George Orwell's '1984': A Modern Marxism

Gerardo Moreno

Professor Darius A. Frasure

ENGL 1302-63203

February 26, 2016

“1984” – A Modern Marxism Critique Outline

1. Introduction

a. Communism, an ideology so taboo, it is considered treason against one’s nation to believe in.

b. In this essay, I will be critiquing the novel, “1984” by George Orwell.

c. “1984” is the embodiment of the totalitarianism, a parody of the government entity having a power trip and concealing knowledge and controlling minds for the sake of power.

d. Through a small scope of the social mechanics in Oceania. George Orwell is not only able to criticize the problems with Marxism and social communism through parody and projection of a totalitarian dystopia, but also points out the inconsistencies with the government

There were three main different classes including the inner party, outer party, and the proles. ii. In Marxist theory, there are only two classes in capitalist economies. There are the bourgeoisie, which consists of business owners, capitalists, and employers, and there are the proletariat, which consists of the workers, or wage slaves who sell their labor to the bourgeoisie. iii. In a communist society, private property is nonexistent, eliminated the distinguishing feature between the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. iv. In Oceania, the private property is also nonexistent.

v. The classes had traits, such as the proles being the most populated party, and the inner party having luxuries of being able to deactivate their telescreens. vi. “The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.” (Engles and Marx 14). vii. “The great majority of proles did not even have telescreens in their homes” (Orwell 41).

b. Oceania’s communist regime was not successful socially in the sense that people were curious, and forced labor camps and torture chambers needed to be implemented to “reprogram” people.

i. Books and ideas were rewritten to otherwise obvious

Although communism was a direct solution to the evils of industrial capitalism, workers like Winston and Julia did not truly enjoy their jobs, and even the of proles wished upon becoming rich through a lottery system, ultimately showing that communism enslaved the workers the same way a capitalist system would. iv. For example, the Ministry of Plenty would repeat the word “happy” after informing people of “winning the battle for production,” as to tell the people what to think, force them to swallow the information. (Orwell 32)

v. “[The Lottery] was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant” (Orwell 49).

c. One might object to argue that George Orwell never directly admitted the society of Oceania operated under a communist party.

i. While this is true, the structure in how labor is divided, the context in which the book was written, and the political ideas and statements posed through other works of literature by George Orwell, a communist system must be in operation in Oceania. ii. Private property is nonexistent, which is how Oceania’s labor system works. iii. The context during the writing of the book was during Stalin’s dictatorship of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), during which millions of citizens died under his reign due to poor standards of living, among other