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I would but I’ve learned not to do that if you want to avoid major spoilers

it doesn’t really matter

Well, considering I’m interested in the rise of fascism in Oceania, it does to me, friend.

Yes and no. The rise of the Party is mentioned in bits and pieces later on in the novel, though it's never laid out in any concrete and long sequence of events, and the parts that are told are from people or sources who are intrinsically unreliable. That last bit isn't really a spoiler, since everyone in 1984, by virtue of falsfiled history and the fallibility of human memory, is essentially unreliable to a degree.

Thanks!

Yeah there seems to be a lot of “unreliable narrator” aspect from all characters so far, including our hero.

No, it actually doesn't matter at all. Just finish the book first, then ask questions.

you’re going to be disappointed then because that’s not what the book is about

This is a very strange post. Why don’t you finish the novel and find out? Is completing the novel dependent on the answer you receive here? Very… weird. My advice to you: it’s a short, easy read, just finish it and find out for yourself.

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback.

Tbh, I may not be emotionally able to finish the book at this time. I get really heavy political anxiety especially around midterms, and I was so stressed reading the book last night I had to take 0.25mg of my Xanax prescription.

I don’t want to just stick my head in the sand with emotionally difficult material, but man this sounds like such a stressful environment to live in (Oceania).

I have had to quit books due to being too dark in the past (a game of thrones, and American psycho for example). I think understanding how things came to be helps me cope better with understanding why things are the way they are, as opposed to just being in the dark the whole book.

That’s why comments like “it doesn’t matter, read the book” aren’t necessarily helpful, bc I don’t know if I want to finish the book if it’s going to be too much. If that makes sense.

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> No, it actually doesn't matter at all.

You don't get to tell people what is and isn't important to them.

While your question is never answered, you should probably stop reading now. The book gets very bleak and hopeless in a way that is terrifyingly real.

yes. very very dark.

Thank you

Not looking for another “the road” experience. That book fucked me up for weeks.

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I know that the post revolution period strongly resembles what happened in Animal Farm, the idea of a totalitarian dictator taking advantage of a popular revolution. You will see a very patchy explanation in 1984 but to get a better idea of "the revolution gone astray" read Animal Farm and think of Big Brother as Napoleon and Goldstein as Snowball.

Wouldn’t telling you constitute a spoiler?

Furthermore, the book isn’t about its own “lore.” If you want world building, read Dune, or The Lord of the Rings.

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Thank you!

I’ll add it to my list. I downloaded “We” and “Brave New World” last night. I mostly stick to Scifi and nonfiction, but I’m dipping my toes into totalitarian dystopias.

I feel like you’re willing a prequel tv series into existence and I am absolutely not here for it.

The book isn’t about the world or its politics, if you expect more than random out-of-context snippets of dubious veracity you’re in for a disappointment.

As someone who refuses to read and watch prequels, I’m with you on this. They’re always poorly made if they’re made with pre existing characters. Takes all the suspense out.

The only prequel movie or book I can think of that I liked was Rogue One, and that is probably because the leads were all new characters.

It's not fascism but a different form of authoritarianism.

That's funny you should say that! I just finished Animal Farm and I'm currently reading 1984! So thanks for the tip lol!

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It’s 100% about its politics.

the best thing you could do, then, is read some history. everything has happened before, and everything will happen again.

For that you should read Fahrenheit 451

Yeah. Stop now.

I agree with others that 1984 is pretty bleak, but I still think it’s worth the read, less for discovering how the Party came to power, and more for discovering how swathes of people buy into the mindset (just as important as preceding power plays).

I think if you’re looking for a book that talks about how those in power come to it, AND has a hopeful ending, you might be interested in:

the House of the Spirits (written by Isabel Allende during the Chilean revolution).

Persepolis -

Maus - both of these are graphic novels but have a lot to say about war, humanity and everything in between.

Slaughterhouse-5 - this is a tough read too, and idk that everyone would agree that it ends hopefully, but imo it does.

I’m sure I can think of others given time, but for now, I hope I’ve given you some solid suggestions, and not just wasted your time. If you stick with 1984, I would love to hear more about your thoughts (even if you don’t like the book).

You think that's bad? Just wait until you get to <sentence redacted>

Thank you! I read SHV and liked it, wasn’t nearly as dark as the Road or Flowers for Algernon.

++ungood

Wow people get needlessly defensive and passive aggressive about a simple question. But no, as already mentioned, it never gets into detail how the party rose to power, and the little bits that are explained are made up propaganda.

It gets really dark as well, and personally I didn’t care for the ending at all. Didn’t make any sense in my mind, or maybe I was misreading things.

There are lot of references that would be familiar to someone at the time the book was written. It implies that it's describing the inevitable results of politics in the late 40s as they would unfold 40 years into the future.

It's very confusing to see that aspect of the book if you read it thinking that 1984 is far in the past. When the book was new, 1984 was far in the future - like a book about 2060 today.

It’s absolutely not, there are no politics in the western sense present, the absence of which is the entire point of the novel. The Party is a faceless monolith with no real ideology, despite its communist roots, beyond self-preservation. Politics implies internal conflict, and the Party would never allow such to exist in any visible sense. Probably the best analogue is the CCP.

Instead, the emphasis is on manipulation of truth, and the horrific abuses such control can enable and require. Oceania’s design as, essentially, Stalinist allows it to act as an indictment of both left and right wing governments and the only “politics” present, Ie the war/alliance with Eurasia is purposefully absurd and shown to demonstrate that politics themselves are a fraud.

Have you looked at Neuromancer or Johnny Mnemonic or Mona Lisa Overdrive?

Answering your question would be a direct spoiler though...

I think the Party has always been in control of Oceania.

It's kinda hinted at but u ultamitly draw your own conclusions. Seems like all the powers made an arrangement to prevent outside influences in their region providing them full control over citizens. Slowey they just began the falsification of facts until citizens could no longer discern

Yes, but unreliably. It's likely a mix of how Hitler and Lenin did, but the details are hard to piece together.

It actually doesnt at all matter as a theme of the book. Orwell makes a point to demonstrate the facts don't matter at all, reality is whatever the party says it is. I think people that have said it doesnt matter are attempting to make a point without spoilers. It can be as important as you want to make it, it is still thematically irrlevant and that isnt an accident or oversight.

> t actually doesnt at all matter as a theme of the book

Which is completely irrelevant to what the OP asked.

oh jeeze. I clicked into this post thinking "OP wants a 'Yes or no' answer" and the top comment is 'Yes and no"

Snowball and Goldstein are the worst!

In a nutshell - It’s heavily implied that a populist working class movement was co-opted by authoritarians and The Party continues to demonize the capitalists as a political scapegoat. But there’s no concrete answer. It’s a huge source of confusion for those who think that the book is an anti-socialist manifesto.

I'm not sure, is it in the appendices? I've scanned them but never really read through them.

This is the correct answer, everyone else here is committing wrongspeak and will be visiting the Ministry of Love in the near future

>Does 1984 ever dive into how the party rose to power? If it does, a simple “yeah keep reading” would work.

>comments like “just read the book” aren’t helpful.

I really don't know what you want.

The closest you get to an explanation is when Winston reads from the Goldstein pamphlet in Part II. But it still leaves a lot to the imagination.

Reddit in a nutshell lol

If you're around in 10 years or so, ask the same question, about which party took over in the good old USA. That should take place in about 2026.

Thank you!

Thank you!

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Thank you!

I’ve read that We, Brave New World, and 1984 were satire parodies of the antithesis to the utopian socialist novels of the time.

Thank you!

Dude, this book hits so close to home right now with the current news media and culture struggle. It’s almost too much.

Not at all. He wants answers to questions that are both unanswered and irrelevant. So youre going to have to explain to me how it isn't irrelevant. You stated it but i am going to need you to qualify that statement..

if he finished the book he would know this.. historical ignorance is thematic in the book, explaining that any further is a potential spoiler, knowing the history blows apart the themes of the book. Orwell makes a point of making this both ambiguous and irrelevant.

If he wouldve asked "is big brother real? Do they ever go into detail about how he rose to power".. you would find similar answers for the same reasons. "Don't know and it's irrelevant and explaining that any further could potentially spoil the book for you so just read it". If Orwell were to give answers to these questions it would ruin aspects of the story completely.

Thank you

George Orwell was highly critical of the elite socialists who spoke of progressivism but had zero interest in being around working class people, but was himself a committed socialist and anti-fascist.

But yeah, since no one is really giving you a straight answer, that’s how I always read 1984 and what I think is implied based on my understanding of Orwell’s beliefs as a person.

You should finish it tho. It’s bleak and disturbing but it’s also an incredibly prescient book that’s worth your time.

It has also always been at war with… I want to say EastAsia. Right?

> Not at all. He wants answers to questions that are both unanswered and irrelevant.

All he wanted to know was if the history was explored. Nothing more, nothing less. He wasn't asking about what is thematic in the book or not.

Get this. Some people are interested in the world building aspects of books, and want to know more about that part of the world.

And really the “How” wasn’t important to Orwell. The fact that Oceania and The Party exist is all that is necessary for him to explore the themes he wanted to. Knowing how it all came about would dilute the story and message.

Thank you!

That’s correct

Eastasia and Eurasia, but never at both, just one or the other.

It has not been, they made newspeak also for people not talking about their past. Other clues are in the book itself, but it has not always been this way!!!

It seems to me that Orwell wanted it to be deliberately vague and let readers allow their understanding of recent events and horrors to creep in. Just the way that hitler and fascism had crept in.. 1949 originally published just for instant context. So it’s yes and no… AND imo most importantly that it could happen anywhere. Of course this is all just speculation on my part but it seems logical. Anyway it’s one of my favorite books ever… and I still remember the first time I read it at 18 and my mind was blown… and I couldn’t stop reading the last 3rd of the book… even though it was 1am…. I had that pit of the stomach feeling but couldn’t stop. It’s only happened a handful of times reading.

You are correct.. at least about the always at war part

That's an interesting way to put it, since it's often referred to as a "political novel". And it is, in some sense, but maybe its core theme is "anti-political". I don't want to directly quote from the text (no spoilers), but one character essentially says just that: the party believes in nothing but the pursuit of power. There's no ideals, no vision, nothing that makes for a political project. Just control.

Love Gibson.
Thou if we're make recommendations. Accelorando, by Charles Stross.

It's never explained how the party got to control Oceania, or it's citizens to such a degree. Orwell's other famous novel, Animal Farm however, does give you a way it could have happened, modelled on the October Revolution in Russia that led to Communist rule of that country.

Exactly, which if anything makes it even more poignant. Depoliticization of the population is a driving strength of the worlds most powerful authoritarian regimes. While I’m sure they’d love to have everyone take their party line, it’s enough to sow doubt that anything whatsoever is actually true. Depoliticized people will still pay taxes and they’re a lot less likely to get funny idealistic ideas about revolution than patriots.

There is a prequel, at least in a thematic sense, it's called Animal Farm.

I am pretty sure it is just EastAsia we’ve always been at war with. At least that is what the Ministry of Truth says, and if you can’t believe them, we’ll, let’s just say you’ll be getting a visit from the Ministry of Love next.

It basically just hints that the intellectuals of the country got together and were sick of the past government so decided to have a revolution and they just became more authoritarian.

Someone's askin' for a rattin'

Well said. I was going to respond with the same. Also the party controls history. The past is a part of the myth/story of the party. I can imagine that North Korea assumes year 1 started with the communist revolution, there was no Korea before that.

If you want intelligent answers you don't say "no spoilers".

There was a good reason why Orwell didn't want to be specific. I doubt we can discuss it without triggering your bugaboo, and I'm not about to try.

I was really disappointed in We. I stopped after about 70% of the way through. I just got so tired of the prose, going on and on about his love interest. I just kept thinking man can we get on with the story and stop all of this nonsense. Finally I didn't care if he was killed or not, or the fate of any of the characters.

>I’m dipping my toes into totalitarian dystopias.

Aren't we all, these days.

Double-Plus-Good this post is.

You might like to read Homage to Catalonia, Orwells account of the Spanish Civil War, his experiences there greatly determined his ideas for animal farm and 1984, along with his experience of war time Britain.

The how CAN be important to Orwell. That’s exactly what Animal Farm is about; he literally looked at the current state of Stalinism, looked at the revolution and Leninism, and said “how did we get here? I’ll write that story, but about animals!”

Sorry, I should have been more precise with my language. The “how” wasn’t important for “1984”. You are absolutely right about it being very important for “Animal Farm”.

I believe North Korea says something like "Korea (the only Korea that deserves being called Korea) exists as it always was meant to be, the Korea of the past was just the (flawed) predecessor to the perfected state that exists now." Or something like that. I'm not an expert.

In cases like this, tying parts of the modern nationalism to tradition and history is both valuable, but also generally itself a distortion and control of history. A fascist in Italy in the 40s can claim, "We as a people had been pushed from out path to greatness, but we can rebuild the Roman Empire to be what it was always meant to be, the Italy that we always have been."

It doesn't deny the complete existence of the past, but exploits it and twists it to say, "All the good parts of the past - for our definition of good, and even if they didn't exist - are actually parts of our modern revolution. All the bad parts were someone else."

IIRC, it does not.

"If not, what do we think caused the rise to power?"

The usual I imagine. External threats (real and imaginary) coupled with internal chaos and extreme economic inequality. Mussolini was supposedly initially pretty popular because he made the trains run on time. Franco guaranteed private property rights for the wealthy landowners and church.

"Well. In my experience, I get a LOT of shit spoiled that way. "

Preach. One time I google'd a character from a book that got made into a movie to see what the actress who portrayed her look like, and front and center on front page "People also ask" section was "Why did X kill herself?" Another time it was "Why did X kill Z?" so yeah, learned not to do that anymore.

I don't think this matters how the party comes into power just that they are. That's what makes 1984 so scary.

Its pretty directly referencing Stalinism and applying it to the UK, some examples:

• 2+2=5 was a stalinist propaganda slogan

• The 180° turns in foreign policy and propaganda mirror similar turns in Soviet propaganda from being anti-german then suddenly pro-german following the signing to the Molotov-Ribbentrov pact to then switching suddenly back to anti-german following the German invasion in 1941.

• The omnipresent Big Brother mirrors Stalin (although Hitler wasnot dissimilar)

• Goldstein is Trotsky

...I recommend reading 1984 and then reading Child of the Revolution by Wolfgang Loenhard, an autobiographical account from a then young German on the periphery of party politics in the Soviet Union 1938-45 (before going back to Germany to build up the GDR to be to his defection in 1949), its a long book but well worth the read.

Yes and no. Depends on interpretation.

;P

>essentially unreliable to a degree

There may not even be an Eastasia.

Read the book, it's like 150 pages...

Exactly. like... Just read the damn book it's 150 pages or something.

Just read the book lmfao are you ten years old

I think this statement fails to capture for some folks the importance of history. Knowing what happened in the past is one thing, understanding why things happened in the past is another thing. People with a failure of imagination know that fascism rose to power in WWII, but see no modern parallels because they never realized the purpose of learning history was to relate the past to the present.

Same. It’s great as a horror book, especially to young readers.

When I read it as a youth it really destabilized my concept of government. It’s not permanent and people can get desperate and give themselves to fanaticism. Even regular people can decide to give fascism a try.

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Yeah it's called watching modern politics.

Setting aside your question for a minute – don’t make a demand for no spoilers and then go into detail about things that happened in the first 60 pages. You’re likely not the only one on this sub who hasn’t read the book.

No, I don't think it's the point of the story. The focus seems to intentionally be on how this could really be any government in any time in modern history. And the lack of specifics speak more to the government's freedom with facts any way. A true masterpiece.

More than double that

Oh well in that case, I recommend they read the book

how are you asking and not asking for spoilers at the exact same time... smh just finish the book.

The biggest generational divide between boomers and millennials I've noticed is the "The third wave experiment".

Millennials all learned in school that fanatical authoritarian govts can appear anywhere.(1984, McCarthyism, Nazism, The Third Wave experiment movie, etc) Heck, they even use USA McCarthyism as an example of it almost happening in the USA. Boomers just learned that Nazis were evil scum and it clearly must have been because of the moral failings of the German people.
This also drives a lot of the "Trump=Hitler" debate. When a millenial says that Trump is acting like Hitler, they mean that Trump is using a lot of the same populist tactics that Hitler used. When a boomer hears that comment, they assume that the person is trying to simply say Trump is evil. It leads to numerous thanksgiving day arguments where some old Uncle tries to lecture the young kids about how Trump isn't trying to murder anyone.

1984 was an attempt to highlight the concept for the boomer generation, but I think many of them missed the message.
edit:expanded on the initial idea

Around chapter 17 there’s a bit more information, not sure if it is super specific though

Struggling with 'we'. It really isn't written how I expected

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Please post 'Should I read X book''What do I need to know before I read X' questions, in our Weekly Recommendation Thread.

Personal conduct

Please use a civil tone and assume good faith when entering a conversation.

I read "1984," "Brave New World," and "The Iron Heel" consecutively when I was 17. Little dystopian kick!

The evil bit is kind of implied, don't you think? Nobody says "That boy likes painting... like Hitler!"

I think it would go a lot better if populism were only used by one side. There have been a number of "populist" candidates, so clearly populism wasn't the comparison they were going for.

The implication is that a Hitler-esque populist movement can quickly turn violent and ugly. See "the third wave".

It isn't just the populism, but using the same levers and toolbox as Hitler. Nationalism, patriotism, populism aren't necessarily bad, but if you use them the way Hitler used them? If you create a cult of personality around yourself, invoke a mythical (and non-existent) past glory to which we should return? If you single out groups as scapegoats? Blame modern culture for all of the problems?
Now you aren't just a populist. You are basically borrowing Hitler's playbook.

That’s not relevant to my post, though.

Oof 2real4me

Are you not asking what to expect from a book you have not yet finished reading? Are you not asking if you should keep reading to have your question answered in the section you have not yet read?

I am asking those things.

Which is not the reasons you listed you removed it.

I did not ask for a recommendation, and I didn’t know what to expect before reading it’s

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It's more than that. If something has a beginning, then you can deduce there's a before. If there's a before this means that things can change.

The party is trying to erase its beginning to make itself appear eternal, as the only ways things could ever be. It wasn't deliberately vague to let people imagine. It's part of the political agenda of the party to rewrite human nature to ensure it can't be removed.

The recommendation thread is not only for recommendations, but also for asking what to expect from a book you have not yet read and/or if you should continue reading. Your question is exactly that, asking what you should expect and/or if you should keep reading.

If you want to discuss the intricacies of how the party rose to power, you would need to read the book first and offer your own answer supported by the text you read.

McCarthyism was trying to stop an authoritarian govt in the form of communism. Going back and reading actual updated unbiased history has shown McCarthy was dead on right.

Going back and reading, we can see that McCarthy violated the civil rights of hundred of Americans.

There is absolutely nothing in the constitution that says you can punish someone for their political ideology, and quite a lot in the Constitution that forbids the govt from punishing someone for their political ideology.

Up voted. I just wish the comparison hadn't been used on every conservative. In particular, the Remain in Mexico policy (holding people who want to get into the country while they're being checked) has been likened to death camps (corralling people who want to leave the country so we can enslave and murder them). At this point, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" comes to mind.

To someone who wants no hierarchy, any hierarchy is indistinguishable from a fascist hierarchy. The further left you go, the more everything becomes Hitler.

Thank you

But the comparison is somewhat apt. Hitler used "Jews, gays, and communists" as his scapegoats. While Trump used "the politically correct woke mob, the mexicans, etc" as his scapegoats.

Both Hitler and Trump threw out a ton of legislation without any explicit policy behind it with the intent of attacking those groups with which they disagreed.

I get your concern, but I dont exactly remember a lot of people saying that Bush was acting like Hitler.

I'd suggest that depolitisisation of the population is a phenomenon in most modern states, even outside of the obviously authoritarian ones. Whether as an actual strategy (e.g. pioneer of information warfare, Post-Soviet Russia, where nothing at all is really "real"), or simply as a by-product of the modern capitalist system, which cleverly creates atomised individuals who necessarily find thinking politically to be difficult (almost every state, and they're only slightly less propagandistic).

Right, looks like I'm reading 1984 again. You've inspired me. :P

This is a list of the big ones, and it handily includes a reference to calling Obama Hitler, too, lest it be forgotten how trivial the comparison needs to be to bring him up by either party. There was also an ad campaign about Bush being Hitler from MoveOn.org.

In short, starting a foreign war means you're Hitler.

But those attacks seem to all be Hitler=evil type.

Exactly. Hence my "boy who cried Wolf" comparison.

I think we're agreeing, but I'm also saying that it's been used to imply evil so long that it has lost meaning as an actual, historical example. One could easily say, "He endorses federal PSAs, like Hitler," and people would think you're against PSAs rather than just noting a historical fact. It sets the tone as automatically hostile. Hostile people, in politics, tend towards bias. Nobody wants to listen to them (unless they share the bias). It is ineffective to make the comparison in nearly all cases.

We are agreeing, but I am trying to make the point that "crying wolf" would have been appropriate if it had been saved for Trump.

Additionally, I think that some of the older generation could NEVER see it as appropriate because unless the person is advocating for the extermination of an entire race, then they are nothing like Hitler

Love it!

I’m not trying to be offensive, but maybe it would be wise to temper the extent to which you allow your emotions to decide whether you finish a book or not.

It’s hang ups like this that allow the totalitarian-for-profit to achieve further control. People are too sensitive and can’t withstand discomfort even when the discomfort is caused by something as harmless as a fictional dystopian novel.

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