Connor Thurston
Professor Siewers
Terror With a Human Face
7 May 2024
Rewriting History in Totalitarian Regimes
As a work of dystopian fiction, 1984’s INGSOC is Orwell’s depiction of what the totalitarian regimes of his time would look like if they were to grow into the all-encompassing superpower that is Oceania. Because INGSOC has an almost absolutely hold on its party members some of the ways in which they maintain power may seem ironic. For example the party slogan “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” comes off as completely nonsensical to the reader. One would expect that Party members wouldn’t believe this slogan. But instead they recite it like gospel, which is a testament to the control that The Party has over its members. INGSOC is able to make Its members believe ideas which seem completely nonsensical to the reader. Amongst members of the party this technique is called doublethink, and it is derived from a term called doublespeak which is language made with the intent of being obscure and misleading. As a member of the Ministry of Truth, Winston uses doublespeak to change past media articles and newspapers in favor or Big Brother and Oceania. While it is hard to believe that this would be effective today to the extent that it is in the novel, totalitarian regimes have utilized techniques similar to doublespeak and doublethink to sway the minds of their people through the media. In 1984, Winston’s job in the Ministry of Truth is to rewrite historical event to make The Party look more favorable, because totalitarian regimes utilize the media to obscure the truth according to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s accounts in The Gulag Archipelago.
At the beginning of the novel the reader is introduced to Winston’s job at the Ministry of Truth. In Winston’s office there can be found slits in the wall with wire grates underneath it. Orwell states that these slits are referred to as memory holes, and their purpose is the disposal of papers unwanted by party members. “When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of wastepaper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in” (Orwell 37). Winston’s job at the ministry is to edit or destroy previous media which could be held against INGSOC. “The messages that he received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, rectify” (Orwell 38).
Winston’s job isn’t to just edit this newspaper, but to change the messaging behind it to bolster support for INGSOC and Big Brother. For example one of the first articles Winston edits refers to a prediction Big Brother made about the war on the South Indian front. Big Brother’s previous judgment about the war ended up being wrong so Winston is tasked with changing Big Brother’s written address to the public so that it seems like he accurately depicted the right outcome. Any hypocrisy committed by Big Brother is rewritten by the ministry, and the real account of what is tossed in the wire grate to be burned and never seen again. All existing evidence of fault by the Party is erased from the media, and by extension, from history and the minds of the people.
The effects of Winston’s job is seen many times throughout the novel. The messianic image of Big Brother is used to bolster the support of the party members. During the two-minute hate at the beginning of the novel Party members shed tears of joy at the site of Big Brother on the telescreen, due to his image and reputation which has been propped up by the Ministry of Truth in the media. In Orwell’s dystopic future this indoctrination is extremely effective, yet very hard to put into action in the real world. For example it would be nearly impossible to track every real newspaper article and erase it’s existence from the public consciousness, which is a testament to the absolute control which INGSOC holds. Instead totalitarian regimes often resort to an easier tactic which brings about similar results. In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn comments on these tactics in the media. “What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely the hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories” (Solzhenitsyn 120). Solzhenitsyn recalls hearing about the public trials of tried Soviet criminals over and over on the radio.
Solzhenitsyn claims that the information about these public trials was not withheld from the public, but they were still forgotten. He states, “Only things repeated on the radio day after a day drill holes in the brain” (Solzhenitsyn 120). It was not the fact that the unjust and unfair proceedings were hidden from the public or even altered, but they were not covered enough by the media to stick into the minds of the public. By picking and choosing what to “hammer” into the public, the Soviet Union was able to sway the minds of the people of Russia through the media. Even though INGSOC in 1984 has social and political power which is far superior to the Soviet Union’s, they still resort to the same methods to hold power. Propaganda is driven into the minds of the people through the two-minute hate, and through the telescreens which seems to direct the lives of party members. This effects that these tactics have on the people can be seen through the proles of Oceania. When talking to the old man at the bar, Winston is disappointed to find out that he cannot answer any of his questions about the pre-revolution past. The man can only seem to remember arbitrary details, which shows the effect that the Party has had through controlling the narratives of the past. Similar to Solzhenitsyn’s frustration of media control by the Soviet Union, Winston feels that he can never truly recover the past.
Solzhenitsyn feels that the Soviet Union has controlled the narrative of the Gulag Archipelago through the media. By picking and choosing what the nation of Russia will hear on the radio, the Soviet Union effectively swayed the minds of millions of listeners, convincing the nation and the world that the Soviet Union was a just institution. It was only when Solzhenitsyn’s narrative was published in 1973 that the hypocrisy and corruption of the Soviet Union was brough to the world. Solzhenitsyn wrote and recorded what he had heard and experienced in the Gulags, similar to how Winston wrote about the hypocrisy of The Party in his journal. Like Solzhenitsyn Orwell wanted to emphasize the importance of both written history and history in the minds of the public in resisting totalitarianism. If Solzhenitsyn’s manuscripts were to have been found by his captors and burned liked the newspapers in Winston’s office, then the world would never have learned the true and horrible reality of the Gulag Archipelago
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