After taking a walk and taking time for some reflection. Yeah. You’re right. I don’t really know what I’m talking about and am taking a “vibes-based” approach. However for me that’s preferable to giving vanguardists any credit for anything.

That being said I did find this: https://socialismtoday.org/archive/38/spain38.html

Arms for Spain: The Untold Story of the Spanish Civil War. By Gerald Howson, John Murray, 1998. Reviewed by Dave Murray

The biggest myth to bite the dust, is that the Soviet Union under Stalin materially aided the republican side. He has tracked down documentary proof that the vast bulk of military material supplied to the republicans by Stalin was of poor quality, that the republic was charged at or above market price and that by falsifying the currency exchange rates employed in these deals, the Soviet Union defrauded the republic of at least $51m (at 1936 prices). Helpfully, Stalin arranged for the Spanish government to ship its gold reserves (in 1936 the fifth largest in the world at $518m) to the Soviet Union and, guess what, by the end of the civil war most of it had been transferred to the Soviet government as payment for arms procurement or in return for credits at the Soviet Bank in Paris. That Stalin was one of the executioners of the Spanish revolution is no surprise to us Trots, but Howson has done us a favour in furnishing us with cold hard facts.

Now I can’t find an actual open copy of the book (nor am I spending that much effort looking for it) so I can’t really give you anything more.

1. I’m not a leftist. I’m an anarchist. One that is drifting further and further from “the left” as discussions like these happen.
2. I haven’t quoted Orwell once. My source is a footnote that has Orwell’s quotes among others. My main one for the claim you made are from D.T. Cattell.
3. Are you really claiming that the front being slow is the same as them playing football? Or do you actually believe that the POUM was playing football with the fascists? because that is the only way your claim that Orwell is unreliable by refuting this makes sense.
4. I think the fact that the Communists were intentionally withholding supplies makes the claim that they were supplying anarchists complicated enough to warrant my reply, even if it was a bit too absolutist.
5. None of this matters. Our disagreement is ideological, both of our minds are made up and neither of us is budging, so why are we doing this. Especially when the subject is a civil war nearly a century ago.
6. It doesn’t matter weather or not the USSR supplied anarchists. The Communists were (same as in the own russian revolution) suppressing the anarchists and stopping them from achieving their goals. They made decisions that actively hurt the collectivized society in Aragon.

That the Communists withheld arms from the Aragon front seems established beyond question

That is my source. It’s good enough for me. The fact that Chomsky (a well respected academic*) published that is good enough for me.

*: There are ties to Epstein, but for me that doesn’t invalidate his academic opinion.

Ok. You wanna dance? Let’s dance.

The USSR did supply (provide any weapons to) anarchists in Spain.
However the Communists¹ didn’t supply (provide as many weapons as they could have to) anarchists in Spain.

¹: because as you pointed out the fault wasn’t just the USSR but Spanish as well.

I was hoping that the context made the distinction clear but clearly that is not the case.

To be honest I don’t care if the communists are Soviet or Spain. The arms that the USSR was sending didn’t reach the anarchists. That was the only claim I was refuting.

Reiterating for the sake of clarity.

That the Communists withheld arms from the Aragon front seems established beyond question, and it can hardly be doubted that the motivation was political. See, for example, D.T. Cattell, Communism and the Spanish Civil War (1955; reprinted New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), p. 110.

The fact that the footnote ends with Orwell’s own quote is just a nice tie back to the discussion.

Regarding the rest of the comment I’m not interested in reenacting “anarchist vs ML: spanish civil war” online theater. I just wanted to push back on the claim that the USSR supplied anarchists.

The USSR didn’t supply the anarchists. They The Communists actively refused to give them arms and worked against them. That was the cause of Orwell’s disdain towards them. source: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/noam-chomsky-on-anarchism#fn70

Edit: Correcting sentencing after being corrected in a reply.