Orwell and the revolution

[thedoors]

"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. " - George Orwell, 1984

Taken from the signature of the user maestro


I believe that this user may have mistaken the idea's behind this quote, taken in the context it appears it looks like Orwell is advocating the position it argues. As a comitted socialist I dont think people get what Orwell meant by 1984 judging by this sig and many I have seen before.

1984 is not a critque of revolution, it is a critique of the people allowing a revolution to be overtaken by a dictatorship. This of course is my own interpetation and may be wrong but Orwell would have supported the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the workers state.

It was of course his distain for the actions of the Stalinists that gave birth to Animal Farm. Advocating the idea's of Trotsky Orwell sought to expose Stalinist ideas to the people albeit in his own disguised format.

So not to get too into it but I would like to remind people that Orwell was not anti-revolutionary but committed to the idea of revolutions being hijacked by dicatotors, lets face it communism was ruined by one man and that is Stalin.

[RoadClosed]

I see your point of view. Perhaps a socialist state sets the slate for inevitable dictatorship. They have all started out as glorious ideals but I cannot think of one instance. in the past and in our current political climate that has not become a dictatorship.

[bballad]

I allways figured that Orwill had gotten ratehr cynical at this point and started to fell that all goverment tends towards dictatorship

[rcgreen]

communism was ruined by one man and that is Stalin.

I see it the other way around. Stalin was corrupted by communism.
Without communisn as an ideological license, Stalin would
have remained a small time bank robber.

Marx is the real monster in this story. And Lenin should not be excused
either. All the instruments of torture and oppression were already
constructed before Stalin came to power.

I think Orwell was stating something that seems obvious to us today,
thanks to him, that for the Totalitarians, power is their ultimate goal.

It was fashionable propaganda in those days to say that dictatorship
and terror were unfortunate but necessary means employed
to accomplish a noble goal, but Orwell seemed to say, along with
Gandhi, "the means are the ends in the making."

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/...st/GHANDI1.HTM

[Ennis]

rc I dont think you get Orwell's views at all, he was for a socialist state, he is by no means a supporter of Stalin but would have been aware that Lenin was not corript as he was.

Read Lenin's final testament, I doubt your governent actively shows these things. In it he warns that Stalin should not become party leader, or that he should become an idol, or that the beucracy should take over etc. Please dont cloud yourself in the idea that Stalin was anything like Lenin, there's no cold war now we can be honest about these things.

Marx is a genius, one of the 'three' thinkers along with Nietzsche and Frued that shaped the last century. His ideas of economics are well founded and well argued, he did not predict the Russian Revolution or take part, how is he a monster, for thinking outside the box, sorry I mean capatilist system.

I dont want to fight but I hate such unfounded generalisations and connotations, dont they teach Marx in American colleges?

[rcgreen]

I have met many educators in Russia who still think in these terms. While they are critical of Stalin’s dictatorship, they consider him to be an aberration, not a true disciple of Lenin. For many of them, Lenin is still the true hero of the Revolution of 1917, a revolution that overthrew an oppressive tsarist government.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the accession to power of Boris Yeltsin in 1991, the view of Lenin articulated by Gorbachev is undergoing major change. Secret documents located in the KGB headquarters in Moscow, carefully marked "to be preserved forever," have now been opened and a clearer picture of Lenin and the early years of the Bolshevik regime is emerging

http://www.racu.org/context/reflect_apr1995.html

The more we learn about Lenin, the more we will have to "apologize" to Stalin,
having blamed him for the system Lenin created. Sure, Lenin, on his death bed,
warned in vain about Stalin, but he himself was to blame for promoting Stalin.

Orwell was a democratic socialist. He was appalled by the systematic
use of terror in communist regimes.

[bballad]

Hey no one here said that dictatorship was nesecary for the grater good, just that any state where a small group of people hold power over the masses tends towards a dictator ship. That dosn't need communisim to happen, just look at our own goverment, at one point the president of the US relized that he was a civil servant there to server the poeple, that is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. Our curent president seems to think that its the duty of the people to fallow his orders, its just a very short step to dictatorship.

[paulie walnuts]

Our curent president seems to think that its the duty of the people to fallow his orders, its just a very short step to dictatorship.

That has got to be one of the most asinine statements I have heard in some time dude.

[rcgreen]

The reason we are in danger of losing our civil liberties
is because we want the federal gov't to continually expand its
mission beyond all past precedent, giving us retirement pay,
minumum wage laws, compulsory education, wipe our butts for us.

Eventually you regress to being a child, and gov't is mommie.
She also spanks you from time to time.

We no longer want to be citizens of a free republic with a gov't
that has reasonably defined powers, and assume responsibility
to feed and fend for ourselves in a free market.

Even "democtatic" socialism eventually erodes your freedoms.
Those who still have faith in democratic socialism have never
had the frightening experience of being in the minority

Things suddenly look different when all the forces of the state are
turned against you, instead of being turned against someone
else as a designated scapegoat.

Great numbers of ordinary people in Soviet Russia were fairly content
because they were not among the victims, but indirectly benefitted
from the looting of others' property.

Orwell was naive to continue to believe that democratic socialism
could work. He didn't live long enough to see its failures.

Much of the criticism against our US gov't mistakenly accuses it of being
"right wing conservative", but there have been no "right wing"
governments in the western world since 1918 with the collapse
of the Hapsburg Monarchy

[Ennis]

http://www.racu.org/context/reflect_apr1995.html

Sorry man but I wouldnt consider anything from that website to be trustworthy or without an agenda. A Christian oriented website is obviously going to attack Lenin and his atheistic socialism, never take obvious right wing or left wing instutions as your sources they will only pump propaganda at you. That is crap you linked me to.

Hey no one here said that dictatorship was nesecary for the grater good, just that any state where a small group of people hold power over the masses tends towards a dictator ship. That dosn't need communisim to happen, just look at our own goverment, at one point the president of the US relized that he was a civil servant there to server the poeple, that is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. Our curent president seems to think that its the duty of the people to fallow his orders, its just a very short step to dictatorship.

There isnt really democracy these days, merely an illusion of it. I think you are hinting at a beourgoiuse [sp?] litist governmnet and the rich in which all the power is concentrated. This beacracy is evident in the US but cloked in the guise of patriotism and the threat of terror. War for some people is a way of keeping the people under control, a method exercised well by Bush, he is not a dictator though, merely a puppet of big business.