A Bitterly Contested Controversy: George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”
By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
A review of “Nineteen Eighty Four,” by George Orwell, republished by Vintage Classics Library, Dublin, 2021
George Orwell's novel about a dystopian dictatorship, “1984,” is currently selling like hotcakes in Russia. At one bookshop in Moscow, 'Reading City,' you can come across four different published versions in English alone. The recent boost in sales seemed to have been inspired by the recent conflict in Ukraine and a new law which strictly forbids referring to the Special Military Operations as a war as well as a controversial interpretation of the novel by a leading Russian diplomat.
However, there is a danger that by focusing too much on the political aspects we can easily lose sight that of the notion that the work represents a brilliant polished gem of storytelling!
Since its publication in 1949, George Orwell's novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” has remained a hot chestnut. Being prompted by the Russian state's official description of the conflict in Ukraine and a policy which forbids referring to the conflict as a war—and insisting that the 'Special Military Operations' are being carried out in 'the name of peace,' many Russians abroad have begun describing Russian society as Orwellian by citing the three slogans of the party, 'War is peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength,' as mirroring the propaganda of the Russian state.
The notions of an Orwellian Russia are supported by the fact that all the independent newspapers have vanished since the 24th of February. They are also supported by the feeling that what people tweet or write on social media might have repercussions. There is also the notion that all of this takes place in a more stifled atmosphere where one must watch their words. A leading Russian diplomat was asked by Russians how they should respond to all those accusations. Maria Zakharia retorted that Russian and western critics who describe Russia as Orwellian have got it all wrong. They just don't get it.
Zakharia further declared that "Orwell's 1984 was about Liberalism, not totalitarianism written to describe the dangers of western liberalism... It is you in the West who live in a fantasy world where a person can be cancelled." Like some Russians, she claims that Orwell's novel reflects the growing intolerance in the West reflected by cancel-culture and woke where genuine freedom of speech doesn't exist. In other words, the West is applying double standards. So the novel appears to have been again reduced to a Cold War football.
It might be in vain for some critic to claim, "Well, it is only a work of fiction. Orwell simply invented it to refer to a futuristic state which never materialized." That won't satisfy critics. Although Orwell 's novel entails a caricature of totalitarianism, the novel succeeds most in capturing the stifling, suffocating and repressive atmosphere people feel when living under an oppressive regime. The paranoiac feeling of always being watched and feeling scared to say the wrong word is well captured by the novel. The powerlessness and impotence a person feels when arrested and the trauma of being broken by relentless interrogation was well narrated by Orwell.
Very few people have so articulately written such a lucid and striking description of the atmosphere arising in an authoritarian society.
Many Romanian students whom English teachers met in 1992 stated that Orwell accurately and profoundly perceived the tense atmosphere they themselves felt. For instance, Orwell describes how many people in his novel awaiting arrest hanged themselves before the Thought Police arrive to arrest them at their homes. This was often the case during the purges of the late 1930's at the House of the Embankment in Moscow where as many as one out of four residents were arrested.
And at present, some young people are frightened to even write the words 'For peace' on walls or other places. Orwell writes, 'There was of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or what system the Thought Police plugged in on an individual wire was guesswork. It was even considered that they watched everybody all the time... You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized' { page 5}. The sudden arrest and disappearance of people during the repression in Stalin's Russia as well as attempts to rewrite history come up as explicit themes in the novel. Nevertheless, it is important not to misconstrue the novel as being too literary a mirror of Stalin's Russia—nevermind 21st century Russia. Orwell writes, 'People simply disappeared during the night, your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated; vaporised was the usual way {page 22}. I noticed that this was hardly the case in Stalin's Russia.
When I dropped into the offices of Memorial 6 years ago they assured me that the arrest of every person and his or her case was meticulously recorded in the archives and they even showed me such records. Yes, the victims of terror had often been buried in unmarked graves but not vaporised. Secondly, unlike in Orwell's novel, the Secret police in Russia was not all powerfully keeping people under their ubiquitous gaze. Far from it!
Just take the case of the Russian writer Pavel Bazhov. He was summoned to appear at the offices of the police. He turned up in the corridors and waited for hours. Nobody paid attention to him. They had forgotten to arrest him. So he left, went into hiding, and evaded imprisonment. There are many cases where agents of the state, through incompetence or forgetfulness, overlooked the person they were supposed to arrest. It is also practically impossible to observe your every word and movement. Even a policeman would be driven insane by spending so much of his time listening into every detail of a suspect. Compared to the state in 1984, the officials were often incompetent, inept and inefficient. Far from being all powerful, they often lost control or track of people. In some cases, all it took to avoid your arrest or execution was to change your address. I think Nabokov's Novel 'Invitation to a Beheading ' sums it up when the main character succeeds in avoiding his execution by refusing to be executed and running away from the executioner.
By over-concentrating on the political themes we can easily lose sight of the most important point. That is Orwell wrote a well-crafted novel full of sharp and amusing dialogue, moving drama and suspense where you usually can't wait to turn the next page. Despite romantic moments, this is not a Mill and Boon's Novel. But it might be compared to a Romeo and Juliet novel in reverse. Instead of two rival families preventing love it is an all-powerful Big Brother State. Instead of martyred you have betrayed love! The basic plot of the novel tells how Winston Smith, a civil servant who works at the Ministry of Truth, secretly rebels against a repressive state which forbids any form of independent thought , creativity and love. This is a state which bases itself on the most negative emotions such as anger, hatred and war. The World is divided into three states constantly at war with one another. Winston 's rebellion takes the form of keeping a secret diary where he can express his real thoughts.
He also attempts to find out the real history of his country rather than the false history presented by Big Brother. He falls in love with Juliet, another secret dissident. The novel ends with their subsequent arrest, interrogation, torture and betrayed love.
There are amusing parts in this novel. For instance, a worn down neighbor Mrs. Parsons asks Winston to help her repair the blocked pipes of her kitchen sink. For his troubles Winston is ambushed by her two children playing sadistic games. 'You are a traitor,' yelled the boy. 'You are a Thought Criminal. You are a Eurasian spy. I'll shoot you. I'll vaporise you. I'll send you to the salt mines' {page 27}. Parents are afraid that they will be denounced to the secret police. In some cases, this happened during Stalin's time.
In Moscow, I learnt that young Pioneers would go into the parks of Moscow and ambush young couples embracing and kissing each other on park benches. The puritan Pioneers believed this behavior was a kind of 'sex crime'.
Another amusing incident is when Winston goes to the Proles on a fruitless fact finding task to discover what life was like before the revolution. Despite buying some beer for an old man the only things he discovers is that beer tasted much better when he was younger. He only obtains useless information! ' sense of helplessness took hold of Winston. The old man's memory was nothing but a rubbish heap of details. One could question him all day without getting real information {page 105}. 'They remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister's face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning 70 years ago: but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision’ {page 106}.
The interrogation scene is the stuff of real nightmares. Orwell presents Winston as being outwitted by O' Brien's way with words as if the interrogated loses the argument with him. But in reality, there is more logic to Winston's words than the crass trite and nonsensical which O'Brien comes up with. It is just that anything more disagreeable to O' Brien is met with electric shot treatment! For instance, Winston correctly argues O' Brien's vision of a society based on evil is flawed.
'Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. 'You can't! ' he said weakly.
'What do you mean by that remark, Winston?'
'You could not create such a world as you have described. It is a dream. It is impossible.'
'Why?'
It is impossible to found a civilisation on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure'.
'Why not?'
'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide' {page 306}.
And how does O Brien respond to this lucid axiom? He resorts to psychologically humiliating Winston by letting him look at his terrible reflection in the mirror. In other words, torture has the last word! The absurd abuse of an old nursery rhyme “Orange and Lemons” where the last words 'Here comes a chopper to chop off your head' are quoted by O'Brien just when he arrests Winston and Juliet symbolizes the death of Old Folklore England. However, it is important to note that even the Thought Police in this novel can't stop birds and people singing the best songs!
There are poignant moments in this novel when a worn out women can sing old songs while hanging up her washing in the garden and a thrush lands near the refuge of Juliet and Winston to sing a sweet song.' A thrush had alighted on a bough not five metres away, almost at the level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them. It was in the shade. It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung together, fascinated' {page 141}.
A Russian proverb states that 'A tale is an invention, the truth and a song.’ Orwell's novel does not forget the importance of the song in his tale. That is why Orwell's novel remains a great story well told!