The revolutionary atmosphere of Barcelona had attracted me deeply, but I had made no attempt to understand it. As for the kaleidoscope of political parties and trade unions, with their tiresome names-- P.S.U.C., P.O.U.M., F.A.I., C.N.T., U.G.T., J.C.I., J.S.U., A.I.T.--they merely exasperated me. It looked at first sight as though Spain were suffering from a plague of initials.

— Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (Penguin twentieth-century classics)