{"id":15435,"date":"2023-09-27T05:41:55","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T05:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/leadership\/1984-and-george-orwell-live-again-in-putins-russia\/"},"modified":"2023-09-27T05:41:56","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T05:41:56","slug":"1984-and-george-orwell-live-again-in-putins-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=15435","title":{"rendered":"1984 And George Orwell Live Again In Putin\u2019s Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Soviet citizens reading George Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/em> were amazed that the British author never set foot in the USSR yet described the country so well. A timely book by Masha Karp, a former Russian Features editor for the BBC World Service, shines a light on an unexplored topic\u2014George Orwell and Russia<\/em>. Government oppression, official gaslighting and fabricating history did not die with Orwell\u2019s model for 1984<\/em>, <\/em>the Soviet Union. Russian leader Vladimir Putin retooled these practices for the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

War and Peace<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Vladimir Putin\u2019s pining for the Soviet Union, falsifying history and distorting current events to wage a war against Ukraine show the continued relevance of Orwell\u2019s works, according to Masha Karp.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin\u2019s Russia had been moving toward totalitarianism for years, but the invasion of Ukraine triggered the endgame, and within days the country displayed an even stronger resemblance to the absurd totalitarian monster described by Orwell,\u201d writes Karp. \u201cThe word \u2018war\u2019 was instantly banned and ordered to be replaced, on pain of prosecution, by the phrase \u2018a special military operation.\u2019 Those who came out into the streets with placards bearing the Oceania slogans [from 1984<\/em>] \u2018War is Peace,\u2019 \u2018Freedom is Slavery,\u2019 \u2018Ignorance is Strength\u2019 or their variations were detained and a man who handed out free copies of Orwell\u2019s novel was charged with the administrative offense of \u2018discrediting Russia\u2019s armed forces.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Julia Davis, columnist for The Daily Beast<\/em> and creator of the Russian Media Monitor, described a recent segment<\/a> on Russian state television: \u201cEven Orwell would be amazed if he could hear the head of RT Margarita Simonyan and her fellow propagandists claim that the West is forcing Russia to kill Ukrainians and they pity Ukrainians more than Ukrainians pity themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/fbs-ad><\/p>\n

In 2022, the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> <\/em>reported that 1984<\/em> was \u201cthe most popular fiction download,\u201d according to the Russian online bookseller LitRes.<\/p>\n

Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/em> describes individuals obeying or modestly rebelling inside a totalitarian state that controls the news media, history books and all relevant levers in society. He based the falsification of history, including the government denying another country had been a wartime ally, on the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, which \u201cpaved the way for the joint invasion and occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that September.\u201d (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.)<\/p>\n

Putin made Russia\u2019s victory in World War II\u2014called the \u201cGreat Patriotic War\u201d\u2014central to his regime\u2019s legitimacy. As such, he has continued the Soviet practice of denying the temporary Nazi-Soviet alliance and punishing historians<\/a> who say otherwise.<\/p>\n

Orwell\u2019s Animal Farm<\/em>, published in 1945, <\/em>satirized the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution as pigs who exploit workers (the other animals), falsify the events of the revolution and arrange privileges for themselves.<\/p>\n

Before publishing 1984<\/em> and Animal Farm<\/em>, Orwell said he planned to describe \u201cthe huge system of organized lying . . . the sinister possibilities of the radio, State-controlled education and so forth\u201d [for indoctrination] and the perils of a leader with undisputed authority.<\/p>\n

Stalin and Orwell<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, Joseph Stalin eliminated his rivals in the 1920s and ruled the Soviet Union until he died in 1953. Compared to people in many other countries, Soviet citizens lived in a type of prison state, including being barred from leaving the country, and suffering from widespread shortages of food, clothing and other goods.<\/p>\n

Stalin enacted economic policies that killed millions of Ukrainians from famine in the 1930s and kept Soviet citizens far poorer than their counterparts in Western nations. He imposed Soviet control over Eastern Europe, forcing residents of foreign countries also to live without liberty or economic prosperity. Stalin eliminated freedom of speech and executed or imprisoned millions of Soviet citizens during the Great Terror. He also left the Soviet Union largely unprepared for World War II, including by killing or arresting many experienced military leaders.<\/p>\n

Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza believes that failing to open the archives and condemn the Soviet past after the USSR\u2019s collapse gave Vladimir Putin the chance to return authoritarian rule to Russia. \u201cWe have no right to repeat this mistake when the window of opportunity opens again,\u201d he wrote in the Washington Post<\/em>. \u201cAll archives must be opened and published. All the crimes of both the Soviet and Putin regimes must receive a proper evaluation at the state level. All structures involved in these crimes\u2014above all the FSB (security services)\u2014must be liquidated, and the people who committed these crimes must be held accountable before the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1984<\/em>, the state forces Winston Smith to love Big Brother, Orwell\u2019s fictional leader modeled on Joseph Stalin. \u201cThe final words of 1984 are so convincing\u2014nothing less than love was demanded for Stalin!\u201d writes Karp, \u201cThe main thrust of the novel\u2014and this was fully understood by Soviet readers\u2014lay in the idea of human fragility under the relentless pressure of the state, \u2018a boot stamping on a human face\u2014forever. And it was not just fragility under torture, although this was well known to millions who had been in Stalin\u2019s prisons where \u2018confessions\u2019 were demanded, it was fragility under the systematic endeavor of the totalitarian state to control the mind and thus destroy the individual\u2019s integrity and capacity to resist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orwell believed it was impossible to produce literature under a totalitarian regime. Soviet writers, particularly during the Stalin era, often created \u201cfor the drawer.\u201d Many works could not be published until years after their deaths. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many writers and journalists left Russia.<\/p>\n

Were he still alive, Orwell would have noticed in August 2023 when an Orthodox priest blessed a new statue<\/a> erected in Russia to honor Joseph Stalin, even though the Soviet leader destroyed churches and persecuted religious believers.<\/p>\n

Among the details in George Orwell and Russia<\/em>:<\/p>\n

– The scene in 1984<\/em> where Winston Smith\u2019s torturer forces him to admit 2 + 2 = 5 comes from an actual 1931 Soviet poster that reads, \u201c2+2, plus workers\u2019 enthusiasm = 5.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Although underground copies of 1984<\/em> and Animal Farm<\/em> circulated in the Soviet Union, owning a copy could lead to five years in prison. \u201cNo wonder that on getting to the chapter where Winston Smith is reading the book<\/em>, readers in the Soviet Union knew exactly how he felt,\u201d writes Karp.<\/p>\n

– Unlike 1984<\/em>, which Soviet publications attacked, Soviet officials were scared to write anything about Animal Farm<\/em> because it depicted Stalin as a pig.<\/p>\n

– Soviet authorities ordered special translations of 1984<\/em> and Animal Farm<\/em>, along with other works they banned for the populace, so they could read the works themselves.<\/p>\n

Russia Meets Orwell\u2019s Definition of Totalitarian<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cThe country is considered to be totalitarian when it is governed by a one-party dictatorship which does not permit legal opposition and crushes freedom of speech and the press,\u201d according to Orwell. Karp writes that Putin achieved that control over time by commandeering the media, arresting or assassinating opponents and ensuring opposition candidates could not take power via free elections.<\/p>\n

In 1946, George Orwell reviewed Soviet novelist Evgeny Zamyatin\u2019s We<\/em>. The book was written shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, and influenced Orwell\u2019s work. Orwell quoted the utopia described in Zamyatin\u2019s We<\/em>: \u201cThe guiding principle of the State is that happiness and freedom are incompatible.\u201d<\/p>\n

When one removes the window dressing, that is the central message of all dictators: You can\u2019t be happy or secure unless you give up your freedom and submit to being ruled with an iron fist poised above your head. Orwell\u2019s message to Russians today is that freedom and happiness go together, and dictators will lie to promote tyranny over liberty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n