Comment by indubioprorubik
6 hours ago
Eh, orwell got his fare share of socialisation with socialism in spain and became a ardent anti-communist (more anti-totalitarian after seeing what this "experiment was all about" when it betrayed the anarchists).
Its like animal farm a staunch criticism of the communist experiment and the societies it would form. The history rewritting was actually a typical socialist society pehnomena, going so far that china basically erased its whole past permanently. Its a incredible young country (barely 70 years old) and had to reimport a ton of its culture from taiwan!
Orwell lived through the hyper akward year, where hitler and stalin where allies and best friends - and thus saw the moscow controlled part of the international defending facists as best friends for a year, right after they stabbed the anarchists in the back in spain.
The Spanish civil war turned him into a socialist. His anti-stalin/anti-Soviet streak was in no way anti-communist. perhaps you shouldn't be so weasel-y with your wording.
Nope. He was unapologetically socialist before his involvement in the Civil War, and that conflict actually did make him anti-communist, and an anti-authoritarian. Socialism of the kind Orwell supported and communism of the kind we have seen in the world are two very different things.
For those reading who are curious on which comment is accurate, I would encourage you to read up on it to confirm for yourself. It's a highly fascinating subject to read about.
Another thing the Spanish Civil War did make Orwell was a hardcore realist.
"Half a loaf of bread is better than no loaf."
june 1937, in a letter to Cyril Connolly, written in Barcelona during the Civil War;
>‘I have seen wonderful things and at last really believe in Socialism, which I never did before.’
He was a libertarian socialist at various points, sure, but you're painting him as something he wasn't. He was avowedly a socialist throughout most of his adult life even if he wasn't playing patty-cake with the Trots and the MLs and various other 20th century Euro-centric leftist revolutionary groups