He was taken in by the talk and the mismatched comparison of socialism-to-be and free-market-as-it-is. Sorry to say, he was with the communists in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. He saw it from both sides, up close and personal.

Rothbardian_fanatic

Politics_And_Law

The Complex Legacy of George Orwell

Interesting that he did not see that socialism was leading exactly to the distopyan world he described so well in 1984. He probably missed that socialism and fascism are two sides of the same coin and people fighting for either are dying for nothing