I remember Dr. Majerus said that Orwell wrote 1984 in response to BNW because he believed that a dystopian England would be different, but what aspects/movements does he seem to be criticizing/anticipating will get out of hand? His focus on the "Party", "Oligarchical Collectivism", and removal of private property, seem to point to a critique, or a warning, of communism. A lot of the negative aspects of his society are common attacks on communist states: they're oppressive, there are shortages of everything (food, razors, etc.), and innovation stops (in Goldstein's book, he said that the only tech-y people are working on weapons, and those probably won't ever be made). Individuality is strongly discouraged in Oceania, and one fear of communism is that everyone would be the same. The Party also openly attacks capitalism and its ideals in its propaganda (it claims to have freed the proles from the oppression of the oppressive capitalists). Orwell is pretty clearly attempting to attack communism.
However, Orwell seems to miss the mark on the defining features of communism. Communism is defined as "political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism) , most of which seems to be missing from the society in Oceania. The means of production are solely in the control of the government, as is everything else in Oceania, the natural resources of the society (and just about everything else) are owned by the inner party rather than the public, and the society seems to be profit based to some extent as the inner party profits from its control over Oceania and its wars. Basically, Oceania's essence doesn't appear to be communist, even though its problems are associated with Communism.
That being said, in Goldstein's book, he states that the pretenses of freedom and equality were abandoned by the followers of Ingsoc, so the novel could still function as some kind of warning. Orwell could be warning that socialists or communists don't actually want freedom and equality, but are simply manipulating people to gain power in order to install their own regime that keeps them on top. Of course that argument could be made against capitalist societies as well, and Oceania has its resemblances to capitalism too (a hierarchical class structure, disproportionate concentration of wealth in a small group of people, war over resources, high demand for cheap labor, etc.).
It seems pretty clear to me that Orwell was trying to be anti-communist here, but it also doesn't seem like he did it very effectively (at least in my opinion). What do you guys think?
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ReplyDeleteTo me, his communist critique comes off a lot better in "Animal Farm" than in 1984. In that story, his main anti-communist point seemed to be that power can easily twist the motives of revolutionaries and change them from idealists standing up for the oppressed to the oppressors themselves. In 1984, it seems like he focuses more on life in a communist regime. On that front, though, he also didn't do so well. After all, in real communist regimes (Mao's China, for example) were so much worse to live in than Oceania that they made Orwell's supposed "dystopia" look pretty pleasant by comparison. The last problem i see with 1984 is that it was an anti-communist book published in 1949. That's 2 years into the cold war. Calling Orwell's message to Cold-war era england "preaching to the choir" would be a serious understatement.
ReplyDeleteI 100% with you. Personally I think Animal Farm is much more direct anti-communistic writing. It feels to me that 1984 focuses a lot on the feelings that communist (well whatever Oceania is) government causes in the everyday people. It also seems to focus on the everyday rebellions people think but can't act on. In Animal Farm I feel its more how communist governments come into power.
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So fun fact: the word "privacy" doesn't have a direct Russian translation, and under communism, privacy wasn't really a thing either, everything was shared by everyone. I agree with Jack that his critique of communism comes through stronger in "Animal Farm", but there are still aspects of the book that critique it. Like the fact that there is no private property by anyone in the party. And also Winston's job is changing history to fit the party's current views is incredibly similar to what Stalin did. He'd photoshop people who he killed (for political disagreements) out of pictures, just like the party in 1984. I think that Orwell captured the very essence of the USSR, which had a skewed version of communism anyway. Very interesting post, would love to discuss this in class, you should bring it up!
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, Orwell himself was actually a democratic socialist. He fought with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and so on. His criticism in 1984 and Animal Farm seems to be of authoritarian communism (Stalinism, Maoism, etc) and not of socialism itself. We can see this in Goldstein's book, where Goldstein argues that, in fact, there are now enough resources that, if evenly distributed and not wasted continuously on warfare, a society of perfect equality would be entirely achievable.
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Communism theoretically could work out well if every single person worked hard, took no shortcuts, and if the government avoided corruption. Problem is, these requirements are virtually impossible in our world. It is natural for humans to be greedy, for life, for power, for money or even for food, this makes it so that a proper communism is extremely hard to create and maintain. I think 1984 shows how a supposed communist-like state could quickly devolve into the dehumanizing society we see in 1984.
ReplyDeleteMy interest has been piqued by the insights you present in the post. Communism has some potential to work in an ideal world. Since it would lead to a greater median wealth, certain statisticians would deem that a better society. Others, however, would prefer a greater mean. For such people, communism might be a bad option.
ReplyDeleteI feel that this post is very insightful - thanks so much for sharing your insights with us. I am very much in accordance with your insights on how Orwell is painting Oceania as a communist society, while giving it an environment that it will be able to play the malicious actor in. It's interesting how writers' political beliefs play such a large role in their writing, and how we can learn more about Orwell from his writings.
ReplyDeleteGood good post sammy!! This was something that struck me about 1984 too - it seemed to be a direct criticism of communism or socialism, and yet the a lot of the fundamental aspects of socialism aren't actually there. I'm glad you made this post it was very informative.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. Personally I think Animal Farm is much more direct anti-communistic writing. It feels to me that 1984 focuses a lot on the feelings that an oppressive government causes in the everyday people. It also focuses on the ways people think about rebelling but can't follow through on. In Animal Farm I feel its more how communist governments come into power and why that's bad rather than the human aspect of what an oppressive government feels like.
ReplyDeleteI believe 1984 is more of a warning against the dangers of totalitarian government rather than a communist one. Most likely influenced by the recent Soviet and Nazi regimes of his century, Orwell implemented many of their ideas into the creation of The Party in 1984. For example, all three glorified their respective leaders, emphasized the party's needs over individuals, and utilized violence against all those who defied them. Furthermore, all three often dehumanized their enemies using mass propaganda, like the Party does through the two minutes of hate and hate week. However, Orwell did refer to communism in his novel, "Animal Farm", exposing his readers to a variety of societies in the world and their dangers.
ReplyDeleteWhile 1984 and the political system that Orwell critiques in it aren't examples of true communism I think its still fair to say Orwell is critiquing Communist governments more than the political system its self. Its fair to say that many elements we see in 1984, like forced labor camps, secret police, a cult of personality built around one figure, can be seen in many communist governments like Stalinist Russia and Mao's China. I think 1984 is more critical of the governments that rise from communism and less of the communist system of collective ownership.
ReplyDeleteI think that communism can mean a few different things. There is the communism that was an ideal in the mind of Karl Marx, and consists of a global Utopia where everyone voluntarily shares with each-other and there is no private property or government, there is what communism meant to the states that called themselves communist. China called and calls itself communist, and even in its most socialist days, it is pretty clear that the communist government thought that government could be part of communism. This usage of communism is more like what Marx would have called socialism, with government controlling the means of production, and is the only thing that has ever happened in Socialist/Communist states the real world.
ReplyDeleteMy interest levels have peaked through your blog post. I couldn't agree with you more. Communism on paper always seems like the perfect solution. But it never works. One of the best things about Capitalist society is the reward and incentive you can get. In a communist or socialist society, the reward is divided equally. As a result, everybody loses that drive to work hard.
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