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Comparing 1984 And Life Under Stalin

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As propaganda begins to dominate all information, reality gets buried deeper and deeper. Unfortunately, some rulers strive to achieve this control, to the extent of altering the past. Two works exemplify this: 1984 and Life Under Stalin. The former is a dystopian novel by George Orwell, that warns readers of the horrors of a totalitarian state. The latter is a documentary produced by Jo Adendorff, that reveals how Joseph Stalin transformed the Soviet Union under his rule. Although 1984 is fictional, real leaders like Stalin have shown that humans are capable of manipulating history, just like the Party of Oceania has, for their own benefit. The oligarchs of both worlds do this to justify their actions and eliminate any opposition. The Party and Stalin …show more content…

In 1984, another purpose for the constant revision of news and history was to remove any possible contradictions the government made so that nobody could blame the Party for making errors. Furthermore, anyone who “had incurred the displeasure of the Party simply disappeared and were never heard of again.” (Orwell 45) This was called vaporization. Everybody had to have unwavering support and trust in the Party. Similarly, in the Soviet Union, books and photographs were altered to eradicate those who had fallen foul of Stalin. Anyone who opposed the government would be denounced as an enemy of the state, be forced to confess, and then be exiled or killed. For instance, during his rise to power, Stalin tried to discredit Trotsky, his rival. Under his command, Trotsky was expelled and assassinated. Another example is the Kulaks, farmers who rebelled against the idea of collectivized agriculture. Stalin liquidated them as a social class and branded them as the “Enemy of the Peasants” (Life Under Stalin). The two parties ultimately wanted a thoughtless and unquestioning

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This is because Stalin’s rule was oppressive and led to millions of deaths for soviet citizens, and much of it through his own cruel methods. One of the first things he did was to put his communist ideas into place. He developed the collectivization policy which took small peasant farms to form large collective farms. (Document 3) In doing this, Stalin brought all of the farms under the operation of the state, upsetting the kulaks who were the wealth farmers.

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1. Josef Stalin and the Soviet Union are expertly portrayed in Orwell's novel, 1984, through the character of Big Brother and Oceania. One of the aspects in which the similarities are clear is how both Stalin and Big Brother invoked fear into their people by controlling them through a totalitarian government. The Soviet Union's main media and forms of art were controlled by the government, as is in 1984. Another similarity between Big Brother and Stalin is that history was changed and rewritten to make them seem important and always correct in their stance on politics and society.

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1183 Words | 5 Pages

In 1949, an author by the name of George Orwell decided to put the tragedies that were happening in real life onto paper to create a frightening story that would haunt several generations. In the thrilling dystopian novel 1984, tells of a story of a new world that is filled with manipulation, fear, control, and a brainwashed public. This world depicts a government who is everywhere, sees everything, and controls every aspect of every person's life. Not only is the government controlling the public, but they are also in the media. Mainly the news being the source of manipulation, many stories get rewritten and several words get cut out of the news every day.

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678 Words | 3 Pages

Fear and ignorance is one of the most power concepts that is represented in the book 1984. The government known as Big Brother constantly watches everyone and controls their every thought. They have the ability to put the fear of extinction into their citizens so that no one dares to act again them. But their overall advantage over its citizens is that they keep telling them that they are always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. The Party uses peoples ignorance and enthusiasm for war because they are always angry towards their enemies when things don’t go their way, the follow the concept that war is peace, and that the people of Oceania need war to stay in line.

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158 Words | 1 Pages

In 1984 anyway it isn 't appeared in an outside way, it is appeared in a totally changed manner, in a path for which you have to acknowledge what the characters think and how they feel. By saying this a just said one of the primary themes in 1984, "think". The general population in Oceania weren 't permitted to think, so they wouldn 't scrutinize the administration and wouldn 't understand that they could revolt? Obviously is the class contrast in 1984 seen by the Proles living in an alternate part and the privileged too, however in 1984 they don 't go similarly as in Maus. They just address the spot of living of the characters, yet not the way they look.

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373 Words | 2 Pages

The objective reality in the 1984 novel points on what the party want their people to do as they want. In that order to make it is happened, we will see that the party will train all the people who under their control to accept and obey whatever the party wants them to believe. They do that because of it will be easy for the party in the future to control their people. If just some start to against and disobey what they want, that person will be disappeared.

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Covering up events 1984: Shifted the history of war enemy of Oceania from Eurasia to Eastasia to make it seem like they had been fighting Eurasia all along. False Representation of world events. 1984: The ministry of truth was changing history in the view of its citizens so that it said that Oceania was the creator or generator of many inventions and

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Throughout the twentieth century, many authors wrote their perspectives on the world’s future. Novels such as Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley told of realities in which governments took extreme approaches to take control of its citizens’ lives, but a particularly alarming publication was George Orwell’s 1984. Written near the start of the Cold War in 1949, which saw the massive proliferation of nuclear arms and expansion of governments that polarized the globe into an East and a West, Orwell depicts what could happen if citizens allowed their governments to continue this power grab unchecked (Bossche). He uses rhetoric to recreate abstract concepts in the world’s dysfunctional political system as tangible entities in the plot.

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Dystopian texts espouse a variety of didactic messages that depend significantly upon both the context and zeitgeist of the time in which they were created. Differences can be found when comparing the techniques and perspectives the authors have chosen to represent their contextual concerns to audiences. Together both Fritz Lang’s silent black and white film ‘Metropolis’ 1927 and George Orwell’s novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (*referred to as 1984) 1948, confront and provoke audiences to consider the impact that (abusive power + unquestionable control= insert question statement) can have not only on the characters in these two texts, but also on the cultural and political lives of the reader and viewer. By subjugating & dehumanising the lower classes, dictators are

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In the book of 1984 The people like winston and others that aren’t associated with the Party are stripped of their freedom. They have no rights from being almost enslaved by the Thought Police, they have little to no education rights, and they have absolutely no say in there marriage of who they want to marry. Freedom is a part of who you are supposed to be, if you don’t have freedom then you really aren’t your own

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1559 Words | 7 Pages

In the novel 1984, by George Orwell, he uses truth and reality as a theme throughout the novel to demonstrate the acts of betrayal and loyalty through the characters of Winston and Julia. Orwell expresses these themes through the Party, who controls and brainwashes the citizens of Oceania. The party is able to control its citizens through “Big Brother,” a fictional character who is the leader of Oceania. Big Brother is used to brainwash the citizens into whatever he says. Orwell uses truth and reality in this book to reflect on what has happened in the real world such as the Holocaust and slavery.

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The dismissal of history takes a far more assertive form in 1984 though. It becomes impossible to understand the true past due to the fact that the events and details of it are constantly in the motion of being rewritten to appease the Party. “Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem-delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say.” (Orwell 44). The truth and history becomes what the Party desires it to be.

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884 Words | 4 Pages

In 1984, George Orwell depicts a dystopian society pervaded by government control and the obsolescence of human emotion and society. Winston is forced to confront the reality of a totalitarian rule where the residents of Oceania are manipulated to ensure absolute government control and servitude of the people. The theme of totalitarianism and dystopia is employed in 1984 to grant absolute power to the government and ensure the deference of the people through the proliferation of propaganda, the repudiation of privacy and freedom, and the eradication of human thought and values. The repudiation of privacy and independent thought and the ubiquity of government surveillance is employed to secure absolute power to the government over the populace

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1191 Words | 5 Pages

It’s crazy how many books and story lines can be so similar yet be written by different people and in different time periods. Brave New World was written in 1932 and in 1949 George Orwell published 1984, but both share some of the same elements. The movie The Hunger Games came out more recently, in 2012, and it is also somewhat similar to these novels. They all share the same dystopian elements, which include, futuristic, illusion of a perfect society, protagonist who rebels, and a totalitarian control. In Brave New World everyone must live according to the values of The World State, they are controlled through pleasure.

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Living through the first half of the twentieth century, George Orwell watched the rise of totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Soviet Union. Fighting in Spain, he witnessed the brutalities of the fascists and Stalinists first hand. His experiences awakened him to the evils of a totalitarian government. In his novel 1984, Orwell paints a dark and pessimistic vision of the future where society is completely controlled by a totalitarian government. He uses symbolism and the character’s developments to show the nature of total power in a government and the extremes it will go through to retain that power by repressing individual freedom and the truth.

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