Some great passages in there. This one could have been written today:<p><pre><code> One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the
renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist
claim that 'bourgeois liberty' is an illusion, there is
now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only
defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves
democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies
by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It
always appears that they are not only those who attack
it openly and consciously, but those who 'objectively'
endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other
words, defending democracy involves destroying all
independence of thought. This argument was used, for
instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent
Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were
guilty of all the things they were accused of. but by
holding heretical opinions they 'objectively' harmed the
régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to
massacre them but to discredit them by false
accusations. The same argument was used to justify the
quite conscious lying that went on in the leftwing press
about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in
the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason
for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was
released in 1943.
These people don't see that if you encourage
totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will
be used against you instead of for you...</code></pre>
> A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.<p>Still true today, as is the observation that it is intellectuals who are most hostile to heterodox ideas.<p>The preface to the preface(not by Orwell, but by the webmaster) whining about how mean people were to leftists--who all went strangely quiet for a decade or more after the Soviet empire collapsed and the true extent of the horrors perpetrated could be fully exposed without a constant barrage of propaganda attempting to bury the details--is a nice illustration of how "truly unpopular" democratic capitalism and the Enlightenment values that underpin it remain.<p>Socialists still steadfastly believe they have the moral high ground, even after they and those almost all of them actively or passively supported had piled up tens of millions of innocent dead. And their support went on for decades after the truth had been thoroughly documented by people like Robert Conquest and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.<p>Orwell stands today, still, as one of the very, very few voices on the Left who called out the Soviets for what they were. He did so early. Decades later most Western leftists were still quietly accepting Soviet hegemony, or actively defending the Soviet regime.<p>So Orwell's voice is notable not just because of his insight and eloquence, but because so few of his comrades had the courage to follow his lead and condemn the Soviets or their puppets in other nations.<p>The fact of his uniqueness is a far deeper condemnation of 20th century socialists than anything he actually wrote, and that's saying something.
I always enjoy reading Orwell's writing, mostly for the technical side. It is so fluid and clear. This was pleasing:<p><pre><code> It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other,
but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times
it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady.
</code></pre>
And as mentioned elsewhere, still applies today (i.e. the British media + the BBC's silence over Snowden, D-Notice or not).<p>A few curiosities from a writing point of view, sticking to his advice about avoiding the traditional elementary school grammar rules:<p><pre><code> . 'Every-one' and 'everyone' in the same sentence. I can just about
see how that could have a literary effect, but part of me thinks
it could just be a quirk.
. Starting sentences with 'and' and 'but'. Great!
. A liberal use of commas.
. The use of a single - dash - combo instead of brackets/parentheses.
. The use of the now-American-only: Start everything after a colon
with a capital letter. Nearly everything, anyway.
. The editor's decision between s/or/of should IMO be 'of',
if the style of the sentence is to match Orwell's style, and indeed
if it is to make complete sense.
. The use of 'traduce', to slander or defame, was fun. And educational...
</code></pre>
A quote to wrap up this rambling comment:<p><pre><code> The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees
with the record that is being played at the moment.
I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom
of thought and speech - the arguments which claim that it cannot exist,
and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply
that they don't convince me and that our civilization over a
period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice.
</code></pre>
Well worth a read!
I remember reading 1984 when I was very young and finding all the linguistic stuff he'd written terribly dull. Coming back to it when I was a teenager, it was considerably more interesting than the book itself. Rare that such a great story teller also had so many interesting structured thoughts to share.