Spanish Civil War labourers, and parts of the middle class. The conservative, strongly Catholic Basque country, along with Catholic Galicia and the more left-leaning Catalonia, sought autonomy or independence from the central government of Madrid. The Republican government allowed for the possibility of self-government for the two regions, whose forces were gathered under the People's Republican Army ("Ejército Popular Republicano", or EPR), which was reorganized into mixed brigades after October 1936. A few well-known people fought on the Republican side, such as English novelist George Orwell (who wrote "Homage to Catalonia" (1938), an account of his experiences in the war) and Canadian thoracic
The Spanish Civil War and the British Left Franco". Tom Buchanan, writing in "The English Historical Review", questioned Mates's commentary on working-class Catholics' reactions to the Red Terror and the lack of the detail offered on topics including aid initiatives, but described the book as " a valuable addition to the burgeoning literature on Britain and the Spanish Civil War, and one that deserves to be read alongside—and as a corrective to—the 'national' studies." In "History", Paul Corthorn questioned Mates's account of the influence of the "popular frontist" interpretation of events, but praised his engagement with Buchanan on the question of Catholics and described the book as "a