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
Spain (Auden) notably by George Orwell in "Inside the Whale" (1940) and in E. P. Thompson's reply to Orwell, "Outside the Whale" ("Out of Apathy", 1960). The scientist Joseph Needham, a great admirer of Auden, took the title of his 1943 book "Time: The Refreshing River" from "Spain". Spain (Auden) Spain is a poem by W. H. Auden written after his visit to the Spanish Civil War. "Spain" was described by George Orwell as "one of the few decent things that have been written about the Spanish war". It was written and published in 1937. Auden donated all the profits from the