 Fake justice was sought through commissions, named "checas" after the Soviet secret police organization.As pressure mounted with the increasing success of the Nationalists, many civilians were executed by councils and tribunals controlled by competing Communist and anarchist groups.Some members of the latter were executed by Soviet-advised communist functionaries in Catalonia, as recounted by George Orwell's description of the purges in Barcelona in 1937 in "Homage to Catalonia", which followed a period of increasing tension between competing elements of the Catalan political scene.