/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17780227]

How could he write against communism when he fought for the communists?

[Anonymous No.17780229]

retard

[Anonymous No.17780230]

He fought for anarchists. He was also kind of dumb honestly.

[Anonymous No.17780240]

>>17780227
He saw how horrific Lenin’s work turned out to be, but he still wanted to believe in the Marxist utopia, like the idealized visions of Catalonia. He spent his last years morning this ideal and trying to articulate where exactly it went wrong. I wonder what he would have thought of Mao?

[Anonymous No.17780243]

>>17780230
he fought for the POUM

[Anonymous No.17780250]

>>17780227
He fought against fascism, anon.
> Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.

[Anonymous No.17780255]

>>17780227
Subhuman britbong

[Anonymous No.17780265]

>>17780227
He fought against totalitarian marxism

[Anonymous No.17780269]

>>17780250
he wrote against the totalitarianism of communism. My point is how could he write against it while having fought for it

[Anonymous No.17780275]

>>17780243
My mistake, he was a Trot which explains his retardation a bit better.

[Anonymous No.17780276]

>>17780265
>>17780250
He fought against Turks

[Anonymous No.17780282]

>>17780269
Not all communism is totalitarian sweetie

[Anonymous No.17780284]

>>17780282
jej

[Anonymous No.17780459]

>>17780227
He was always anti-authoritarian.
When he saw just what Stalin was doing to the USSR he felt that communism(in it's extreme authoritarian form) was just as terrible and devastated as fascism.
His works were not against communism per se, just against authority,in any shape or form.

[Anonymous No.17780480]

>>17780227
Trotskysm is bad Bro

[Anonymous No.17780485]

>>17780227
>how could person write about X when he had real experience dealing with X!?
stupid zoomer

[Anonymous No.17780491]

>>17780459
>it wasn't real communism!
Everytime.

[Anonymous No.17780508]

>>17780491
I am not a commie mate, but communism in theory is not authoritarian. The reality of course is very different.

[Anonymous No.17780518]

>>17780459
>he needs to see it in practice to realise it'll end there
I will continue not reading this brainlet then

[Anonymous No.17780520]

>>17780240
probably would've bought in wholesale for mao, let's be honest

[Anonymous No.17780532]

>>17780518
this was in the 30's, communism was still a new concept in the practice. The USSR was the first nation to follow communism.

[Anonymous No.17780540]

>>17780532
Your understanding of intellectual history makes me cringe

[Anonymous No.17780553]

>>17780540
do you have anything to add to the conversation or are we going to resort in brainlet posting?

[Anonymous No.17780572]

>how could you write against capitalism when you have a job???

[Anonymous No.17780581]

>>17780553
There's not much to add. Every intellectual with a brain had rejected both socialism and communism in the 19th century. You're making excuses for someone being a communist AFTER the Bolshevik Revolution what's there to talk about lmao

[Anonymous No.17780621]

>>17780227
Think about how Catholics and Protestants are both types of Christian, believe in Jesus and so on but have incompatible beliefs and a history of fighting frequently. Orwell was something like a Fabian socialist who had a lot of overlap in sympathies with Trotskyists and libertarian socialists/anarkiddies, and all of those ideological traditions had intense conflict with Stalinists. Orwell never rejected communism, he rejected Stalinism, and because the USSR was Stalinist his books condemning it got popularized by western anti-communists even though Orwell was a red to his death bed.

[Anonymous No.17780653]

>>17780581
http://libcom.org/library/what-was-the-ussr-aufheben-1

[Anonymous No.17780677]

>>17780653
giving someone a reading list of leftist mind vomit isn't a serious argument and has never been. When will you fags learn?

[Anonymous No.17780680]

>>17780653
May as well post an /x/ infograph

[Anonymous No.17780691]

Isaac Deutscher, a Trotskyist who wrote a big biography of Trotsky, wrote a critical review of 1984 that was pretty interesting. Like, an anti-Stalinist Marxist perspective on Orwell, an anti-Stalinist socialist... who wasn't a Marxist, according to Deutscher.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1955/1984.htm

>Like most British socialists, Orwell had never been a Marxist. The dialectical-materialist philosophy had always been too abstruse for him. From instinct rather than consciousness he had been a staunch rationalist. The distinction between the Marxist and the rationalist is of some importance. Contrary to an opinion widespread in Anglo-Saxon countries, Marxism is not at all rationalist in its philosophy: it does not assume that human beings are, as a rule, guided by rational motives and that they can be argued into socialism by reason. Marx himself begins Das Kapital with the elaborate philosophical and historical inquiry into the ‘fetishistic’ modes of thought and behaviour rooted in ‘commodity production’ – that is, in man’s work for, and dependence on, a market. The class struggle, as Marx describes it, is anything but a rational process. This does not prevent the rationalists of socialism describing themselves sometimes as Marxists. But the authentic Marxist may claim to be mentally better prepared than the rationalist is for the manifestations of irrationality in human affairs, even for such manifestations as Stalin’s Great Purges. He may feel upset or mortified by them, but he need not feel shaken in his Weltanschauung, while the rationalist is lost and helpless when the irrationality of the human existence suddenly stares him in the face. If he clings to his rationalism, reality eludes him. If he pursues reality and tries to grasp it, he must part with his rationalism.

>Orwell pursued reality and found himself bereft of his conscious and unconscious assumptions about life. In his thoughts he could not henceforth get away from the Purges. Directly and indirectly, they supplied the subject matter for nearly all that he wrote after his Spanish experience. This was an honourable obsession, the obsession of a mind not inclined to cheat itself comfortably and to stop grappling with an alarming moral problem. But grappling with the Purges, his mind became infected by their irrationality. He found himself incapable of explaining what was happening in terms which were familiar to him, the terms of empirical common sense. Abandoning rationalism, he increasingly viewed reality through the dark glasses of a quasi-mystical pessimism.

[Anonymous No.17780766]

>>17780227
he experienced Stalinist purges during the Spanish civil war, he was more a libertarian socialist

[Anonymous No.17780769]

>>17780621
>Orwell was something like a Fabian socialist who had a lot of overlap in sympathies with Trotskyists and libertarian socialists/anarkiddies, and all of those ideological traditions had intense conflict with Stalinists.
Yeah, I think this is about right. He'd probably support Bernie Sanders or the DSA if he was an American living right now.

It's hard to explain. I think it'd be like... Lula gets elected president of Brazil again, a civil war breaks out (Bolsonaro is Franco), and the Orwell of today goes to fight there, and there's Chinese weapons flowing in on the side of the pro-Lula forces, and there's factional infighting between the pro-Chinese communists who are fighting on the same side as Lula and the more radical left-wing anarchists and Orwell's faction which opposes China for betraying socialism for an authoritarian, bureaucratic regime. Or something. It gets complicated.

[Anonymous No.17780772]

>>17780250
>totalitarianism and for democratic socialism
how do atheists fail to view that totalitarianism is exactly the atheist democracy?

[Anonymous No.17780797]

>>17780691
so basically Orwell wasn't brainwashed enough and his mind wasn't fragmented enough to shut off his mind whenever required by Marxism.
Literally "we've always been at war with eastasia"
holy kekerino

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.17780830]

>>17780769
>He'd probably support Bernie Sanders or the DSA
He’d see through them both

[Anonymous No.17780883]

>>17780797
Well Deutscher was not a fan of the Soviet Union. The problem as Deutscher saw it, I think, is that Orwell just lost his mind... and Deutscher actually knew Orwell personally and there are recollections of him being really paranoid in that article. It's understandable though given the circumstances, but he just couldn't get a handle on all this massively fucked up, irrational shit that went down, so while he was dying and losing his mind, he wrote a very striking novel about giant boots slamming down onto people's faces forever, beginning the black millennium of damnation. And it just freaks people out. People are still freaked out. The irony is that his book was deployed as a tool for Cold War propaganda in American schools -- which is exactly the thing he was afraid of, like Great Power blocs fighting each other just to fight each other to justify oppressing their own people.

Which is how Trotskyists saw things going down and in '68 supported revolts on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Remember, the term "tankies" comes from supporters of the Soviets deploying tanks to crush revolts like that. But that was also going down in Paris. Christopher Hitchens -- a big Orwell fan -- was part of the International Socialists then and they had a slogan: "Neither Washington nor Moscow, but International Socialism." Fun fact, the American version of them, the ISO, dissolved recently and mostly merged into the DSA.

Oh, as far as Orwell's "commonsense rationalism," he wrote an article once about being in the British Home Guard, the civil defense and national guard during the Blitz for older guys with bad knees, and how they were mustered to stand in ranks and drill upon orders from a "Blimp," which is British slang for an old, aristocratic officer who is really jingoistic and full of hot air. Everything that socialists hate, basically. "We're gonna be marchin' UP and DOWN the SQUARE." And he wrote that he so hated this guy, he dreamed of the soldiers bumrushing him and taking him out and declaring a worker's militia on the spot.

Because if you're a socialist, that's just obvious! Why isn't everyone a socialist, it's so obvious!? But it's not obvious. And you're in a war with the fucking Nazis lol

[Anonymous No.17780896]

>>17780275
He said he wished he had fought for the anarchists

[Anonymous No.17780926]

>>17780830
I actually find Orwell funny to read. When I was a teenager I had these collections of Orwell's essays and letters, and that's my favorite stuff from him. Because he was kind of a dope and a fool in some ways, but in a charming way.

One of my favorite articles from him was about writing book reviews for magazines and just how scummy the whole business was. He'd get a stack of books in the mail on assignment to review them, and the books would be just terrible, and he wanted to just write "this is all crap" but that wasn't the job, he had to give the books a "fair shake," so he'd procrastinate for days sitting in a dark room smoking cigarettes, just completely paralyzed with writer's block. Then 24 hours before the deadline, he'd just start cramming, like suddenly he had enormous energy, and crank out some reviews full of boilerplate stuff about how these shitty books are "enlightening... really makes you think."

[Anonymous No.17780944]

It's ironic how many posts there are insulting Orwell's intellect while at the same time accepting wholesale OP's premise that you can't fight for the lesser of two evils.

[Anonymous No.17780977]

>>17780944
Well, I don't think he was a bad guy or a traitor to my cause or whatever. That's just stupid. He was just a guy, a normal, muddleheaded guy born to a French opium speculator. And he got way in over his head and wrote some sci-fi novels. "Orwell's prophecies are coming true!" Nah, not really. Also he was a spy:

https://youtu.be/nOUtFzeMhhA

[Anonymous No.17781114]

He fell victim to doublethink

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.17781120]

>>17781114
No, you all are still thinking in cold war propaganda terms. Stop it.

[Anonymous No.17781128]

>>17780926
>so he'd procrastinate for days sitting in a dark room smoking cigarettes, just completely paralyzed with writer's block. Then 24 hours before the deadline, he'd just start cramming, like suddenly he had enormous energy, and crank out some reviews full of boilerplate stuff about how these shitty books are "enlightening... really makes you think."
he's literally me

[Anonymous No.17781162]

>>17780691
I wonder how self-aware of this he was. Reminds me of Julia's character in 1984, how Winston wanted to overthrow Big Brother and she just wanted to fuck

[Anonymous No.17781193]

>>17780532
I still don't get how all these galaxy brains were so bamboozled by communism. Like these were exceptionally well educated and intelligent men, they'd read loads of history, they knew that every single form of complex society in history had a state composed of an elite minority that was variously oppressive towards its subjects, this is basic stuff. Why on earth did anyone think this iron law of social organization was suddenly going to change after thousands of years and a society without oppression and inequality, somehow ruled by the workers all together, would spring into being? I have similar disbelief when I read the American Founding Fathers but their Republic was not quite as profoundly stupid as communism, they at least realized Democracy was a meme.

It's a cliche but the only explanation I can think of for this widespread lunatic behavior is that it was a replacement for religion after Christianity(or Judaism) had been abandoned.

[Anonymous No.17781225]

>>17781114
>>17780977
>>17780926
>>17780797
>>17780677
Perhaps you aren't ready for serious literature yet. Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro might be more your speed.

[Anonymous No.17781245]

>>17781193
In case you didn't hear him say it for the 400th time, Orwell was in favor of Democratic Socialism, not Communism. That doesn't mean no hierarchy, but a less terribly oppressive hierarchy than the one that existed at the time and continues to exist today.

[Anonymous No.17781269]

>>17781245
I wasn't talking about Orwell specifically but the huge amount of Communists and Democrats of various stripes in the 19th and early 20th century. Orwell's libertarian inclinations though are definitely an example of this naivety. There are certainly differences in the amount of tyranny(or 'totalitarianism') that states engage in but you are very deluded if you think that engaging in some kind of revolution is a good way to ensure the production of a relatively less tyrannical state, there is simply no historical evidence for this.

[Anonymous No.17781272]

>>17781245
Its futile, they are too brainwashed.

[Anonymous No.17781291]

>>17781272
I am not brainwashed whatsoever, perhaps you can explain to me the power structure of Democratic Socialism, show me instances of it existing, or explain why it is plausible that it will ever develop.

[Anonymous No.17781306]

>>17781269
>you are very deluded if you think that engaging in some kind of revolution is a good way to ensure the production of a relatively less tyrannical state, there is simply no historical evidence for this.

"Things are bad, but let's just not do anything to change them"

Great.

[Anonymous No.17781327]

>>17780691
>irrationality in human affairs, even for such manifestations as Stalin’s Great Purges

Literally a genius move which ensured both survival of USSR and victory in WWII ---> "manifestation of irrationality"

[Anonymous No.17781366]

>>17781306
You can do whatever you like, but you should be aware that there is as much chance of making things worse as there is of making them better, there might even be more depending how radical your revolution wants to be.

The impact you can be sure you can have, and that will also be positive is on a very small scale, helping people around you.

[Anonymous No.17781430]

>>17780227
Marxists killed his anarchist buddies.

[Anonymous No.17781440]

>>17781366
>and that will also be positive is on a very small scale, helping people around you.

I'll share with you a recent news that happened in my country

The guy pictured let an Iranian family (mother father two children) sleep in his home for one night.

Now he's accused of "helping illegal immigrants", risks up to three years in jail and a fine of some tens of thousands of bucks

[Anonymous No.17781450]

>>17781366
>>17781440

Sorry, forgot the pic

[Anonymous No.17781472]

>>17781450
they look like leftist agitators to me

[Anonymous No.17781478]

>>17781440
My point is that you cannot realistically do anything about this. This deeply offends people's sense of morality but it's simply true, your moral instincts are designed for living in a small tribe, where your political beliefs and actions actually have consequence and effect change. In complex societies there is always a state, the state can always oppress people, all you can hope for is that the state is relatively less tyrannical. You can flip a coin by doing a military coup or whatever and hope it turns out better. I mean realistically speaking you personally cannot even do that, that's just the only option that can happen, even revolutions however are typically just one elite faction riling up a mob to depose another elite faction.

[Anonymous No.17781491]

>>17781472

You clearly never saw a leftist agitator in your whole life.

[Anonymous No.17781501]

>>17781366
People think change is inherently good -- or, at least, the neo-religious type who worship "progression." As Ted, and others have pointed out, change can, and does, have unforeseen effects that cannot be predicted; and the change, as you rightly pointed out, can even make the situation worse.

[Anonymous No.17781529]

>>17781478
affect

[Anonymous No.17781539]

>>17781491
i've seen plenty fag

[Anonymous No.17781543]

>>17780944
The Republicans where not the good guys in the Spanish civil war.

[Anonymous No.17781549]

>>17781529
No, effect, look it up.

[Anonymous No.17781590]

>>17780227
Because he was a retarded anglo demsoc who bought into his own western chauvinism and disdain for the east.

[Anonymous No.17781619]

>>17781193
>It's a cliche but the only explanation I can think of for this widespread lunatic behavior is that it was a replacement for religion after Christianity(or Judaism) had been abandoned.

yes, you cracked the code, ideology is like a virus who infects everyone who believes it, and manipulates them in irrational ways to preserve itself

[Anonymous No.17782291]

Democratic socialism is an oxymoron

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.17782455]

>>17782291
You don’t know what you’re talking about

[Anonymous No.17783366]

>>17780491
and where did he say that it wasn't real communism?