OT: Orwell (Was: Why not Linux?)

[Paul Osman]

On 2-Sep-06, at 11:19 AM, Zbigniew Koziol wrote:

> On Saturday 02 September 2006 10:57, Rick Tomaschuk wrote:
>> On Fri, 2006-09-01 at 14:05 -0400, Colin McGregor wrote:
>>> I have not read Animal Farm I'm afraid, but I do know
>>
>> Animal Farm is a satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism. Major
>> events in the book are based on ones from the Soviet Union during the
>> Stalin era. (From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
>> Animal_farm ...sorry I
>> don't have Encarta)
>
> Well, wikipedia is certainly either not a fully trustfull source of
> information.
>
> Was 1984 based on Soviet Union? I doubt that. I doubt also that the  
> Animal
> Farm was.
>
> Orwell wrote rather about the possible evolution of the western  
> civilization.
> Was he so wrong? In some sense no: 911 is an example.
>
> zb.

Hard to say exactly what Orwell's feelings about the Soviet Union  
were. Depends on what time he was writing I think. In "Homage to  
Catalonia", he describes his experiences fighting with the Communists  
in the Spanish Civil War. He was a member of the POUM (Workers' Party  
of Marxist Unification) which was eventually outlawed by the  
Communist Party, leaving many members, including Orwell feeling  
betrayed. He also seemed to have a lot of sympathy for the Anarchists  
in the CNT/FAI, who obviously were not fans of the Communist Party in  
Spain or it's backers in the Soviet Union.

I think 1984 and Animal Farm were probably both based on his worries  
about totalitarianism in general... these views were probably shaped  
by both his outlook on Western Civilization and his experiences with  
Soviet backed Communists.

Cheers,
-
Paul
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