If you want to get into the weeds on this, try to be balanced (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD#Spanish_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD#Spanish_C

If you want to get into the weeds on this, try to be balanced (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD#Spanish_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD#Spanish_Civil_War) The Spanish Civil War soon became more about blue-on-blue infighting between traditional leftists and straight-up Stalinist agents. Orwell did not flee Spain because of the Nationalists closing in, he was being hunted by soviet agents.