On this Day: 1950, George Orwell dies

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Found his work really inspiring in my youth, Homage to Catalonia is one of the first books that got me interested in communism and anarchism. Love 1984 and Animal Farm too.

The writer, George Orwell, has died after a three-year battle against tuberculosis.
Until the last, news had been positive and it was hoped Mr Orwell was improving.
On Friday morning he had a long talk with a friend about his plans for the future.
However, a few hours later he suffered a fatal haemorrhage in a London hospital.
But illness had not dimmed George Orwell's enthusiasm for writing.
His last novel, 1984, published last summer was written in between periods spent in hospital.
The controversial book - like Animal Farm - was widely viewed as an attack on the Communist system. However, it brought George Orwell widespread critical acclaim including the award of £357 by the influential Partisan Review for the year's most significant contribution to literature.

(BBC History - http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/21/newsid_2669000/2669789.stm)

[BIXX]

I personally loved everything by him that I've read.
Also, I think your post has an interesting (albeit, unintended) point about political language. 1984 seemed (to me) to be an attack on the dictatorship of the proletariat and a fascist surveillance state, rather than communism. In fact, I believe I read somewhere that George Orwell was a communist, but I can't remember where.
However, I feel that people continued to label the USSR situation communism because true communism threatened a capitalist system, and the dictatorship in the USSR threatened average people. So our leaders just continued calling it communism, to increase the fear of communism by the average person.
In contrast, the leaders of the USSR probably continued calling themselves communists to give the appearance that it was a benevolent dictatorship.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Whether or not 1984 was intended as an attack on the USSR, it actually seems to be quite representative of Britain today, to me at least. I suppose that interpretation shows that there is little difference between social democracy and the system of the USSR, both are authoritarian and intrusive on liberty.

Great book either way, prefer Brave New World though which I always view in comparison. Not sure of Orwell as a person, I've heard a lot of leftists that I trust speak of him quite critically, including accusations of sexism (I can't speak on this though, just a vague memory of hearing something along those lines). In fact, the character in 1984 is certainly a sexist, although I wouldn't say that Orwell was championing sexism as the character isn't wholly positive. There's also the thing he wrote on political language which looks pretty interesting but that I've never read.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

1984 could be read as a general attack on "totalitarianism" but really it is about 80 percent aimed at the USSR. Given the time and place of its issue, it is pretty clearly an anti-communist screed. There is a real "God that failed" flavor to this book and to Animal Farm. I too thought Homage to Catalonia was really good. At least descriptively it was great. I don't think he had a deep understanding of the political situation.

[Brutus]

It's not anti-communist, it's anti stalinist. Why does it portray Goldstein in such a possitive light?

[Tim Cornelis]

Whether or not 1984 was intended as an attack on the USSR, it actually seems to be quite representative of Britain today, to me at least. I suppose that interpretation shows that there is little difference between social democracy and the system of the USSR, both are authoritarian and intrusive on liberty.


Oh puh-lease. Join the Tea Party movement or Zeitgeist. Yeah, secret police in Britain are constantly imprisoning thousands of dissidents; the state is controlled by an unelected ruthless oligarchy; all parties are banned and ruthlessly persecuted; state propaganda is the only source of information; the state is constantly telling people not to have sex and is trying to abolish orgasms; yeah that sounds like contemporary Britain alright! Give me a break.

Nothing in 1984 resembles social-democracy. People, in Western society in particular, who compare totalitarian regimes and fascism with today's society are out of touch with reality.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Oh puh-lease. Join the Tea Party movement or Zeitgeist. Yeah, secret police in Britain are constantly imprisoning thousands of dissidents; the state is controlled by an unelected ruthless oligarchy; all parties are banned and ruthlessly persecuted; state propaganda is the only source of information; the state is constantly telling people not to have sex and is trying to abolish orgasms; yeah that sounds like contemporary Britain alright! Give me a break.

Nothing in 1984 resembles social-democracy. People, in Western society in particular, who compare totalitarian regimes and fascism with today's society are out of touch with reality.

While it may be a bit exaggerating to say Britain is like 1984, the amount of CCTV cameras in London, I haven't been outside London so I can't te how it is there but I've heard it's similar in other cities, is disturbing to say the least.

[Delenda Carthago]

Stop snitching!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

[TheEmancipator]

George Orwell was an ardent Socialist in the truest sense and fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. His dislike of Stalinism is due to the way he and many other revolutionaries during that war were betrayed to suit the USSR's interests at the time.

In Anarchist Catalonia, he and many others participated in what was finally looking like a proper communist society instead of the failed USSR state. Stalin quite simply saw a potential threat to his authoritarian brand of Marxist-Leninism and decided to make sure they didn't get any weapons from him and that only the liberal democrats did.

The only reason thousands of socialists and leftist and "Communists" (with a capital C) decided to end what was going on in Catalonia was because "Stalin said so, so it must be true". This cult of the leader and political "doublethink" is what destroyed the Catalan Revolution, not just Franco.

Hence why he wrote Animal Farm and 1984. Bourgeois romanticist he may be, but he fought a damn sight harder for Revolution and freedom of oppression that Stalinists ever did.

[Geiseric]

Stop snitching!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

Henry Wallace and Charlie Chaplain?! Oh no he's a fascist! The CP Usa actually testified and imprisoned Trotskyists, many of whom were founders of the CP Usa, who were against the no strike pledge during WW2, also Orwells list hardly goes over any actual communists, and nobody on that list suffered from it at all. Given he was in the international brigade, i'd give him some more credit. His beef with Stalinism was personal.

[Geiseric]

While it may be a bit exaggerating to say Britain is like 1984, the amount of CCTV cameras in London, I haven't been outside London so I can't te how it is there but I've heard it's similar in other cities, is disturbing to say the least.

Orwell said that much of his book is about Britain during WW2. The beef with stalinism is obvious to anybody who knows anything about fSU history.

[Invader Zim]

Stop snitching!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

- Sigh -

As I've noted elsewhere, Orwell did not provide a list of secret communists derived from his time in left wing circles, that they might be imprisoned - he provided a list of individuals he felt that the Information Research Department (a branch of the Foreign Office) would want to think twice about hiring as anti-communist Cold Warrior propagandists.

OH NOES!

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

- Sigh -

As I've noted elsewhere, Orwell did not provide a list of secret communists derived from his time in left wing circles, that they might be imprisoned - he provided a list of individuals he felt that the Information Research Department (a branch of the Foreign Office) would want to think twice about hiring as anti-communist Cold Warrior propagandists.

OH NOES!

Why does this great communist of yours help the state with finding a good anti-communist?

[sixdollarchampagne]

1984 could be read as a general attack on "totalitarianism" but really it is about 80 percent aimed at the USSR. Given the time and place of its issue, it is pretty clearly an anti-communist screed. There is a real "God that failed" flavor to this book and to Animal Farm. I too thought Homage to Catalonia was really good. At least descriptively it was great. I don't think he had a deep understanding of the political situation.

I can't remember who it was, but, decades ago, I read a literary critic who maintained that _1984_ was actually about the Britain of Orwell's tine, and, from what I remember of the novel, the bit about shifting alliances in war and how yesterday's truth had to be suppressed, would seem (to me, at least) to point to that. The very first sentence, that I remember, in the novel, about the various ministries and the buildings they occupied, is supposed to refer to actual buildings in London, and my boss, a Londoner, once confirmed that for me.

I really don't care what anyone thinks about Orwell: during the Spanish Civil War, he took a bullet in the neck for the Spanish working class, and that fact makes him all right, as far as I am concerned.

[RedHal]

Owell was a champagne socialists and they are worse than useless. even if you want to make excuses for Orwell's anti communist work for the British Empire, his two most famous works have served anti communist propaganda much more than his supposed socialists beliefs. FFS, the CIA thought Animal Farm was such great cold war propaganda, they funded the 1954 animated film.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Owell was a champagne socialists and they are worse than useless. even if you want to make excuses for Orwell's anti communist work for the British Empire, his two most famous works have served anti communist propaganda much more than his supposed socialists beliefs. FFS, the CIA thought Animal Farm was such great cold war propaganda, they funded the 1954 animated film.

I don't think we can blame Orwell, who died in 1950, for something the CIA did in 54.
There are lots of critiques to be made of Orwell, this isn't one of them.

[goalkeeper]

Why does this great communist of yours help the state with finding a good anti-communist?

Because he was thoroughly anti-Communist (that is, with a big c). Hardly surprising since he had seen what happened in Spain.

It seems ridiculous for people try to pass of 1984 as just "anti-totalitarian". I mean, it was "anti-totalitarian" but its obvious Orwell included the Soviet Union in that category.

[Ostrinski]

I enjoyed Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out In Paris and London but not so much Animal Farm or Nineteen Eighty-Four. And no, not because they're anti-communist or what the hell ever, I just didn't enjoy them.

[Prometeo liberado]

George Orwell was an ardent Socialist in the truest sense

How do you?....Wha?.....But!?....Have you ever even?......"truest" what?!

Awww c'mone!!!!!:confused:

[Prometeo liberado]

I don't think we can blame Orwell, who died in 1950, for something the CIA did in 54.
There are lots of critiques to be made of Orwell, this isn't one of them.

Then judge him for what he did during his life. It's just as bad. Fuck 'em.

[Let's Get Free]

I think his politics changed over the course of his life. His ideas contained a mixture of libertarian socialism and social democracy, buthe ended up something close to a straightforward social democrat by the end of his life, but you can't separate that from the times he lived through. Expressing libertarian socialist ideas just after experiencing the Spanish Revolution and more statist/social democratic ones after living through a period when there was almost no independent working-class movement outside of either Stalinism or Labor paties makes a certain sort of sense, I think.

Also, Homage to Catalonia is definitely worth reading

[Prometeo liberado]

Homage to Catalonia is definitely worth reading

So is the Book of Revelations and just as true.

[khad]

Great book either way, prefer Brave New World though which I always view in comparison. Not sure of Orwell as a person, I've heard a lot of leftists that I trust speak of him quite critically, including accusations of sexism (I can't speak on this though, just a vague memory of hearing something along those lines). In fact, the character in 1984 is certainly a sexist, although I wouldn't say that Orwell was championing sexism as the character isn't wholly positive. There's also the thing he wrote on political language which looks pretty interesting but that I've never read.

From the Road to Wigan Pier, Chapter 11:


The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that
Socialism, in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the
middle classes. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies
imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous
voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will
quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman
Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-
collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian
leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with
a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting. This last type
is surprisingly common in Socialist parties of every shade; it has perhaps
been taken over en bloc from. the old Liberal Party. In addition to this
there is the horrible--the really disquieting--prevalence of cranks
wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the
impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards
them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer,
sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Orwell -- Eric Blair -- was a man of his time, unthinkingly sexist and homophobic. That doesn't diminish his work. We sure could use more plain speaking people like him today.

[Invader Zim]

Why does this great communist of yours help the state with finding a good anti-communist?

You seem to have committed a major error of comprehension - he didn't. His list does not suggest writers, his list was aimed at disqualifying a number of writers.

As regards why he produced the list - firstly, opposing the machinations of the Stalinist regime should be applauded and was a worthy pursuit in of itself. After all, a large section of the British socialist and communist left would have, had they been unfortunate enough to have lived under that regime, been murdered. The irony here is that you attack Orwell, for failing to defend communists, while complicity supporting a regime which actively murdered communists - in addition to millions of other soviet citizens. It should come as no surprise that genuine socialists, who looked on in horror at the actions of the regime, greatly feared it and its attempts to extend its influence elsewhere. As others have noted, Orwell saw first hand what that led to in Spain. Secondly, Orwell had specific personal reasons to provide Kirwan the list.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Then judge him for what he did during his life. It's just as bad. Fuck 'em.

If you had read my posts, and other posts I've made about him, you would've known that I'm not sympathetic to Orwell at all. I just don't accept criticism of things he didn't really have anything to do with.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

You seem to have committed a major error of comprehension - he didn't. His list does not suggest writers, his list was aimed at disqualifying a number of writers.

As regards why he produced the list - firstly, opposing the machinations of the Stalinist regime should be applauded and was a worthy pursuit in of itself. After all, a large section of the British socialist and communist left would have, had they been unfortunate enough to have lived under that regime, been murdered. The irony here is that you attack Orwell, for failing to defend communists, while complicity supporting a regime which actively murdered communists - in addition to millions of other soviet citizens. It should come as no surprise that genuine socialists, who looked on in horror at the actions of the regime, greatly feared it and its attempts to extend its influence elsewhere. As others have noted, Orwell saw first hand what that led to in Spain. Secondly, Orwell had specific personal reasons to provide Kirwan the list.

You don't help when you disqualify people?
So here's a list of people the state does not have to spend time on because Orwell helped disqualifying them. He is still helping the state. Also if he gives a list of people to the state of people who aren't good anti-communists one could guess that the state concludes that those people are at least somewhat sympathetic to communism.

I don't see how you came to the conclusion of me supporting the USSR from what I wrote in this thread.

[TheEmancipator]

Then judge him for what he did during his life. It's just as bad. Fuck 'em.

How is enlisting in the International Brigades and POUM bad?

[Delenda Carthago]

- Sigh -

As I've noted elsewhere, Orwell did not provide a list of secret communists derived from his time in left wing circles, that they might be imprisoned - he provided a list of individuals he felt that the Information Research Department (a branch of the Foreign Office) would want to think twice about hiring as anti-communist Cold Warrior propagandists.

OH NOES!
Even if that was the case, what was that? A semi- snitching? A kind-of-collaboration-with-the-feds?

You fuckin discust me.

[Delenda Carthago]

This guy was a cop, who wrote 2 of the worlds most known anticommunist books, who ended up snitching people. And some mothafuckas still support him cause he was an "anti-stalinist".

Rite...

[Invader Zim]

Even if that was the case, what was that? A semi- snitching? A kind-of-collaboration-with-the-feds?

You fuckin discust me.

No, not snitching at all. Orwell did not provide any information to any element of British police or security services. He provided recruitment advice, nothing more and nothing less.


You fuckin discust me.

I don't give a shit what Stalinist scum think, the fact that you don't like me is a feather in my cap. You basically occupy the same position as a maggot, Nazi or nugget of dogshit.

[Questionable]

This guy was a cop, who wrote 2 of the worlds most known anticommunist books, who ended up snitching people. And some mothafuckas still support him cause he was an "anti-stalinist".

Rite...

There's no point in discussing the matter. To those people, Stalinism is the ultimate evil, and any sacrifice must be made to contain it, regardless of the consequences.

Anti-Soviet in theory, anti-communist in practice.

[o well this is ok I guess]

often with vegetarian leanings This is the third time I've read a book by a socialist deriding vegetarianism.
What was so controversial about it?

[Invader Zim]

There's no point in discussing the matter. To those people, Stalinism is the ultimate evil, and any sacrifice must be made to contain it, regardless of the consequences.

Anti-Soviet in theory, anti-communist in practice.

Not the ultimate evil, but we are talking about a regime which murdered more communists than the Nazi regime - and more people full stop. Oh, and it sent homosexuals to slave labour camps, abolished abortion rights, was rampantly imperialist, was violently anti-Semitic, allowed its armed forces to commit mass rape on a vast scale, and operated governed its citizens through terror.

But that's all fine and dandy, yeah?


From the Road to Wigan Pier, Chapter 11:

So sayeth you who consistently defends, and downplays the atrocities of, one of the most actively misogynistic regimes of the 20th century.

[Delenda Carthago]

There's no point in discussing the matter. To those people, Stalinism is the ultimate evil, and any sacrifice must be made to contain it, regardless of the consequences.

Anti-Soviet in theory, anti-communist in practice.
And this is why those people fuckin discust me, and why those people ending up defending snitches with a beautifull variety of excuses like "oh no, he didnt snitch, he just told CIA who people are most likely to not not be communists".


Thank god these people have their own organisations that can snitch on each other and they are far far away from us.Just imagine what would it feels like to know that you have someone in your party like I.Z. that feeling snitching is not that bad, if you do it right.:thumbup1:


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AupF_25ptAM/TGkgJ4DLfsI/AAAAAAAAAZY/fG5Ay_AeV1w/s400/stop+snitchin+LARGER.jpg

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I don't give a shit what Stalinist scum think, the fact that you don't like me is a feather in my cap. You basically occupy the same position as a maggot, Nazi or nugget of dogshit.

Woh woh woh you two! Step back and take a breather and take some time to think. No need for sectarian slurs here, this is a discussion over Orwell remember?

[Futility Personified]

This guy was a cop, who wrote 2 of the worlds most known anticommunist books, who ended up snitching people. And some mothafuckas still support him cause he was an "anti-stalinist".

Rite...

Sorry, but this is just flawed.

Goldstein is supposed to be Trotsky, and his different views of socialism and the acknowledgement that all the previous leaders of the revolution had to go to and get rehabilitated then killed, well, stalinism. The 2 minutes hate thing, the whole reinforcement of dogma trip, that seems fairly stalinist to me. I'm not saying this to be sectarian, this is merely what is in the book. To say that animal farm and 1984 are "anticommunist" is juvenile. To Orwell's credit, he also fought in the international brigades, while I don't know if he did frontline service, i'm pretty sure being shot at for what you believe in is more street cred than anyone on here can wave a banana at. (yes i know material conditions no revolutions at present bla bla bla) If you go over there, and find what you've risked your life for, your dream, being subverted, you are going to be quite pissed off. While snitches should get stitches, toward the end of his life Orwell must've been under the impression that communism had been subverted absolutely by stalin. I think it's fair to say he would've sided with anti communist propoganda because it would've been anti-stalin.

All that said, he wrote some awesome books, which are really his only direct significance to us now, and then he died yonks ago. If it's a matter of weighing up his merits compared to his failures, imo he probably had more of the former than the latter. But there you go.

[Questionable]

To Orwell's credit, he also fought in the international brigades, while I don't know if he did frontline service, i'm pretty sure being shot at for what you believe in is more street cred than anyone on here can wave a banana at.

Why do people bring this up all the time? Whatever you believe about Orwell, being willing to go to war for something does not make you automatically right or give you "bonus points" over anyone else.

[Ostrinski]

I don't give a shit what Stalinist scum think, the fact that you don't like me is a feather in my cap. You basically occupy the same position as a maggot, Nazi or nugget of dogshit.Come on, Invader Zim. This kind of language is unacceptable. You have the ability and maturity to communicate your positions without this frivolous and juvenile fluff. This post constitutes a verbal warning to Invader Zim for flaming.

[Ostrinski]

Even if that was the case, what was that? A semi- snitching? A kind-of-collaboration-with-the-feds?

You fuckin discust me.


And this is why those people fuckin discust me, and why those people ending up defending snitches with a beautifull variety of excuses like "oh no, he didnt snitch, he just told CIA who people are most likely to not not be communists".


Thank god these people have their own organisations that can snitch on each other and they are far far away from us.Just imagine what would it feels like to know that you have someone in your party like I.Z. that feeling snitching is not that bad, if you do it right.:thumbup1:


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AupF_25ptAM/TGkgJ4DLfsI/AAAAAAAAAZY/fG5Ay_AeV1w/s400/stop+snitchin+LARGER.jpgCome off it, Delenda Carthago, you're being a jackass and derailing the thread. You're also not supposed to be posting pictures outside of chit chat or at least without spoils. This post constitutes a verbal warning to Delenda Carthago.

[Geiseric]

There's no point in discussing the matter. To those people, Stalinism is the ultimate evil, and any sacrifice must be made to contain it, regardless of the consequences.

Anti-Soviet in theory, anti-communist in practice.

You're full of shit, Stalinists and Maoists ratted out and killed socialists all around the world. He led the machine that murdered, literally, at least a million communists, on top of his successors such as Kim I'll Sung, the bureaucrats in charge of the eastern bloc, Minh and Mao's governments, and the fSU's state untill the disollution, so you people are really just dillusional about the history of the fSU.

Orwell on the other hand took a bullet for a socialist movement, which was sabotaged by the P.S.U.C. in the long run, and wrote books about how future generations could learn from the mistakes made in the past, which he was part of.

[Invader Zim]

Come on, Invader Zim. This kind of language is unacceptable. You have the ability and maturity to communicate your positions without this frivolous and juvenile fluff. This post constitutes a verbal warning to Invader Zim for flaming.

Fair enough, sorry for telling him/her what I think of them and their politics on your watch... but what I said is true.

[Invader Zim]

Woh woh woh you two! Step back and take a breather and take some time to think. No need for sectarian slurs here, this is a discussion over Orwell remember?

Sectarian? That would imply that these people are on our side, the vast slaughter of a great many socialists and communists, across Europe, suggests otherwise. They uphold a regime that would have had a large chunk of this board murdered or toiling in slave labour camps. And this has everything to do with Orwell, he saw the influence of Stalinist policy first hand in Spain.

[Questionable]

You're full of shit, Stalinists and Maoists ratted out and killed socialists all around the world. He led the machine that murdered, literally, at least a million communists, on top of his successors such as Kim I'll Sung, the bureaucrats in charge of the eastern bloc, Minh and Mao's governments, and the fSU's state untill the disollution, so you people are really just dillusional about the history of the fSU.

Orwell on the other hand took a bullet for a socialist movement, which was sabotaged by the P.S.U.C. in the long run, and wrote books about how future generations could learn from the mistakes made in the past, which he was part of.

I don't give a damn about your fervent Anti-Stalinism, I'm just pointing out that this childish cult of personality surrounding Orwell because he fought in a war is dumb and illogical and does not in anyway make putting his beliefs on a pedestal justifiable.. But I know Orwell and Trotsky himself are the Big Two that Trots like to idolize, so I'm not even going to bother debating this with someone as fervently a believer as you.

[Invader Zim]

I don't give a damn about your fervent Anti-Stalinism, I'm just pointing out that this childish cult of personality surrounding Orwell because he fought in a war is dumb and illogical and does not in anyway make putting his beliefs on a pedestal justifiable.. But I know Orwell and Trotsky himself are the Big Two that Trots like to idolize, so I'm not even going to bother debating this with someone as fervently a believer as you.

Wait... an ML (and Stalinist?) complaining about people creating a 'childish cult of personality' and 'placing historical figures beliefs on a pedestal'?

Shit son, your own self professed ideology revolves around petty hero-worship of at least two long dead figures. The clue is in the title.

Cue denial.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Oh puh-lease. Join the Tea Party movement or Zeitgeist. Yeah, secret police in Britain are constantly imprisoning thousands of dissidents; the state is controlled by an unelected ruthless oligarchy; all parties are banned and ruthlessly persecuted; state propaganda is the only source of information; the state is constantly telling people not to have sex and is trying to abolish orgasms; yeah that sounds like contemporary Britain alright! Give me a break.

Nothing in 1984 resembles social-democracy. People, in Western society in particular, who compare totalitarian regimes and fascism with today's society are out of touch with reality.

'social democracy' eh? britain is a prime example of that. oh puh-leese yourself, we have the illusion of representative democracy and a 'free' media, this is not a democracy lol. in fact, the power of illusion in our society probably makes it more repressive than anything in 1984. political parties are a good example - they aren't banned because they don't need to be, they are irrelevant if they are not the ruling class itself. also, its a book which is a metaphorical take on authoritarian society - its not a note for note, painting by numbers blueprint for how a certain society looks. do you understand metaphor? do you see the subtext in certain works of science fiction etc?

and i'd say you're out of touch with reality if you want to say we can't compare britian to totalitarian societies. in fact, i'd say that britian is a totalitarian society. do you want to make the case for our great levels of freedom and democracy? go ahead... you can maybe start with the recent scandal with the NSA and the british company which is using the info gathered by them (can't remember the name of it).

[Geiseric]

I don't give a damn about your fervent Anti-Stalinism, I'm just pointing out that this childish cult of personality surrounding Orwell because he fought in a war is dumb and illogical and does not in anyway make putting his beliefs on a pedestal justifiable.. But I know Orwell and Trotsky himself are the Big Two that Trots like to idolize, so I'm not even going to bother debating this with someone as fervently a believer as you.

The Stalinists tried to kill both of them so it was kinda a giveaway.

[BIXX]

I hate how much Orwell is talked about on this site, whenever he comes up. I personally liked his books, I don't care if you do or don't. It has nothing to do with my ideology (despite feeling that 1984 was anti-totalitarian, which I think was a bonus for the book). But I just like the fact that his book was about resistance, despite what happened to Winston in the end, it just was a good read. Can we stop arguing about someone who is beginning to fade from our cultural memory? (By that I mean most people in my school didn't know who he was until I told them, and I am convinced that this is pretty average).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't give a damn about your fervent Anti-Stalinism, I'm just pointing out that this childish cult of personality surrounding Orwell because he fought in a war is dumb and illogical and does not in anyway make putting his beliefs on a pedestal justifiable.. But I know Orwell and Trotsky himself are the Big Two that Trots like to idolize, so I'm not even going to bother debating this with someone as fervently a believer as you.

That's a bit of an overgeneralisation, surely? First of all, Orwell was not a Trotskyist, as he is sometimes portrayed, but a centrist associated with the ILP and the London Bureau, two organisations Trotsky couldn't stand. Second, Orwell might have been on the right side during the Spanish Civil War, but his subsequent activities are, well, suspect to say the least. He never evolved past his initial liberal opposition to Stalin (just as Wells never evolved past his initial liberal support of Stalin, along with people like Webb and Webb - or rather the lord Passfield). I don't think this is that controversial in Trotskyist circles.

[Geiseric]

That's a bit of an overgeneralisation, surely? First of all, Orwell was not a Trotskyist, as he is sometimes portrayed, but a centrist associated with the ILP and the London Bureau, two organisations Trotsky couldn't stand. Second, Orwell might have been on the right side during the Spanish Civil War, but his subsequent activities are, well, suspect to say the least. He never evolved past his initial liberal opposition to Stalin (just as Wells never evolved past his initial liberal support of Stalin, along with people like Webb and Webb - or rather the lord Passfield). I don't think this is that controversial in Trotskyist circles.

No he was anti capitalist until he died. Like I said the Stalinists tried to kill him in Spain along with the rest of the people against the popular front, which was I'm itself an alliance if communists with liberals.

[Anti-White]

No he was anti capitalist until he died. Like I said the Stalinists tried to kill him in Spain along with the rest of the people against the popular front, which was I'm itself an alliance if communists with liberals.

Bullshit.

Fuck Eric Blair.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Responses like this is why I use Revleft...


Bullshit.

Fuck Eric Blair.

[Go5]

You don't help when you disqualify people?
So here's a list of people the state does not have to spend time on because Orwell helped disqualifying them. He is still helping the state. Also if he gives a list of people to the state of people who aren't good anti-communists one could guess that the state concludes that those people are at least somewhat sympathetic to communism.

I don't see how you came to the conclusion of me supporting the USSR from what I wrote in this thread.
How is this wrong? Why is helping your state (the one he thought was on the right side) looked down upon?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

How is this wrong? Why is helping your state (the one he thought was on the right side) looked down upon?

A communist helping an extremely powerful and influential political institution based around capitalism and olden-day 'liberalism' by pointing out socialists (of which the ruling party of England actually used as an excuse for overlooking the atrocities committed by fascists in Spain, Italy and Germany, before the NDSAP got big - the lesser evil in the fight against 'international communism' I believe the Tory's line was?) gee what could be so bad about that.