A few days ago, the name of George Orwell came to the spotlight during a discussion in the Greek Parliament. In one of their usual dogfights, Prime Minister Mitsotakis and major opposition-Syriza leader Tsipras referred to Orwell's concept of “totalitarianism” in order to attack each other. Mitsotakis quoted the novelist's aversion towards “left totalitarianism”, while Tsipras replied that his party has always been critical towards the actually existing socialism. Their reference to Orwell is no accidental: Despite their particular differences, bourgeois politicians find themselves on the same camp when it comes to anti-communism.
Eric Arthur Blair, commonly known as George Orwell, has been a symbol of enmity against the 20th century socialism. Under the pretext of “anti-totalitarianism”, conservatives, neoliberals, social democrats, progressive leftists and opportunists have idolized Orwell as an uncompromising intellectual who deserves to be respected. His famous allegorical novella, the “Animal Farm”, is considered a masterpiece of literature against Stalin's “totalitarian regime” in the Soviet Union. The so-called Orwell Foundation, based in London, which aims “to perpetuate the achievements of the British writer George Orwell” runs the Orwell Prize seeking to reward books and journalism that “making political writing into an art”.
However, the reality about Blair is quite different from the one the bourgeois propaganda presents. Orwell wasn't merely anti-stalinist or anti-soviet; he was an anti-communist who became an informer on behalf of the British intelligence agencies.
A former officer of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, Blair joined the collaborationist trotskyite Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) during the Spanish Civil War, fighting against communists and anti-fascists. Orwell's participation in POUM shaped his fiercely anti-communist views, covered under the burden of “anti-stalinism”. Between 1941 and 1943, in the midst of the Second World War, he worked in the BBC's Eastern Service. During this period, he wrote a review for Hitler's “Mein Kampf” where he shamelessly admitted: “I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler”.
Although the bourgeois propaganda presents him as an “anti-fascist”, Orwell's hostility was directed primarily against socialism-communism. His much celebrated works, like the “Homage to Catalonia”, “Animal Farm” and “1984” are deeply
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