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Folks interested in this review would find it worthwhile to read Eric Laursen's The Duty to Stand Aside; Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Wartime Quarrel of George Orwell and Alex Comfort.(2018) AK Press. By an anarchist, it covers some of the same ground (and is much cheaper).

Orwell was no anarchist (no secret there) and was flawed in various ways not mentioned in the reviews but raised by the comments. In particular, he took the side of Western imperialism during the Cold War--but then very few on the Left didn't take sides (most but not all anarchists, radical pacifists, libertarian Marxists, Black nationalists, unorthodox Trotskyists, etc.). I disagree with his decision, which did include snitching, but am not surprised. Also he had anti-gay prejudices. He was hardly the same as Daniel Guerin, who went from Trotskyism to anarchism.

But he was an important and well-known figure who had interesting interactions with anarchists. The point is not to paint him as a hero but to learn from his life and his relations with anarchists.