Orwell lived through a time period of complete totalitarianism under the control of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Traveling to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War, Orwell saw the repercussions of what a political regime does to a society. Because of the two men in the Soviet Union, Hitler and Stalin, who created such a sense of disaster and panic throughout the country, Orwell’s hatred for political authority grows even more passionately. He uses his experiences to convey to his audience how it is impossible to have individuality under such a restricted lifestyle. Orwell’s intentions for 1984 were to warn the society what life would be like under complete totalitarianism. He witnessed it for himself first hand in Spain, Germany, and
