To refute contradictory information, Stalin had histories re-written to show that Lenin had favoured his accession to power. Also, he eliminated any critics during the Great Purges of 1934-1938, which destroyed all possibility of future conspiracies. By 1936, when Stalin proclaimed the constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) “the most democratic in the world”, this was hardly so. Under Stalin’s dictatorship, the USSR had become a one-party state where elections were a mockery and membership to the Communist party was, in fact, a privilege. The party was built upon a pyramidical structure with power and privilege for an elite few. At each level of the pyramid existed organisations to generate propaganda, train military personnel, and educate bureaucrats. All of these activities were designed to increase party loyalty and strength. Stalin remained a dictator through World War II until his death in 1953. Five books in particular seem to have had a direct impact on the creation of 1984, too: Zamyatin’s We (1923) and its futuristic, antiUtopian frame; Wells’s anti-Utopian satire When the Sleeper Walks (1899); Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and its regimented society set in the future; Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1941), with its atmosphere of a totalitarian society; and Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution (1941), with its idea of a world controlled by super states. Orwell was asked if his book should be interpreted as prophesy. He answered this question in a letter of June 1949: 3 4 I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will, but I believe (allowing of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences. In 1949, some readers were also concerned that Orwell had set the novel in Britain. Orwell replied, “The scene … is laid in Britain in order to emphasise that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not FOUGHT against, could triumph anywhere.” Adapted from: K. Brodeur, Max notes - George Orwell’s 1984 – REA, 2018 George Orwell : to prove that something is wrong or false : an action or event that is without value. 3. refute 4. mockery