1984 A Master Piece

1984 A Master Piece

George Orwell was a brilliant writer and social commentator. Like all literary giants before and after his time, Orwell voluntarily addressed controversial topics in an intellectual and worldly manner through the confines of his writing. During Orwell’s life, the world was facing tumultuous times. The Imperial tendencies of a variety of nations, as well as petty rivalries between certain political entities allowed for humanity to be through into a state of utter chaos and disarray. The events of World War I and World War II had a major impact on Orwell. The subsequent rise of communism and totalitarianism ravaged the lives of many and allowed for the occurrence of some of humanities greatest tragedies. In essence George Orwell book 1984 is nothing more than a warning against the spread of such tyrannical regimes.

Karle Marks once said, “There is a specter haunting Europe. That Specter is communism.” In a way George Orwell takes this concept that Marks proposed one step further. In 1984, Orwell effectively claims that specter of communism is haunting the world, and that ultimately the subjugation of humankind will be absolute if communism is allowed to spread. When you look at the structure of the “Party”, you see that it is nothing more than a communist regime. There is an Oligarchic elite, a subservient class of political workers, and a numerically superior general class that is deprived of denominated power. All resources are rationed in the presented society, all actions are monitored, and freedom speech and thought are limited. Values are instilled from the aspect of the group and not the individual. Divergence from established political views are shunned, and all citizens are subject to torture, interrogation, forced internment to labor camps, or execution. The presses of a kind of administrative and corrective police is very heavy. In reality the structure of the party is very closely related to that of USSR.

When you look the rationing that is displayed by the “Party” in 1984, it is representative of what occurred in the USSR. The Russians were one of the first groups to purposely reduce rations and induce strain on the general populous in order to exercise control. That is exactly what is going on in the “Oceania”. The “Thought Police” is nothing more than a clone of the KGB or the Nazi equivalent of the Gestapo. “Big Brother” is simply a newfound representative of communist leaders such as Stalin. The communist leaders of Russia were often portrayed as omnipresent, and omnipotent as is “Big Brother”. The USSR was a composed of a standard figure head with a small group of constituent leaders that acted as advisors and underlings, and that is the same structure that has been adopted by the oligarchy of the “Party”. The labor camps that certain citizens of “Oceania” are sent to are no different that the Gulags of the USSR. The way confections are extorted by the “Party” is no different than what occurred in the USSR. Orwell even acknowledges that the “Party” is a clone of the USSR when in Goldstein’s book he declares, “In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in East Asia it is called…Death Worship…the 3 philosophies are barely distinguishable.” The Bolsheviks enforced communist ideals in Russia for a great deal of time. The fact that one of the existing political ideologies in the world of 1984 is Neo-Bolshevism, and that the political ideologies of all the existing political power are all one in the same show that Orwell is exclusively concerned with communism.

Now that the parallels between the “Party” and the USSR have been made, one topic remains to be discussed. Why is Orwell focusing on communism and totalitarianism?  Well, there are a few simple reason. The first and most obvious reason is to raise awareness of what it is like to be subjugated to a communist lifestyle. Just as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tried to raise awareness of what daily life was like under a communist regime in books such as “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” and “In the First Circle”, Orwell is trying to do the same thing in 1984. Logically speaking, you can’t make people believe communism is bad unless they have an idea of what is like to live under the said regime. Through Winston a reader is able to grasp what an oppressive regime does to average people. The second reason is to emphasize that communism is capable of spreading even though it goes against common beliefs equality and civil rights. In Goldstein’s book, Orwell states, “The splitting of the world into three great super powers-states…was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century.” This line directly refers to events that occurred in the middle of the 20th century. Communism slowly was able to spread to South America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Central Asia, and a host of other locations. In the lines that follow the above quotation, Orwell describes how the world was consumed by either Oceania, Eastasia, or Eurasia. Orwell wants to make it clear to the reader that if communism was able to leave the USSR, then there was a very real threat that it could consume the entire word resulting in a battle for the consolidation of power.

The third and most important reason that Orwell focuses on communism is to show that over time, the petty excuse that communism is good for society will be abolished, and once there is a full endorsement that the employment of communism is nothing more than an attempts to gain power, full subjugation of humanity will follow. There is a particular conversation between Winston and O’Brian that demonstrates this point. O’Brian asks Winston, “Now tell me why we cling to power. What is our motive? Why should we want power?” Winston replies, “You are ruling over us for our own good” For this response he is punished and insulted by O’Brian. After a brief bit of dialog, O’Brian states, “…I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.” It is through O’Brian, that Orwell makes it clear that in the end nothing reality matters to those in power. It is the longing for power that drives a communist nation. The value of life, reason, religion, emotion, and all things that allow for individuality must be destroyed.

Orwell goes out of his way to demonstrate that communism will ruin society. 1984 is simply a mirror of what our own society could become. In the contextual society that Winston spent his life, these ideas were imperative to get across. Communism was a real threat, and is still a threat today. Idealistically Orwell shows through Winston that the strive for power can corrupt humanity if intellectual freedom is limited. In today’s society, the ideas presented in 1984 are still of great importance, but less immediate relevance.

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