Orwell and the Menace of Totalitarianism
At the outbreak of W.W.2,
George Orwell warned the world against the danger of complacency regarding
totalitarianism.
“the mistake is to believe that under a dictatorial government
you can be free inside,” he wrote in an article published in a London newspaper
in 1939.
Then, in the 30’s and 40’s, people consoled themselves in the
face of the emerging fascist and communist states, that the liberty of an
individual and his freedom to think as he pleased was inviolable. In spite of
the propaganda and manipulation in any given state, it was thought by many that
the power tocontrol the mental free will of a person was a fallacy. Orwell knew
differently, and his classic novel 1984 is a frightening expose of that
fallacy.
Orwell had been influenced by a book written in 1920 by a
russian exile, Eugene Zamyatin, entitled “We.” The book impressed Orwell
because it defined intuitively the brutal self-perpetuating nature of a
totalitarian state. Writing of Zamyatin’s book, Orwell says,
“In “We” exists a true understanding of the nature of
totalitarianism: human sacrifice, cruelty as an end in itself, and the worship
of a leader who is credited with divine attributes”.
Another book, published in 1930, can also claim to have had an
influence on Orwell, although he himself was highly critical of it. This was
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. For Orwell, Huxley’s futuristic world, in
which scientific advances have virtually eliminated the need for humans at all,
was not true to the harsh and and cruel realities of totalitarianism. Orwll
recognised that the brutal sadism used by for example the Nazis, provided an
irresistible energy to those in control of the state. The purposeless
scientific advances in Huxley’s book provided no substitute.
Orwell sets his novel in a bomb ravaged post war London. His
central character is Winston Smith, and even on the first page Winston’s
powerlessness as an individual in a state intent on the virtual elimination of
the individual, is apparent. We quickly learn that Winston has no authority,
and the oppresive nature of state control is clear. These are the two central
themes of the novel.
For Orwell, the future state will use terror, torture and fear
to maintain order, but it is the manipulation of language that will control the
minds of its subjects. By controlling the language, the state can control the
thoughts and inclinations that inspire rebellion and disorder. Itcan also force
people to believe a false history.
The proleteriat are kept in a state of total submission, for the
state they exist only as a necessary labour force. Winston’s attempts to
remember a past different from the present fail because the states eradication
of the past makes the people beleive that life has always been like this. The
possibility of change no longer exists. Many people, as Orwell recognised, are
happy to submit to a system that eradicates the need to worry about the future.
Although Nazism was disgusting to Orwell, he understood and recognised its
attractions.
“The fact is that there is something deeply fascinating about
it- a combination of both mothering warmth and icy coldness, welcoming charm
and terrifying brutality. It is not difficult to see why so many submitted so
totally.”
The all consuming dominance
of the totalitarian state over the individual is made clear in the novel
through Winston’s thoughts.
“When once you were in the grip of the party, what you felt or
did not feel, what you did or did not do, made literally no difference. You had
vanished as a person.”
War, and moreover a perpetual war, is also an important factor
in Orwell’s vision of totalitarianism. Perpetual war is exploited as a
continual crisis which demands an unending sacrifice on from the individual for
the state.
“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of
human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to
pieces materials whish otherwise might be used to make the masses too comfortable
and, in the long run, too intelligent.”, Orwell remarked.
The state needs a dangerous threat from outside to justify its
authority inside, and the people must feel that the state exists to protect
them from this threat. This was basically the position in politics during the
cold war. If the enemy doesn’t exist then the state must invent it: hence the
constant changing of enemies in the novel. Who the enemy is irrelevant, it must
only exist or be seen to exist.
Finally Orwell suggests that to look for rational explanations
for the phenomenon of totalitarianism is futile, because the very nature of it
is irrational.
“Power is not a means to an end. It is the end. One does not
establish a dictatorship to protect a revolution. One makes the revolution to
establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The
object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”
As a warning of the danger and menace of totalitarianism,
Orwell’s 1984 is as relevant today as it was half a century ago.
Academic year 2000-2001
15 January 2001
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Copyright 2001 - Paul
Schnyder