In Homage to Catalonia, Orwell asserts that
In particular the Communist Party, with Soviet Russia behind it, had thrown its whole weight against the revolution. It was the Communist thesis that revolution at this stage would be fatal and that what was to be aimed at in Spain was not workers' control, but bourgeois democracy.
(Chapter 5)
Do we have any documentary evidence from the USSR side about their desired outcome in the civil war? If so, how does it line up with Orwell's interpretation here? (I know that Homage is not regarded as a particularly reliable historical overview, so perhaps this is a case where Orwell is "not even wrong?")
This was during the time of the 'Popular Front', when the Comintern and the Communist parties around the world that it controlled pledged themselves to broad-tent 'anti-fascism', eschewing radicalism for alliance with any and all political forces that opposed fascism, including moderate liberals. So this meant forsaking revolution in favor of a more tempered public face.
In the case of Spain, yes, the PCE (Communist Party of Spain, which dutifully followed the dictates of Moscow and can thus be taken to represent Soviet foreign policy) was vehemently opposed to the revolution that exploded throughout Republican Spain when the war began. The PCE's slogan was 'Primero ganar la guerra-First win the war', meaning that revolution and social transformation ought to be shelved while the fascists were at the gates.
The PCE declared repeatedly that its 'only aim was the defense of the democratic republic' and that they by no means aimed at revolutionizing Spain. A look at Communist propaganda from the war will show again and again talk of the 'democratic republic' and little of revolution. This one urges respect for 'law and order'. 'Without republican order, we will not win the war' it says.
So yes, the stance of the USSR and its foreign limbs was pretty staunchly anti-revolutionary during this time period.
