I mean the ideas in 1984 were pretty prescient its just that all the horrors he imagined were brought about under capitalist liberal "democracy." The eu parliament has literally put sanctions on eu residents without any form of judicial oversight for appearing on youtube videos saying objectively true things like ukraine is going to lose the war and israel is committing genocide.
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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Under the updated rule 3 please don't downvote OP for asking a question comrades. Everyone is allowed to learn and struggle.
He died eventually. I think I can give him credit for being dead correctly really hard to do that wrong
He died on tuberculosis, which is a long and quite miserable death. Also tuberculosis is sometimes called "poor man's disease" because how much poverty rises risk of catching it, so he had the ironic death for such a useful bougie lackey.
Someone forgot about Juche Necromancy...
the DPRK would not necromancy him
Some truth in the relationship with Westerners and their fascists, even as self-claimed "socialists"; see his praise about Hitler.
Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches. I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power — till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter — I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs — and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme
Had fitting moustache for a time 
Went to hell
SPOILER WARNING!
I know 1984 is a controversial book but if you take this book as fiction its a fun read. Just please don't take this book seriously. They talk about how communists are so corrupt because they make porn. There is so many lies and mud he could throw at communists and he choosed this.
What did 1984 predict?
Well first they predicted that states would start huge surveillance programs using the new technologies to get citizens in line
And as second he predicted that states would use war as a tool of oppression and distraction. People are willing to make sacrifices at the time of war. But if war time is all the time states has all the power over its people.
And as third and the last: Even this was not a prediction as it was already happening to all the communists in capitalist countries. Torture. In the book our main character Winston is subjected to torture for his toughts just like the "Advanced Interrogation Tools' the CIA and US Army has.
He just took what was ongoing in liberal democracies, and their tendrils across the world, and projected it unto his communist boogeyman. It only seemed novel for some because of how backwards western literature was at the time (which is not necessarily the fault of the reader nor a mark against the reader to enjoy liberal media; we just have to recognise what our limitations are and strive for a world where our children may not need to make such concessions)
Purely from the perspective of literary criticism I think 1984 actually sucks tbh.
The prose & storytelling are fine but the characters are dull, the setting nonsensical, there's basically no worldbuilding to speak of which makes the world feel tiny, the plot makes no sense, etc.
Even the "predictions" are pretty lame since a lot of that existed in Orwell's own time (newspeak, doublethink, etc.) and others - like TVs with cameras in every home - aren't all that far-fetched to begin with even in the 50s.
It's honestly an overrated book even by entertainment standards.
I agree with the book feeling clunky, but isn't the poor worldbuilding and constrained world intentional? The reader only knows as much as Winston does, who himself is only privy to State propaganda. That's why you have theories that the entire rest of the world is fine, Oceania doesn't actually exist, and England is a completely isolated fascist state that intermittently bombs itself to maintain the pretense that there's an ongoing World War.
I always thought the world was purposefully tiny to demonstrate the alienation and isolation that one endures when under the full weight of a totemic surveillance state.
The general plot does suck though and I found the book a slog to get through. Though I did find theorizing about the world a little fun.
I'm not talking about the world outside Britain but rather Britain itself. There's no culture or history. There's barely any politics or economics. I understand the government is supposed to be rewriting history, changing the language, etc. but even Nazi Germany wasn't as stale and lifeless as Oceania. The whole society is illogical and devoid of human character. Nothing feels real; everything is empty and dull.
Which is the point since Orwell is perpetuating the "poverty cult" myth of the early USSR but if you know literally anything about human civilization or socialization you know intuitively that Oceania is impossible as a society. It literally could not exist.
Strange, I always considered the absence of human life as a representation of fascism consuming and annihilating every aspect of humanity until all that remains is a stale, dull husk. Plus, if the state is attempting to rewrite history, then destroying culture and tradition seems like a wonderful way to accomplish that goal. Especially if you replace those foundations with those provided by the state, since we hear that the Proles enjoy some forms of 'entertainment' and escapism that are entirely meaningless and state controlled.
Wouldn't a world like that innately be horrifically alienating, especially since Winston isn't even a regular citizen, but a party bureaucrat that is alienated from both the State leadership and the general populace? He's essentially John K in The Trial, Winston's entire life is illogical and devoid of humanity.
Nazi Germany had only six years to form their idealized utopian society, which is barely anything when you're working in a pre-digital world. There was barely any time to do any re-writing or elimination of centuries old traditions, religious beliefs, and community in comparison to the Airstrip which has had nearly thirty years of isolation at minimum. I wonder if Nazi Germany would devolve to a similar level once they were one hundred years into their thousand year Reich. Once the external colonies were all but barren and the state built on worshiping Hitler as a god began to consume itself.
The issue is that Oceania isn't replacing anything.
Actual fascists do try to erase history & culture to rewrite/reshape the national identity but they also try to replace it with a new national identity. Orwell's Oceania hasn't done this. It's destroying its own society without replacing it with a new one.
Would you not say that the State effectively replaced British culture with a perpetual state of emergency and war fervor? With the two minutes of hate, “prisoner of war marches”, war speeches, gamified recruitment and scrap drives, and other emotional outlets, the Airstripe’s culture is essentially an endless Total War, reminiscent of either a late war Germany or Bushido principle. The national identity is war, where nothing matters other than beating the enemy, even if that victory is a purposefully futile task.
We also do know that the nation has vestiges of a civilian culture since Winston mentions the proles consuming football news, sports magazines, mindless pornographic hedonism, and television programs, it’s just that Winston doesn’t partake since he feels alienated from that hollow culture since rewriting the past is his job.
Honestly, I understand what you’re getting at, though I don’t think that culture is inherently necessary to fascist states. The modus operandi of most fascists is an aestheticization of politics that permeates every aspect of Oceania.
Who needs culture when you have porn and your two minutes of hate? That is your culture.
The fascist state doesn't need culture but a human society does.
Nevertheless I see your point and I do partially agree, I just think Orwell exaggerates how much of human identity is annihilated by a fascist system. The bourgeoisie - even a fascist bourgeoisie - still want to preserve some kind of art and history even if it is heavily sanitized and revised to fit their absurd narratives. They are still humans themselves, even if they seem to hate everything good about humanity, and so still need a culture to enjoy for all the same reasons the common prole does. Something beyond just mindless entertainment, which is what Orwell gets wrong: fascism is high class, not low class. There is no poverty cult; there is an opulence cult. This is because it is a capitalist system. But Orwell was an idiot who believed Stalin and Hitler were the same thing with different names with no experience with either system or what they actually looked like beyond anti-communist propaganda. Looking at the content of his "critique" of the USSR it reads almost identical to Trotsky's, indicating exactly where he got his absurd ideas about Stalin from.
The books was supposed to be what happened if England turned Communist with a world structure that makes less sense then the original Red Dawn. Some aspects could apply to European and American societies today.
Doublethink (i.e. immigrants are lazy, but also immigrants are stealing all the jobs. How can they be lazy and be stealing all the jobs? This is the idea of double think as it talks about a person holding two contractionary ideas at the same time.
It talks about mass surveillance, censorship, and facts being replaced by subjective concepts.
The book has very little depth then all other dystopia books and the world is thinly held together. The story is short and not much goes on between beginning and end.
The propagandized people are brainwashes NPCS with less thought and the Thought Police agents are just plain bad guys with a very vague purpose for their action.
The book also comes to the opinion that by creating a controlled language, Newspeak that is dumbed down and with a restrictive vocabulary that will somehow help stop people from thinking critically. This obvious does not actually make sense as critical thinking is different then vocabulary as it is a process of looking at the world.
probably some of the real names of his compatriots he ratted on
Huxley got more right if you read Soma as social media.
The versificator is literally LLM.