DOES SAM SPADE HESITATE TO TURN IN BRIGID O'SHAUGHNESSY?:

There was another turn in the story when, in 1949, George Orwell, by then in a sanatorium and dying of tuberculosis, was asked to supply the Foreign Office with a list of communist fellow travellers whose loyalty couldn't be counted on in the event of war with the Soviet Union. Orwell duly came up with a list, which included the name of Smolka, who was described as giving "the strong impression of being some kind of Russian agent".

Orwell has been much criticised for co-operating with the British authorities in this way, but it's worth remembering that during his time fighting with the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War, he'd seen the ruthlessness with which those who served the Soviet Union treated its enemies.

It's hard to imagine the writer feeling any qualms in giving the authorities the list. After all, he was right about Smolka, who was revealed to have been a Soviet agent only after the fall of the Soviet Union.

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