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 The Spanish Civil War and the British Left The Spanish Civil War and the British Left: Political Activism and the Popular Front is a 2007 book by Lewis H. Mates. Mates uses archival research and an analysis of local newspapers to offer an account of the effects of the Spanish Civil War on North East England. Though the North East did not historically have a significant radical left presence, it nonetheless saw a significant mobilisation in support of the Spanish Republic. Mates uses the case study of the North East to test assumptions about the British response to the Civil