Joseph Stalin 1984 Analysis

1984’s Warning to the World The original intent of communism was to form a utopian society where there is no government or centralized power, and the whole population is equal. However, history has proven that countries which attempted to achieve this goal usually ended up with a powerful dictator who exercised complete control over society. More specifically, this occurred in 1924 when Joseph Stalin gained control of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union and eventually became the nation’s totalitarian ruler. Utilizing a highly centralized government and a powerful police force, Stalin ensured the obedience of his people and protected his position of power. He executed all potential threats to his power, created outlandish laws to maintain …show more content…
Stalin’s greatest fear was the loss of power. He implemented technology in order to spy on his people and created a specialized taskforce to find all possible rebels. All possible threats were executed or disappeared from existence. Orwell emphasizes this loss of privacy under totalitarian rule in 1984 through the creation of highly advance surveillance technology that allowed constant supervision over Oceania. For example, “the telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision…he could be seen as well as heard.” The Party takes the fear or rebellion to new heights as they monitor the life of every citizen. No person can ever talk negatively about the party for fear of being heard by the government. Orwell also creates a character who works undercover for the Party in order to find possible rebels. O’Brien acts as a friend towards Winston and pretends to support Winston’s thoughts on rebellion. However, once Winston was captured and tortured it is revealed that, “it was O’Brien who was directing everything. It was he who set the guards onto Winston.” O’Brien never supported the rebellion against the Party and only befriended Winston to investigate him. This clearly resembles Stalin’s undercover squadrons. Orwell …show more content…
His creation of advanced surveillance technology and undercover task forces for the party were used to represent the loss of privacy in a totalitarian regime and paralleled the strategies already implemented by Stalin at the time. Stalin’s propaganda techniques correlate with Orwell’s Newspeak and the Ministry of Truth which again emphasized the loss of freedom of speech and individual thought. Finally, Orwell’s Ministry of Love showed the power the party obtained through fear and violence, resembling the radical and sadistic punishments enforced by Stalin in the 1940s. Orwell wanted to warn his readers that a communist society will result in a totalitarian regime that will limit individual freedoms and thought. In theory, communism provides a utopian society without the control of a government, but in practice, a dictator arises and, ironically, a highly centralized government is