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Comment by latentcall

2 days ago

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He literally fought fascists. And during that time became anti-communist. He was a socialist in the end and against both extremes. I think he was involved with The Labour Party after the war - can you explain your view?

  • Unless we are literally doing Orwellian doublespeak, he was pretty much the polar opposite of a fascist/authoritarian. He was against strong central governments and was quite critical of his own government (In one of the diary entries even lamenting that the germans failed to jam one of the British propaganda broadcasts).

    > Nehru, Gandhi, Azad and many others in jail. Rioting over most of India, a number of deaths, countless arrests. Ghastly speech by Amery, speaking of Nehru and Co. as “wicked men”, “saboteurs” etc. This of course broadcast on the Empire service and rebroadcast by AIR. The best joke of all was that the Germans did their best to jam it, unfortunately without success.

  • I suspect we'll never know, but it's somewhat typical of blithe idealists who would rather hear supportive platitudes than confront hard decisions or tradeoffs. Painting complex individuals who are a product of their time (pretty much everyone) with a broad reductive brush makes life decisions easy and forces others to deal with reality. It was a fairly effective trope from the 60s to the 2010s (the end of history), and even Chomsky failed to really spot the turning point for the Manufacture of Discontent until 2020, a solid 4 years too late. Now they seem lost in the old narrative, fighting old inconsequential battles in a new world.

    • George Orwell wrote a lot, and not just novels. It's actually pretty easy to know where he was, politically: he wrote political columns in the newspaper and you can read them.

  • what is the difference between socialism and communism

    • the guy hated the USSR for its authoritarianism. And he hated lefties who forgave Communist crimes.

      Anyway, I really like this piece of his:

      https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

      > During the years 1918-33 you were hooted at in left-wing circles if you suggested that Germany bore even a fraction of responsibility for the war. In all the denunciations of Versailles I listened to during those years I don’t think I ever once heard the question, ‘What would have happened if Germany had won?’ even mentioned, let alone discussed. So also with atrocities. The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.

    • It's all just labels.

      "United" States of America. "People's" Republic of China. "Democratic People's" Republic of Korea.

      At the end of the day you either get services in return for your taxes, or you don't.

      1 reply →

    • Depends on your definition amd usually requires more specific words, like marxist style socialism, anarcho communism, maoism ...

      Very trivially speaking, socialism is communism light.

    • Bertrand Russell published a collection of essays in 1935 titled _In Praise Of Idleness_ which are well worth reading.

      One of the essays is called _Between Scylla and Charybdis_ (the original rock and a hard place!) which explains why he rejects the commonly accepted idea that an intellectual should naturally be politically either a Communist or a Fascist. Remember Fascism was not a dirty word at this point; the Nazis destroyed it's legitimacy through their actions.

      Anyway, if you want a better understanding read that. And the rest because they're very interesting.