George Orwell Explains in a Revealing 1944 Letter Why He’d Write 1984
Most of the twentieth century’s notable men of letters — i.e.,
writers of books, of essays, of reportage — seem also to have,
literally, written a great deal of letters. Sometimes their
correspondence reflects and shapes their “real” written work; sometimes
it appears collected in book form itself. Both hold true in the case of George Orwell, a volume of whose letters, edited by Peter Davison, came out last year. In it we find this missive, also published in full at The Daily Beast,
sent in 1944 to one Noel Willmett, who had asked “whether
totalitarianism, leader-worship etc. are really on the up-grade” given
“that they are not apparently growing in [England] and the USA”:
I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a
whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon
disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the
Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty fuhrers of the
type of de Gaulle.
All the national movements everywhere, even those
that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take
non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman fuhrer
(Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying
examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means.
Everywhere the world movement seems to be in the direction of
centralised economies which can be made to ‘work’ in an economic sense
but which are not democratically organized and which tend to establish a
caste system. With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a
tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all
the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some
infallible fuhrer. Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie.
there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be
universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as
military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark.
Hitler can say
that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become
official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for
the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort
of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great
superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could
become five if the fuhrer wished it. That, so far as I can see, is the
direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the
process is reversible.
As to the comparative immunity of Britain and the USA. Whatever the pacifists etc. may say, we have not gone totalitarian yet and this is a very hopeful symptom. I believe very deeply, as I explained in my book The Lion and the Unicorn, in the English people and
in their capacity to centralise their economy without destroying
freedom in doing so.
But one must remember that Britain and the USA
haven’t been really tried, they haven’t known defeat or severe
suffering, and there are some bad symptoms to balance the good ones. To
begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy.
Do you realize, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a
vote and that so far as one can see the great mass of people of that age
don’t give a damn for this? Secondly there is the fact that the
intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people.
On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at
the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for
dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history
etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side.
Indeed the statement
that we haven’t a Fascist movement in England largely means that the
young, at this moment, look for their fuhrer elsewhere. One can’t be
sure that that won’t change, nor can one be sure that the common people
won’t think ten years hence as the intellectuals do now. I hope they
won’t, I even trust they won’t, but if so it will be at the cost of a
struggle. If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t
point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring
totalitarianism nearer.
You also ask, if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, why
do I support the war. It is a choice of evils—I fancy nearly every war
is that. I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I
would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser
evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think
the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the
original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon
than Nazi Germany. I think, and have thought ever since the war began,
in 1936 or thereabouts, that our cause is the better, but we have to
keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.
Yours sincerely,
Geo. Orwell
Three years later, Orwell would write 1984. Two years after
that, it would see publication and go on to generations of attention as
perhaps the most eloquent fictional statement against a world reduced to
superstates, saturated with “emotional nationalism,” acquiescent to
“dictatorial methods, secret police,” and the systematic falsification
of history,” and shot through by the willingness to “disbelieve in the
existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with
the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer.” Now that you feel
like reading the novel again, or even for the first time, do browse our collection of 1984-related resources, which includes the eBook, the audio book, reviews, and even radio drama and comic book adaptations of Orwell’s work.
Related Content:
George Orwell’s 1984: Free eBook, Audio Book & Study Resources
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George Orwell and Douglas Adams Explain How to Make a Proper Cup of Tea
For 95 Minutes, the BBC Brings George Orwell to Life
George Orwell’s Five Greatest Essays (as Selected by Pulitzer-Prize Winning Columnist Michael Hiltzik)
Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, literature, and aesthetics. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Facebook page.
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