republican resistance and giving way to the victory of the rebel faction led by General Francisco Franco.

Revolutionary Catalonia (21 July 1936 – 8 May 1937) was the period in which the autonomous region of Catalonia in northeast Spain was controlled or largely influenced by various anarchist, syndicalist, communist, and socialist trade unions, parties, and militias of the Spanish Civil War era. Although the constitutional Catalan institution of self-government, the Generalitat of Catalonia (led by the Republican Left of Catalonia, ERC), remained in power and even took control of most of the competences of the Spanish central government in its territory, the trade unions were de facto in command of most of the economy and military forces, which includes the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT, National Confederation of Labor) which was the dominant labor union at the time and the closely associated Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI, Iberian Anarchist Federation). The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT, General Worker's Union), the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC, which included the former Communist Party of Catalonia) were also prominent.

Socialist rule of the region began with the Spanish Revolution of 1936, resulting in workers' control of businesses and factories, collective farming in most of the countryside, and attacks against Spanish nationalists and the Catholic clergy. The growing influence of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) in the Popular Front government and their desire to nationalize revolutionary committees and militias brought it into conflict with the CNT and POUM, resulting in the May Days and the eventual replacement of the CNT by the PSUC as a major political force in Catalonia until their defeat to the Nationalist forces in 1939.

Animal Farm (originally Animal Farm: A Fairy Story) is a satirical allegorical dystopian novella, in the form of a beast fable, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It follows the mistreated anthropomorphic farm animals of Manor Farm as they rebel against their human master, and are hoping to create a society where all animals can be equal, free, and happy away from human vices and interventions. However, the rebellion is hijacked and betrayed, and under the dictatorship of the pigs, the farm ends up in a dystopian state nearly identical to what it was before.

According to Orwell, Animal Farm reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union, a period when Russia lived under the Marxist–Leninist ideology of Joseph Stalin. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Barcelona May Days conflicts between the POUM and Stalinist forces, during the Spanish Civil War. In a letter to Yvonne Davet (a French writer), Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin ("un conte satirique contre Staline"), and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946) wrote: "Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole."

Homage to Catalonia is a memoir and the sixth book by English writer George Orwell published in 1938, in which he accounts his personal experiences and observations while fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

Covering the period between December 1936 and June 1937, Orwell recounts Catalonia's revolutionary fervor during his training in Barcelona, his boredom on the front lines in Aragon, his involvement in the interfactional May Days conflict back in Barcelona on leave, his getting shot in the throat back on the front lines, and his escape to France after the POUM was declared an illegal organization. The war was one of the defining events of his political outlook and a significant part of what led him to write in 1946, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it."