# George Orwell - a mainstream communist?



## Allegra (Sep 4, 2007)

BBC NEWS | UK | MI5 confused by Orwell's politics :

*"MI5 monitored socialist writer George Orwell for more than two decades, but did not believe he was a mainstream communist, records have revealed."*


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## andyn (Sep 18, 2007)

Read Animal Farm or 1984 and you could tell that. Orwell was a socialist


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## cape_royds (Sep 21, 2007)

He was a radical, a revolutionary, and a socialist, but George Orwell was hardly a "mainstream communist."

Orwell disliked the Communist Party, and disliked the Soviet Union, for two main reasons:

1.  During the Spanish Civil War, Orwell was a foreign fighter who enlisted with a Catalan Marxist militia (called the P.O.U.M.).  Orwell saw how the Russian-sponsored Communists betrayed and destroyed the other Left-wing factions in Spain.  The experience left him forever embittered against Russian Communism and the Third International.  _Homage to Catalonia_ describes Orwell's time in Spain (aside from the politics, if you ever want a good description of what it's like to freeze your ass off in a trench, or to get shot in the neck and survive, read this book!)

2.  Orwell detested orthodoxy and hierarchy of all kinds.  This shows in his writing in many ways.  For example, Orwell hated that some nations had hegemony or imperial power over others.  Orwell hated all divisions of wealth and power within society.  Orwell hated large bureaucracies such as the BBC, for which he worked during WWII.  Orwell even shunned trends and fads in art and literature--and he despised the snobs who rode such trends.  _The Road to Wigan Pier_ has a whole chapter devoted to bashing sanctimonious ideologues, whom he saw as inimical to the establishment of a workers' state.

So when Orwell looked at the USSR, or the highly organized and ideologically rigid Communist Parties in most parts of the world, he saw nothing at all that he liked.

But it's not surprising that MI5 kept a dossier on him.  That's what the secret police do--indeed that's what they're _for_.  They don't need good reasons to keep a dossier.  Their agents often don't really understand what or whom they're spying upon.  The apparatus just needs to make a list of people to arrest if the government in power decides to crack down.


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## LyannaWolfBlood (Jan 19, 2008)

Definitely not a communist. He's a socialist as can be seen in most of his books, but that's as far as it goes. To be honest, Animal Farm is such an indictment of communist Russia that I'd be surprised if anyone nowadays believes he could possibly have been a communist (I guess it's more understandable in paranoia-fuelled post-war Britain). As for 1984, I read that as a condemnation of any totalitarian system - communist or fascist.


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## MG1962 (Jan 19, 2008)

LyannaWolfBlood said:


> Definitely not a communist. He's a socialist as can be seen in most of his books, but that's as far as it goes. To be honest, Animal Farm is such an indictment of communist Russia that I'd be surprised if anyone nowadays believes he could possibly have been a communist (I guess it's more understandable in paranoia-fuelled post-war Britain). As for 1984, I read that as a condemnation of any totalitarian system - communist or fascist.


 
Nice summing up - He was definately one for the socialist utopia, not unlike H G Wells actually - and he was more than prepared to show up those who were hijacking the concept


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## mosaix (Jan 19, 2008)

Interesting thing about 1984. Thatcher commented, in 1984, something along the lines that she and her administration had done it's bit to prevent 1984 coming true.

She saw 1984 as a 'worker state' and, in using the police to put down the miner's strike, she was _doing her bit_.

I thought 1984 represented a 'police state' and that she had _done her bit_ in bringing it closer.


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## LyannaWolfBlood (Jan 19, 2008)

w00t, another reason not to like Thatcher! Seriously, it's quite disturbing that she thought that would hinder rather than help a 1984-esque world.


MG1962 said:


> Nice summing up - He was definately one for the socialist utopia, not unlike H G Wells actually - and he was more than prepared to show up those who were hijacking the concept


Thanks - good point .


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## brsrkrkomdy (Jan 24, 2008)

*Interesting take on Orwell.  I've read Animal Farm.  It's definitely an indictment of the Communist Party.  As for 1984, it's an indictment of totalitarianism in any form, communist and fascist.  However, irony is probably lost on Thatcher.  Note a comics series from DC, V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Loydd, has a fascist regime with a somewhat Thatcherian touch.  (If there's such a word for that.)*


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