I haven’t read Orwell’s 1984 in many years. But the Reddit story about the guy who has been playing Civ 2 for 10 years straight (and the commenters’ notes on the similarities to 1984’s 3-superpower-stalemate) got me thinking about it again.
Were nuclear weapons ever addressed in the book? I know much of what Orwell was trying to capture (in 1948) was the soul-crushingness of Blitz- and postwar-era Britain (and, obviously, how an all-powerful communist state might not be a utopia, contrary to what many of his fellow intellectuals thought). But I don’t recall any mention of something that seems so obvious to someone who grew up during the Cold War, namely the use of nuclear weapons.
Now, I also know that the Inner Party members (or equivalent ruling faction) of each of the superpowers would likely have no interest in nuclear weapons: They don’t want the war to end. Ever. They want to destroy a set number of men and tons of materiel each year, probably no more, no less, so that the eternal stalemate continues. But did Orwell even bring up and then dismiss nuclear weapons? Or can we assume that the IP has long since had knowledge of their existence scrubbed from the historical record?
I thought that the alternate history in 1984 had a nuclear war happen shortly after WWII. The war led to the collapse of the democracies in Britain and the USA. I think one of Winston’s earliest memories was taking shelter in a subway tunnel while an old man cursed, “we shouldn’t have trusted the buggers” - I guess this could have been during an old-fashioned bombing of the city, but to me it suggested a nuclear war. I also thought there were mentions of fallout from the war.
There are explicit mentions of nuclear weapons, and there are suggestions that the 3 big superpowers keep a nuclear arsenal at hand, but that they won’t use it until the 3-way stalemate has been broken, one way or another – the idea would be to ally with somebody else to destroy the 3rd state, and then quickly backstab the “ally” with a flurry of nuclear missiles.
But it is also mentioned that this is the “officlal” version – the reality being that, although the 3 superpowers may keep a nuclear arsenal, they will never want to use it because the current situation is much better for the ruling elites.
At least, that is what I remember from reading “1984” not too long ago.
The atomic bomb was addressed explicitly, and the unspoken agreement among the three superstates was not to use it, since doing so would force retaliatory strikes, causing worldwide destruction for no gain. Of course, there references were mostly from The Book, which arguably is an unreliable source of information.
Part 2, Chapter 9, which consists almost entirely of Winston reading The Book:
There’s no actual proof given in the book that the superstates even exist. Britain might just as well be like North-Korea; isolating and fooling its populace with fantasies of never ending war while the rest of the world is enjoying peace and prosperity.
Orwell was a Socialist till the day he died. Orwell’s point (in 1984) was that totalitarianism is totalitarianism, and that a left-wing totalitarian state (the USSR) is no better than a right wing one (Nazi Germany).
Orwell supported the post-WW2 British Labour Gov’t, which had social democrat policies that were called “communism” by many right wingers of the time. Like a lot of people on the political left, Orwell felt that the gov’t of the time didn’t go far enough towards democratic socialism.
Cite: Orwell’s non-fiction work, especially his newspaper columns right through the 1940s.
Part 2, Chapter 9, which consists almost entirely of Winston reading The Book:
The totalitarian superstates of which the USA was part of by the way, only fought skirmishes and never contemplated vanquishing the other two super-powers. The skirmishes took place mainly in that sort no-man’s land region of the world.
This stasis ( power impasse), maybe was the result of their own version of MAD or simply they were contented with what they got : total eternal power in their corners of the world.
Orwell wrote the book as a warning to the West, to open the eyes of the people in the West to the threat of Stalinism.
Orwell wrote an essay entitled “Why I Write” which explained why he wrote:
[QUOTE=George Orwell]
Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.
[/QUOTE]
Well, actually, the “doublethink” premise was that they could contemplate (indeed see as inevitable) vanquishing the other super-states, while simultaneously believing that it was a practical impossibility. Personally, I thought doublethink was the most terrifying concept in the novel - picturing a government official who would entertain and embrace contradictory ideas and have no problem doing so - integrity utterly ceasing to exist. Such an official could believe himself in command of cold scientific immutable fact, yet still order the arrest and vaporizing of a citizen because he looked funny.
Assuming the narrative is not totally unreliable and the political divisions are more-or-less as described, I personally figure the super-states are in a reverse-race to see who collapse the slowest. The general decay described in London is indicative that the infrastructure will gradually disintegrate, likely beyond the ability of the totalitarian governments to monitor and control their populations. Sooner or later, some Party official is going to decide that since he doesn’t understand electrical engineering, electrical engineering must be crimethink, and there will be purges of electrical engineers (or other professionals - consider the “Doctor’s Plot” madness near the end of Stalin’s reign), and those skills once lost will be hard to replace, especially since the schools have to divide their time between vocational training and endless indoctrination. Sooner or later, there won’t be anyone who can maintain the atomic arsenal and the super-state corrodes from within while being vulnerable to attack from without.
Recently I read “1984” again (in my SONY e-reader) and I remember (correct me if I am wrong, I mean it) that although the leadership in Oceania had as an ultimate goal the overcoming the other super-powers, their ‘hearts’ weren’t in it.( I’d have to search that passage). It was risky and it wouldn’t accomplish nothing except increase the numbers of those subjected to their control.
Since the other super-powers were mirror images of Oceania it is logical to assume that their respective war machines would deteriorate in the same measure, maintaining nuclear parity. Kind of automatic balance of the super-power triad.
In our world totalitarian regimes of the religious (Iran) and secular kind (N Korea) need outside scientific and technical help when it comes to dealing with reality and not people. Mother Nature cannot be brainwashed.
We all engage in a way in ‘double-think’, i.e. to hold opposing statements as both being true for instance IMHO when we suspend belief such as when reading fiction or watching a movie, we know on one hand that what we are seeing is not real, but we fool ourselves into believing it is. If we don’t then we ruin the experience.
The use of euphemisms is also a step in that direction, I think
There were a lot of excuses made for Stalin (and various other totalitarian Communist dictators) by people on the left, and Orwell was one of the few voices in his time drawing attention to the fact that Stalin and his system was as bad as Hitler and his system.
I like to draw attention to the fact that Orwell wasn’t against socialism, he was against totalitarianism. People on the right try to claim Orwell as some kind of anti-leftist, which is entirely wrong. Orwell was entirely of the left until his dying day; he just didn’t conflate democratic socialism with totalitarian communism, which is something that has been regularly done by people on both sides of the left/right political spectrum.
From my student days I remember being told that by a Marxist that the reason communist countries called themselves socialists and not communist was that communism was their utopian ideal and they weren’t their yet.
I don’t know if he was pulling my leg or not.
Orwell the same as Camus was too much of a humanist to be a proponent of dehumanizing totalitarianism
What about the pre-movie newsreels of bombing civilians in Eastasia, and the parade of Eastasian POWs? The newsreels could have been faked, but IIRC Winston saw the POWs being executed in the flesh.
North Korea does not exist in total isolation. Many North Koreans have fled to the South and also to China which supports the regime.
North Korea also has diplomatic ties with the rest of the world and also receives foreign aid.
The Soviet Union collapsed in great part due to the cost of maintaining arms parity with the west.
the book O’Brien lends Winston tells the existing situation, it is a literary ploy to tell us the readers of the real situation.
in Orwell’s time there was some resemblance to what he wrote, we had the Soviet Union, China, and the West. and China and the Soviet Union were then allies.
I am not saying of course, that it was an identical situation as the one depicted in the book
I always assumed that Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania were all in agreement that perpetual war helped them control their populations and the wars themselves were staged BS.
This is what I took away from the book. Actually, I kind of doubted that there were really separate countries at all. And if there were, maybe it was the same chaps controlling all of them.
I thought the countries existed, but had little interest in game changing war moves. Little gains are good as they can report back positive moves to the public, but ending the wars would be bad for the leaders.
