POLITICAL SYSTEM
| - Party | |
The Party of Oceania poses about 19% of the whole population of Oceania's mainland. Generally one could divide the Party into the Inner Party, which is comparable to the communistic Nomenclature, and the Outer Party. Winston Smith himself was a member of the Outer Party. The members of the Inner Party held high posts in the administration of the country. They earned comparable much money, and there wasn't lack of anything in their homes, which looked like palaces. The people of the Outer Party lived in dull grey and old flats. Because of the war there was often a lack of the most essential things. The life of the Outer Party was dictated by the Party, even their spare time was used by the Party. There were so-called community hikes, community games and all sort of other activities. And refusing the participation at this activities was even dangerous. The life of a Party member is dictated from his birth to his death. The Party even takes children away from their parents to educate them in the sense of Ingsoc. (you can find this also in the Communist future plans). The children are taught in school to report to police (Thoughtpolice) when their parents have had unorthodox thoughts, so-called "Thoughtcrimes".
After the education the Party members start to work mainly for one of the four Ministries (Minipax, Minitrue, Miniluv, Miniplenty). The further live of the "comrades" continues under the watchful eyes of the Party. Each thing that the people do is targeted by the telescreens. Even in their homes people have telescreens. Each unorthodox action is then punished by "joycomps" (Newspeak word for forced labour camps").
These are the three main slogans of the Party, the ruling class in this Negative Utopia.
The proles make about 81% of the population of Oceania. The Party itself is only interested in their labour power, because the proles are mainly employed in the industry and in the farms. Without their Labour force Oceania would brake down. Despite this fact the Party completely ignores this social caste. The curious thing about this behaviour is, that the Party calls itself a Socialistic Party, and generally socialism (at least at the beginning and middle of this century) is a movement of the proletariat. So one could say that the Party abuses the word "Ingsoc". Orwell again had pointed at an other regime, the Nazis, who had put "socialism" into their name. One of the main phrases of the Party is "Proles and animals are free". In Oceania the proles live in very desolate and poor quarters. Compared to the districts where the members of the Party live, there are much fewer telescreens, and policemen. And as long as the proles don't commit a crime (crime in our sense / not in the sense of the party - Thoughtcrime) they don't have any contact with the state. Therefore in the districts of the proletarians one could find things that where abolished and forbidden for the Party members. E.g. old books, old furniture, prostitution and alcohol (mainly beer) Except "Victory Gin" all of these things were not available for the Partymen. The proletarians didn't participate in the technical development. They lived like they used to do many years ago. To my mind the Party ignores the Proles, because they pose no danger to their rule. The working class is to uneducated and to unorganised to pose a real threat. So there is not really a need to change the political attitudes of this class.
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