Anti-clickbait summary: he discovered poverty, in a severe and imminent way, among white British people (+) living in the North of England, and this led him to his extremely pragmatic form of democratic socialism.
The fieldwork was done in early 1936; at the end of 36 Orwell went to Catalonia to fight for POUM against both the fascists and (eventually) the Stalinists.
(+) This clause is relevant because he had encountered poverty before when he was a colonial policeman in Burma.
Thanks. Did you subscribe to find that out? Because it didn't seem like there was any other way to read the article. The web has become a very aggressive pan handler.
The article wasn't obstructed for me (with ublock origin). But I didn't actually read all of it properly, just skimmed it and filled in with my own knowledge of The Road To Wigan pier and Orwell's life. Only my first para is taken from the article itself.
I can see how this is technically a clickbait headline in its grammatical construction, but in context it isn't really.
Think of it as "[a discussion/analysis of] what Orwell discovered in the North", or "[pondering] what Orwell discovered in the North".
What he discovered isn't a mystery, nor is it the question. The significance of what he discovered to him and to his then future path in life and in writing is the topic being explored.
The fieldwork was done in early 1936; at the end of 36 Orwell went to Catalonia to fight for POUM against both the fascists and (eventually) the Stalinists.
(+) This clause is relevant because he had encountered poverty before when he was a colonial policeman in Burma.