I first read 1984 when I was in grade 10. At that time I was a self-professed anti-authoritarian non-conformist. I was disgusted by most other people my age who were only concerned with popularity, especially because the people who were the most popular were among the meanest, least intelligent people at the school. Often they were homophobic, racist, and sexist, and mean even to each other. I became disgusted with all of society in turn – everything was too focused on popular music, sports, and whatever else was trendy at the moment. I thought the problem with the world was that people were too scared to be different, to think for themselves. To me, 1984 made a lot of sense – here was Winston Smith, a man who knew that everything around him was crazy and he was sane. He lived in a rigidly controlled society headed by an irrational, power-hungry "Party," who monitored everyone’s actions to make sure they didn’t deviate from the norm. I was Winston Smith. I was an individual in a society that wanted me to conform, and I had to stand up for myself.

The extent of my education on the Bolshevik Revolution came from reading a brief synopsis of the events, which was so boring that I forgot all of it. Then they got us to read Animal Farm. This was also in Grade 10. My understanding of communism was that it had great ideals, but it didn’t work because people were too power-hungry, and they’d manipulate the system and take over. That was about identical with everyone else’s understanding of the Bolshevik Revolution in high school. Sometimes people even read the Manifesto in class, so long as it was understood that communism had been proven wrong with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remember, kids: it doesn’t work in practice.

It’s significant that somebody suggested Red China Blues as a secondary source on the discussion board. Here’s what she said: "It is a factual novel/biography about Communist China under Mao and after. From the Blue uniforms that all *party members* wear, to the hard labour that *helps improve the self*, to big huge posters of Mao everywhere....it is almost a twentieth century version of 1984." I agree with her. I also read Wild Swans over the Christmas break last year, and I was struck by how much it resembled 1984, even though the book was written one year before the Chinese revolution. It still holds true because China is just as Stalinist as Russia was. In the 80’s we read 1984, nowadays we read books like Red China Blues.

Ah, the Cold War. Why else would so many people have read 1984 in their high school English classes? A book that railed strongly against the status quo (as I believed it did when I was 15) would never have gained so much popularity, and certainly would not have been added to the basic high school curriculum. On the contrary: Orwell envisions a future where all of the basic human freedoms the bourgeoisie fought for in France and America and elsewhere have been eliminated and replaced with something that looks very much like Stalinist Russia. In the Minutes of Hate, Goldstein is denouncing big brother and "advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought." These are all things that are written proudly in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The book is a basic text of the Cold War – if we’re not careful, it tells us, the Western imperialist powers (Britain and North America, the "free world") could become communist too. All the wonders of capitalist democracy would be eliminated.

Orwell even goes so far as to include entire sections of the political theory behind his book in the book, where he explains how Stalinism has taken over, but not why. That’s pretty darn crucial – I was pretty young when the Soviet Union collapsed, but I’ve heard enough anti-Marxist propaganda to know that the reason everyone gives for the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet Union is that Stalin was power-hungry. That part of 1984 always baffled me. I could never understand why the Inner Party would work so hard at maintaining inequalities when it was so much hard work, and the only thing they would gain from it is this abstract notion of Power. Big Brother was like, the ultimate manifestation of evil. But to me, good and evil don’t exist – people don’t do evil things for the sake of being evil, or because they’ve turned to the dark side or something like that. Big Brother is like the villain in any children’s story. He’s that Bad Guy, but we’re not sure why.

One thing I found interesting was the completely obvious placement of Trotsky in the novel, in the character of Goldstein. If you’ve seen pictures of Trotsky you’ll know what I’m talking about: "It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard – a clever face, yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched." That is Trotsky to the T. Also, "he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed." One of Trostky’s best-known books is called The Revolution Betrayed. But to Orwell, Trostkyist ideals are irrelevant. The book that is supposed to be written by Goldstein, however, does not at all resemble Trotskyist writings. Not only does Trotsky’s explanation for the degeneration of the Soviet Union tell you why, but Orwell chooses to omit Goldstein’s reasons by getting Winston to stop reading to ask Julia if she’s sleeping.

I certainly think Stalinism is a horrible thing in a lot of ways, but for someone who values freedom and democracy so much, Orwell doesn’t even credit some of the good things IngSoc has achieved. Men and women are equal, for instance. Women are part of the workforce. The party has overtaken sexual politics, but it has done so equally on both sides. The party doesn’t see free sex as immoral (as much of the North American ruling class does) so much as it dislikes it because it creates personal loyalties. Also, Orwell/Winston views ArtSem with utter contempt because it destroys the family unit. So does Goldstein, as he writes in the book: "The Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood… It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family." Actually, Marx was against the institution of the family because it kept women enslaved in the home, and it left no room in society for people with alternative views of the family, i.e. homosexuals.

Another thing Orwell really trivializes about IngSoc is that racism has been eliminated. As Goldstein says, "Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans or pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party." Even today in the supposed Free World there is still harsh racial discrimination and oppression – for instance, two-thirds of the prison population in the United States is black or Hispanic.

Upon my third reading of 1984 I’ve really been struck by the irony that it is a piece of propaganda. It urges people to look around them and fight for all of those democratic ideals of capitalism, and it convinces people that economic equalities cannot truly exist because of humanity’s innate hunger for power. I don’t buy it.