Orwell was an imperialist stooge who shopped communists to the state

It should be added that in 1945 Orwell was a state informant who gave names to the British Foreign Office of potential writers who may be "crypto-communists," Jews or homosexuals.

When Orwell asked Communist Party leader Harry Pollitt if he could help him join the international brigade his request was rejected, probably because Pollitt knew that Eric Blair (his real name) had been a member of the imperialist police force in Burma.

As the late international brigader Bill Alexander explained in his 1984 book Inside the Myth: "Orwell had no understanding of the worldwide significance of the struggle in Spain … he had never seen a republican flag."

Orwell never took part in the anti-Mosley struggles in Britain or the hunger marches.

He stood aloof, preferring as Alexander described to attack those drawn towards socialism and communism as a caricature composite figure of "fruit juice drinker, nudist, sandal wearer, sex maniac, Quaker, Nature cure quack, pacifist and feminist."

In 1943 as the Soviet army was fighting the greatest battle in history at Stalingrad, Orwell was trying to get his grubby book Animal Farm published.

Not for him to support the Soviet Union's fight to free mankind from the terror of fascism. Only when it suited the proponents of the cold war was his book published in order to smear and denigrate socialism.

It is interesting to note that the 1954 cartoon film of Animal Farm was, according to US intelligence whistle-blower Howard Hunt, funded by the CIA.

A well respected artist and Marxist once told me that he considered Orwell to be "a first-class, upper-class shit." I could not agree more.

Richard Maunders

Axminster