I learned recently that although identifing as a socialist, Orwell was kind of a crappy dude. He sold out a ton of people he saw as too communist to the British intelligence service in a weird dossier with kinda bigoted descriptions of people.
He was apparently on his deathbed and dying of a disease (I think TB?) That some have said makes you not all mentally there, but it seems unlikely to me that the bigotedness was fabricated entirely by the impact of disease on his mind.
It kinda made me reconsider how I interpreted parts of 1984. He seemed to kinda look down on lower socioeconomic groups and indigenous populations as like baser more animal, less human creatures, and you can kinda see a bit of his McCarthyism in 1984. I found it kinda odd what groups he said he thought would form the authoritarian bougiosie class (sorry I dont feel like looking up how to spell that right now, so you get my horrible butchered spelling)
‘Orwells List’ is rightfully controversial. Im not gonna try and fully defend him siding with the British Goverment against anyone
But I do think to judge him fairly you gotta understand a couple things
it was written in 1949
it called out people who he thought were too closely tied to Stalin’s Russia
the British Establishment at the time were nominally friendly with the Stalin government
Orwell was unhappy with Soviet Communists due to their liberal collaboration and repression of anarchist Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War
Orwell was always explicitly anti-stalinist
So I don’t think he’s immune from historical judgement, but I do think that modern conclusions of Orwell as a kind of ‘counter-revolutionary’ miss a lot of valuable context
He definitely wasn’t just informing on people whom he thought were ‘too socialist’, even if from a 2026 perspective he had more in common with the communists he was listing
And it’s worth noting that this was years before American McCarthyism and the associated witchhunt
Interesting, I appreciate you adding additional context. I dont know how or if it changes my perspective on things but having more info to consider is helpful :)
From a google it does seem like the second red scare (I didn’t know there were two of them) was right around the late 1940s through the 1950s according to Wikipedia. I described it him that way cause thats how one of the people listed in the Wikipedia article on his list described it reflecting on him and I felt it was apt, but if I’m missing about what happened when something I’d welcome additional info and correction ☺️ I’m honestly really ignorant about history and have been trying to learn more lately.
If you wanna share anything more you know about the subject please feel free (no obligation or anything of course)
I learned recently that although identifing as a socialist, Orwell was kind of a crappy dude. He sold out a ton of people he saw as too communist to the British intelligence service in a weird dossier with kinda bigoted descriptions of people.
He was apparently on his deathbed and dying of a disease (I think TB?) That some have said makes you not all mentally there, but it seems unlikely to me that the bigotedness was fabricated entirely by the impact of disease on his mind.
It kinda made me reconsider how I interpreted parts of 1984. He seemed to kinda look down on lower socioeconomic groups and indigenous populations as like baser more animal, less human creatures, and you can kinda see a bit of his McCarthyism in 1984. I found it kinda odd what groups he said he thought would form the authoritarian bougiosie class (sorry I dont feel like looking up how to spell that right now, so you get my horrible butchered spelling)
https://redsails.org/on-orwell/
‘Orwells List’ is rightfully controversial. Im not gonna try and fully defend him siding with the British Goverment against anyone
But I do think to judge him fairly you gotta understand a couple things
it was written in 1949
it called out people who he thought were too closely tied to Stalin’s Russia
the British Establishment at the time were nominally friendly with the Stalin government
Orwell was unhappy with Soviet Communists due to their liberal collaboration and repression of anarchist Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War
Orwell was always explicitly anti-stalinist
So I don’t think he’s immune from historical judgement, but I do think that modern conclusions of Orwell as a kind of ‘counter-revolutionary’ miss a lot of valuable context
He definitely wasn’t just informing on people whom he thought were ‘too socialist’, even if from a 2026 perspective he had more in common with the communists he was listing
And it’s worth noting that this was years before American McCarthyism and the associated witchhunt
Interesting, I appreciate you adding additional context. I dont know how or if it changes my perspective on things but having more info to consider is helpful :)
From a google it does seem like the second red scare (I didn’t know there were two of them) was right around the late 1940s through the 1950s according to Wikipedia. I described it him that way cause thats how one of the people listed in the Wikipedia article on his list described it reflecting on him and I felt it was apt, but if I’m missing about what happened when something I’d welcome additional info and correction ☺️ I’m honestly really ignorant about history and have been trying to learn more lately.
If you wanna share anything more you know about the subject please feel free (no obligation or anything of course)