It’s clear that Orwell was influenced by the totalitarian regimes of the time, specifically, Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Communist Russia. Both regimes glorified and almost deified their leaders, practically turning them into gods. Both required the deconstruction of any individuality and free thinking. Both required their people to put the “party” above all else. They demanded absolute loyalty, and any form of disobedience resulted in imprisonment, work camps, torture, …show more content…
Stalin’s Communist regime and Orwell’s Oceanian in 1984 were strikingly similar. They glorified fascist beliefs and communist authoritarianism. 1984 exalted its leader, Big Brother; Stalin’s communism exalted the party as the authority. There were even some blatant similarities, such as forced-labor camps. Orwell also made veiled physical overtures between his Big Brother and Joseph Stalin--the thick mustache that hung over the top of the lip, and a full head of thick dark hair.
In conclusion, in our day, many ideas and government programs have been deemed “Orwellian”, in reference to 1984. Ideas like closed-circuit cameras on every street (London, England has an intricate closed-circuit system). It makes me wonder sometimes if we are getting dangerously close to the Oceanian regime. Orwell wrote the book as a warning about what things could evolve into, and what a slippery slope we would be on as a society if we went down that path. At the time he wrote the book, he was a confirmed Socialist and was taking a stand against Communism. This is interesting to me, as I have always thought Socialism and Communism were very close in their