George Orwell

[Spearmint Rhino]

George Orwell

Bloody hell, Bored Of The Dance doesn't look anything like I expected him to.

[Anton Gramscescu]

George Orwell

Applause for Purves.

Orwell's hostility to Stalinists was borne of his personal experiences in Spain, where they were instrumental in crushing the actual popular aspects of the revolution. There were a lot of people at the time who didn't want to know and didn't want others to know about what was going on (including, as I metioned at the outset, Orwell's own publisher). But he and Koestler (Darkness at Noon being possibly the greatest book ever written about Communist repression) were instrumental in showing people that whatever the tactical merits of a "no enemies to the left" policy, strategically and morally it was a disaster.

(I believe it was Lenin who said "we communists are interested in supporting the social democratic parties of the west...the way a noose supports a hanged man"...how exactly he retains among western socialists a patina of being the "good communist" in contrast to Stalin's "bad communist" is beyond me.)

Hell, those photos are spooky.

[Amor de Cosmos]

George Orwell

It's Flashheart!



OTFers never look like you expect them to. Until a couple of weeks ago I'd never have guessed that Toro was Marc Bolan's smaller younger brother.

[Lucia Lanigan]

George Orwell

That's good hype at first glance, but Marc Bolan was tiny ("With my Les Paul, I know I'm small but I enjoy living anyway," as he sang in Spaceball Ricochet).

No way is any OTFer smaller than Marc Bolan was. Most of them are at least 7ft tall.

[Ray de Galles]

George Orwell

Spearmint Rhino wrote:

Bloody hell, Bored Of The Dance doesn't look anything like I expected him to.

To be honest, when he turned up that day he looked nothing like I expected him to either.

[Brandenburger Toro]

George Orwell

Marc Bolan's smaller younger brother

Ha, I'm totally using that...

[Felicity, I guess so]

George Orwell

'Supporting Social Democracy like a rope supports a hanged man' pretty much sums up my current sentiments about Brown and co., as it happens.

If you're using that quote to make some kinda 'Lenin led directly to Stalin' point you'll have to go a bit deeper than his use of violent simile, I think.

[Anton Gramscescu]

George Orwell

If you're using that quote to make some kinda 'Lenin led directly to Stalin' point you'll have to go a bit deeper than his use of violent simile, I think.

Fair enough. I believe the full context for that quote is that it occured during a meeting with representatives of the French communist party during the second congress of the third international in 1920. They asked about the correct way to deal with social democrats. Lenin's first response was "shoot them". His second response was the quote I gave above.

But maybe the best way to look at Lenin's "good communist" bona fides is to look at the Kronstadt rebellion. It was an uprising of sailors, who issued the following demands:

1. Immediate new elections to the Soviets. The present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda.
2. Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties.
3. The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant organisations.
4. The organisation, at the latest on 10th March 1921, of a Conference of non-Party workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and the Petrograd District.
5. The liberation of all political prisoners of the Socialist parties, and of all imprisoned workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors belonging to working class and peasant organisations.
6. The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in prisons and concentration camps.
7. The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces. No political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In the place of the political sections various cultural groups should be set up, deriving resources from the State.
8. The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside.
9. The equalisation of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous or unhealthy jobs.
10. The abolition of Party combat detachments in all military groups. The abolition of Party guards in factories and enterprises. If guards are required, they should be nominated, taking into account the views of the workers.
11. The granting to the peasants of freedom of action on their own soil, and of the right to own cattle, provided they look after them themselves and do not employ hired labour.
12. We request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate themselves with this resolution.
13. We demand that the Press give proper publicity to this resolution.
14. We demand the institution of mobile workers' control groups.
15. We demand that handicraft production be authorised provided it does not utilise wage labour.

Lenin's response to these demands (which I think you will see are quite socialist in spirit - hardly a White Guard list of demands) was to attack the sailors. Thousands were killed in battle on both sides. Of the prisoners, about a third were freed, a third were sentenced to labour camps and a third - between 1,000 and 2,000 - were executed.

Lenin was a fucking monster. One could, I suppose, argue a distinction with Stalin in that the latter might have executed more people. But it's splitting hairs: the Bolshevik attitude to dissent was to annihilate dissenters. Orwell and Koestler understood this and did more than most to keep the European democratic left from allying itself too closely to this bestial force just because they happened to share an opposition to fascism and finance capitalism (contrast this with Jean-Paul Sartre's odious apologetics for Stalinism). And for that, frankly, everyone should be eternally grateful.

[Felicity, I guess so]

George Orwell

Orwell was hardly opposed to 'Bolshevism', or he wouldn't have fought alongside the POUM. Nor is it the case that 'Bolsheviks' operated systematically by wiping out opposition.

Comparing Kronstadt to Stalin's crimes is a bit of a stretch, too: Lenin was a 'monster' who...

...allowed the self-determination of national minorities (cf Stalin)

...allowed divorce and abortion on demand, alongside a whole raft of other emancipatory legislation for women (cf Stalin)

[Anton Gramscescu]

George Orwell

Re: Orwell and bolshevism. Well, of course his views changed somewhat over time. And "bolshevism" would have been an ambiguous term by the 30s (both stalinists and trotskyites could have claimed the mantle), so it might not have been the best term for me to use there. But take Animal Farm. If you think the Old Major was Lenin, then there'd be a strong case to make that he was "pro-bolshevist/anti-stalinist". If you think the Old major was Marx, then it would be pretty much anti-bolshevik.

I think you're wrong about Lenin on the minorities question. He declared their "right" to self-determination and then did everything in his power to undermine it. His invasions of the three caucasian republics (who had already declared independence in 1918) in 1920 was a fairly brutal affair, as was his destruction of the Ukranian proto-state in 1919.

Kronstadt was part of a broader picture of Red Terror, which Lenin himself directly authorized. Estimates differ, but the lowest published estimates suggest that between 1918 and 1920 the Chekha murdered at least 12,000 people in Russia and 50,000 people in the Ukraine. Some estimates put the figure at four or five times this number.

And let's be perfectly clear about Lenin's repsonsibility here. It was he who began the war against the kulaks, not Stalin. It was he who instituted the policy of demonstration killings. Check out this order of August 11, 1918:

Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because 'the last decisive battle' with the kulaks is now under way everywhere. An example must be demonstrated.

* 1. Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers.
* 2. Publish their names.
* 3. Seize all their grain from them.
* 4. Designate hostages in accordance with yesterday's telegram.
* Do it in such a fashion that for hundreds of kilometres around the people might see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle to death the bloodsucking kulaks.

Telegraph receipt and implementation.

Yours, Lenin.

Reading that, can you actually make a moral distinction between Lenin and Stalin?

So, OK, he legalized abortion. When placed against crimes of this magnitude, do you really think that should affect his reputation one whit?

[Disco Child Ballads]

George Orwell

I've just finished reading The Road to Wigan Pier and my reaction was wow, that is good. It's brilliant political writing and it's a book that seems particularly relevant again. Anyway this made me wonder about the "other" Orwell novels, i.e. not Animal Farm and 1984. Are any of those worth reading?

[Edie St Pierre]

George Orwell

'Coming Up For Air', 'Homage to Catalonia' and 'Down and Out in Paris in London' are brilliant.

'Burmese Days' is meant to be brilliant too, but it's been sitting unread on my bookshelf for ages. Need to give it a go really.

Echo what everyone else said (even though it was what? five years ago? discussions on the internet are like time-travel aren't they) about his essays. They are great and they're all on-line and free. I love his lit-crit essays too: 'Inside The Whale', 'Raffles and Miss Blandish' and so on.

[sw2borshch]

George Orwell

'Burmese Days' is meant to be brilliant too, but it's been sitting unread on my bookshelf for ages. Need to give it a go really.

I bought a pamphlet of "Politics and the English Language" (which I've read before) with a review of "Mein Kampf" chucked in for 99p the other week which I shall go read now instead of acting the doyle on the internet.

[Jon]

On a mini-Orwell kick at the moment. Saw a stage version of Animal Farm the other week so reread the book before I saw it. Also, picked up a graphic novel of one of his essays - 'Such, such were the Joys.' (A quote from a Blake poem).

I had read a few of his essays when I was younger but had never heard of this one. I think it was published posthumously and, initially, only in the US. I really enjoyed it. I wasn't quite sure how they would adapt one of his essays but it works well, partly, I think, because a large part of the essay is an autobiographical narrative of his time at a prep school in Eastbourne. He hated it there and gives it a coat down. This, I'm guessing, is the reason why the essay wasn't originally published in the UK. It's not just autobiographical though - some astute perceptions about class and psychology too, as you might expect.

[imp]

Belated applause for Gramsci's posts up above.

Echoing also what others have said on this lovely old vintage thread, if any of those young folk you see hanging about on street corners these days ask me about becoming a writer, I tell them, "Read Orwell", especially his four volumes of collected letters, reviews and essays. His clarity, honesty and economy, plus his entertainment of the reader, make him an absolute model of literary practice, even if it's private correspondence with, say, his publisher, or an author whose book he's panned. I really, really wish he'd lived another 40 years.

I wonder if EIM has read the essay on his favourite pub - I forget the title.

[Patrick Thistle]

I read his essay on totalitarianism last year and it was very insightful.

The Road to Wigan Pier has some vivid bits that have stuck with me. Although sadly I'm sure someone could write something now about food bank Britain and not much has improved for the very poor.

[jameswba]

Also a pleasure to see this thread revived. I had no idea it existed.

I understand Kronstadt is represented in Animal Farm by the milk and apples incident. Just after the rebellion and a successful first harvest, the pigs take the milk and apples for themselves and Squealer makes a weaselly, propagandist speech to justify this. The other animals meekly accept ; 'The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too obvious.'

Orwell said later that this was the turning-point of the novel, as it illustrated his idea that 'the people' (animals) need to be ever-ready to kick their new leaders out, including (especially) in the heady first days after revolution. Otherwise, it's just replacing one set of tyrants with another.

I love Orwell's pre-WWII novels, especially Coming up for Air, which has some lovely evocations of life in rural England pre-1912. Even A Clergyman's Daughter (which Orwell himself despised) has some brilliant passages, such as about the lives of hop-pickers, or the state of England's 'private' schools. These are set-pieces though ; take them out of the novel and they'd work beautifully as essays.

Finally, is there a better piece of lit crit anywhere than Orwell's essay on Dickens? If so, I'd love to read it.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I understand Kronstadt is represented in Animal Farm by the milk and apples incident. Just after the rebellion and a successful first harvest, the pigs take the milk and apples for themselves and Squealer makes a weaselly, propagandist speech to justify this. The other animals meekly accept ; 'The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too obvious.'

I don't really see how this can be any kind of metaphor for Kronstadt - not the economic conditions which in part led to it, not the rebellion itself and not the brutal suppression thereof (including state murders continuing long after the suppression of the rebellion itself).

Although authors and metaphor, who knows?

[jameswba]

I don't really see how this can be any kind of metaphor for Kronstadt - not the economic conditions which in part led to it, not the rebellion itself and not the brutal suppression thereof (including state murders continuing long after the suppression of the rebellion itself).

Although authors and metaphor, who knows?

Agreed, and it's certainly not an obvious parallel like Animal Farm has to, say, the Civil War, the purges, Stalingrad etc. Orwell even made a slight revision to his description of the Battle of the Windmill to have Napoleon present, once he'd been assured that Stalin himself hadn't been in hiding during the siege.

I'll see if I can find his reference to Kronstadt / milk and apples.

[jameswba]

From this link - https://orwellsociety.com/orwell-and-lenin/ This isn't where I read it originally, but it is basically what I read.

'Orwell continued to think about the betrayal of the revolution, which became the basis of Animal Farm (1945). The American commentator Dwight MacDonald asked Orwell for his reasoning, and received a reply:

Re. your query about Animal Farm. Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution… The turning-point of the story was supposed to be when the pigs kept the milk and apples for themselves (Kronstadt).

That is, Orwell saw the betrayal of the revolution in the suppression of the Kronstadt revolt and, implicitly, in the subsequent introduction of the New Economic Policy. Orwell, in his letter, does not name Lenin, instead referring to violent conspiratorial revolution, led by unconsciously power-hungry people. This use of a general term, people, would tie in with his construction of Animal Farm, where Stalin and Trotsky have individual avatars Napoleon and Snowball but Marx and Lenin are melded into one character, Old Major.'

[DCI Harry Batt]

The turning-point of the story was supposed to be when the pigs kept the milk and apples for themselves (Kronstadt)

It's just a really odd parenthesis. Ah well.

Today, of course, is the 101st anniversary of the Kronstadt declaration, one of the starting points of the rebellion.

[Jon]

if any of those young folk you see hanging about on street corners these days ask me about becoming a writer, I tell them, "Read Orwell",

My mum, an English teacher all her working life, always said the same to her students.

[imp]

Your mum sounds like someone I'd happily (have) share(d) a pot of tea with. Good on her.

[Patrick Thistle]

My mum was also an English teacher and she is a big fan of the way Orwell wrote.

She used to teach English in a technical college to school leavers who needed to get a pass in their core subjects while doing their engineering courses. She has stories about how they all thought they were being given a stupid kids book when she handed out copies of Animal Farm. Then they started reading it...

[Patrick Thistle]

And Orwell was right about tea. Especially not putting the milk in the cup first.