When the topic of totalitarian regimes was introduced in history class, the teacher asked for the first part of the book titled “1984” to be read. This remarkable work, written by George Orwell, predicts with unprecedented accuracy the methods used by dictators at both political extremes to manipulate the masses. “Animal Farm”, on the other hand, although it addresses the same themes, gives more the impression of a psychological analysis novella than anything else. Certainly, the fact that it is written in the third person somewhat opens the door to interpretations of the psychological and moral status of the characters. In turn, this opens the gate to criticism of the totalitarian political figures of the 20th century, revealing a good part of their motivations.

Both works are highly relevant, both in the context of studying the reasons that led to the great atrocities of the 20th century and for preventing them. At the same time, exactly 34 years after the collapse of the USSR, humanity is facing a new devastating ideology, potentially fatal if it is not stopped quickly. This is about political correctness, this wave of hypocrisy and pharisaism directed against the “unenlightened”, this absurd ideology, shaped with the help of equally absurd statements by indoctrinated pseudo-specialists, who use the little knowledge they have accumulated to deny the dichotomy between the sexes and to favor a certain “oppressed” category of individuals.

With this in mind, this article is to be read with an open heart and mind. There is a moral duty to pay attention to history and to the times in which people live, to detect the traces of totalitarianism and to put an end to it. The great mistakes that led to the rise of totalitarian regimes must not be allowed to repeat themselves. Vigilance and awareness are essential.

George Orwell’s works and totalitarian regimes: a detailed analysis.

The focus here is on the author’s two main books: “1984” and “Animal Farm”. It is worth mentioning that the first part of the former is the most relevant for this study and, therefore, only this section will be addressed. There is no claim to expertise. This work represents personal reflections, as well as characteristics that George Orwell predicted with an extraordinary visionary spirit.

The action takes place in a dystopian world, in the heart of London. The year is 1984 and Winston Smith, a member of the Party, returns to his home after an ordinary working day. The block of flats in which he lives is dilapidated. The paint is peeling and the heating works at only half of its maximum capacity. After he gets home, probably to calm his horror at the world around him, he pours himself a glass of a low-quality, oily drink: “Victory Gin”. Then he takes a cigarette from a pack of “Victory Cigarettes” and lights it. Little by little, the scale of the disaster that has engulfed London is revealed. The Party is led by an individual called “Big Brother”, whose antagonist (in the Party’s sick narrative), Emmanuel Goldstein, is blamed for every shortcoming.

Even worse are the Party’s slogans: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Above everything, on a poster, looms a life-size portrait of Big Brother. His eyes scan the horizon and seem to follow the viewer from every angle. Beneath the poster is the inscription: “Big Brother is watching you.” There is mention of telescreens (devices that can simultaneously transmit and receive sounds and images) and of the “Thought Police”. It is also revealed that there is no freedom of the press, and newspapers are altered daily to cast Big Brother in an ever more favorable light.

This description (of the various products with almost identical names; of the poor living conditions to which Winston is subjected) simultaneously shows that, in communism, most products are manufactured within the state, and that the standard of living is low. One can take the example of North Korea (or, as some call it, the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”, although, to be honest, no truly democratic country feels the need to flaunt its democracy) or that of China. Only from 1978 onward, with the adoption of certain capitalist features, did China begin to experience economic growth.

Big Brother is a foreshadowing of the skilled dictator, and it would not be at all wrong to compare him to Stalin, Hitler, or Mao Zedong.

At the same time, the fact that the Party uses Goldstein as a scapegoat reveals another characteristic that can be observed in most totalitarian regimes, both present and past. Hitler’s “Goldstein” was represented by anyone who did not share his deranged views or whom he considered inferior. Thus, Roma and Jews were races that had to be exterminated, while Slavs (Ukrainians, Russians, Poles) were peoples who had to be subjugated to the Aryan race.

In contrast, in North Korea the enemy is not a specific race, but rather a nation: the United States. It is common in the DPRK to display propaganda paintings. There are even entire museums dedicated to the “war crimes” committed by Americans, such as the museum in Sinchon.

Of course, part of this “Anti‑USA” hatred comes from frustration and envy. North Korea is on the verge of demographic collapse. The problem is so serious that Kim Jong‑Un shed tears live on North Korean television in December 2023, begging North Koreans to have more children. Besides the demographic problem, there is also the economic one. North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world. All this, while the USA is one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

Progress, as can clearly be seen, is impossible in socialist countries. Why? Because the party promotes obedient people, not capable ones. In capitalism, that is precisely the beauty of it! Progress happens because people question how well what they currently have actually works. In socialism, this is not possible. One must take everything the party says as a given, or at least pretend not to question it, no matter how illogical it is. Clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson explains this in the best possible way:

“What will actually save you? The totalitarian essentially says: ‘You must rely on faith in what you already know.’ But that is not what saves you. What saves you is the willingness to learn from what you do not know. That is where faith in the possibility of human transformation appears. That is where faith in the sacrifice of the current self for the self you can become appears.”

In “Animal Farm”, for instance, Orwell uses an allegorical style to represent different human typologies. At first, the animals live in the bondage of Mr. Jones, but after a warning from the oldest pig on the farm, they revolt and take over its leadership. Among the pigs, the smartest animals, two main contenders for the leadership of the party emerge: Napoleon and Snowball. In honor of the revolution, they draw up the party’s commandments:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend

3. No animal shall wear clothes

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed

5. No animal shall drink alcohol

6. No animal shall kill any other animal

7. All animals are equal.

The animals remain free until Napoleon stages a coup and seizes power by force. Snowball is, of course, driven out, as he is the main contender for the leadership of the party. From then on, any irregularity serious enough to alarm the other animals is blamed on Snowball. Did the windmill collapse? It is Snowball’s fault. Did another disaster occur? It is Snowball’s fault. Napoleon goes so far as to claim that Snowball’s heroic deeds in the battle that secured the freedom of “Animal Farm” never happened. Little by little, as their mental lucidity is called into question, the animals become easier and easier to manipulate. Because, after all, if the only thing truly possessed (lucidity) is taken away, one becomes nothing more than a simple puppet of the party, isn’t that so?

Thus, long gone are the days when the farm was a place full of joy and abundance. Napoleon breaks all the commandments. Some he even changes: “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause” or “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” At one point, the sheep, who in the period immediately following the revolution bleated: “Four legs good, two legs bad,” were now shouting “Four legs good, two legs better,” precisely because Napoleon and his cronies now walk on two legs.

Thus, the interests of the party take precedence over the interests of the people. Socialism, the ideology that set out to combat social disparity, is also the one that, paradoxically, produced the greatest differences between people. Orwell illustrates this through the absurd policies adopted by Napoleon which, to be honest, are not that far from the truth! In North Korea, for instance, the portrait of the dictator Kim Jong-Un must be hung in every home and, in the event of a fire, saving it must be prioritized over saving family members.

Christianity is also persecuted in North Korea. The “grand” Orthodox cathedral in North Korea is nothing more than an attempt by the corrupt North Korean state to cement its relations with Russia and, implicitly, with Putin. If someone is caught carrying a Bible, they face hard labor in a labor camp. Children are also encouraged to denounce their parents to the authorities.

With incredible foresight, Orwell predicts this as well. In “1984” he details how children are urged to denounce their parents to the Thought Police. For some readers, a feeling of unease arises when reading these lines. Throughout the modern era, the West has been an example of democracy and freedom. Yet Orwell’s writings are also representative of the modern period. Under the banner of “social inclusion” and “gender identity acceptance” (a concept invented by John Money in 1955 on the occasion of an experiment later proven to have failed), in the United Kingdom, parents who do not agree with “gender-affirming therapy” and whose views on this subject clash with those of their children can be arrested. The probability is small, of course. But it is even more common for children to be forcibly taken from their parents by the courts for so-called abuse. This is exactly the kind of totalitarianism Orwell writes about.

At one point, a colleague of Winston's, Syme, shares with Winston in his exaltation that he is working on the foundation of a new language, "New-Speak", which is nothing more than the joining of the most commonly used words and the abolition of synonymy, thus reducing the complexity of language. Syme continues:

"Do you not understand that the only purpose of the New Speech is to limit the area of thought?! By the end, we're going to make thought-crime literally impossible, because there are no more words to express it in. Every concept that could ever be necessary to anyone will be expressed in one word, with a strictly defined meaning, and with all other secondary meanings erased and forgotten. [.] How do you think you could still have a slogan «Freedom is slavery», when the very concept of freedom will be abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different, in reality, there will be no thinking, in the sense that we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not having to think. Orthodoxy means lack of conscience."

The more limited people are, the easier they are to control. Smart people are not looked at with good eyes in socialism. Wh-why? Because they can think for themselves, they can ask awkward questions, and more than that, they can be viewed as leaders by the population. The regime does not accept that anyone has more control over the people than the party. In Romania, for example, people of culture were persecuted. Censorship was the order of the day, and much of the intellectuals of the time endured communist prisons, some even being liquidated. Experts with monumental cultural achievements include Nicolae Steinhardt, Constantin Noica, Arsenie Boca, and many more.

The fear of being eclipsed is also reflected in the party's attitude towards religion. Across Soviet lands, tens of thousands of religious sites were destroyed. If we talk about Orthodox churches, in 1917 there were 50,000 Orthodox churches. As of 1941, there were just 1,000.

Regarding the modification of language, this can already be seen in action. Political correctness changes the meaning of words with unprecedented ease, thus opening the door to linguistic inaccuracy and ambiguity. The category “woman,” for instance, has been emptied of meaning because of the expansion of the pool of people who can fit into it. If a woman is no longer “any person with X and Y chromosomes” and instead “anyone who feels like a woman,” the term becomes irrelevant.

To make a brief comparison, it would be the equivalent of granting the title of “Doctor” to everyone who “feels” like a doctor, regardless of whether they have earned a doctorate or not. In the absence of an objective difference between a “Doctor” and an ordinary person, the term would become meaningless. What difference would there be, for example, between ordinary people and doctors? Without a dichotomy between these two categories of people, the term would be abolished, no longer helping companies choose the most qualified employee between two individuals, for instance.

A similar example is the word “homophobia.” From an etymological point of view, the word homosexual means “attracted to the same sex,” “phobos” means “fear” or “warning,” and “homophobia” should mean “fear of homosexuals.” Yet this is not what happens. Woke activists have altered the word in such a way that it signifies what they needed it to signify. How is it, for example, that arachnophobia does not mean “hatred of arachnids,” but “fear of arachnids”? Is it really just a coincidence that this is the only exception to the rule?

Part of Orwell’s genius lies in his extraordinary stylistic ability. In Animal Farm, for instance, the entire action becomes all the more metaphorical once it is realized that the whole story unfolds in a loop. The animals start from bondage, go through a brief period of democracy and freedom, then authoritarianism, and finally return to the same totalitarian regime from which they escaped.

This choice, it seems, is not accidental. Socialism makes the same empty and meaningless promises. On paper it sounds good, but this world is—no surprise here—utopian. People remain the same: driven by personal interests and goals, selfish and indifferent to the suffering of those around them. All socialism does is remove the democratic component of the regime, seize power, and place it in the hands of a single entity. Even in a democracy there are people of dubious moral character. However, by having many people at the helm of the country, it can be expected that a substantial majority will have, as far as possible, an ethical code to rely on. Thus, a small “margin of error” is allowed. Even if a minority in power has totalitarian tendencies, the rest can use their power to counter them.

By now it is probably clear that socialism and “wokeism” are quite similar. However, as Jean-François Braunstein mentions in his book The Woke Religion, under socialism, after finishing one’s studies, a person was not considered an “expert in communism,” but in history, mathematics, physics, and other important subjects. When it comes to political correctness, however, it is common to establish new specializations based on purely ideological criteria. Thus, “Gender Studies” is a specialization dealing with the study of gender, and “Ethnic Studies” with the study of ethnicity. The former discusses a concept whose validity has not been successfully demonstrated, while the latter is infiltrated with woke theories.

These new specializations and courses have a dual purpose. The first role is quite obvious: indoctrinating the younger generation. The second requires more depth to be discerned. It is already known that the “woke religion” (as Braunstein aptly calls it) seeks nothing more than to divide people and split them into different groups (Black men, white women, trans “women,” etc.), which is nothing but a failed attempt to lead society toward tribalism. The famous doctrine of “identity politics” has the sole purpose of dehumanizing those who disagree with the privileged class within the ranks of the “politically correct,” after which those who oppose them are defamed on social media platforms. Paradoxically, wokeism bears a striking resemblance to racism, as both are based on the denial of individual autonomy and responsibility, both stemming from a simplistic worldview painted in only two colors: black and white.

Finally, returning to the subject, the second role of the specializations invented by ideologues is that, in order to establish the Pharisaic “woke” society, companies will have to adapt to their interests, so that all of them will need an expert in “gender studies” or “ethnic studies.” How else will large corporations be able to become more “equitable”? They will need special consultants in ethnic studies to make company policies even more “inclusive” and unfair than they already are. Those of the Caucasian race will have nothing, while Africans and African Americans will have everything

I wrote these lines with ease because this is a subject that I am passionate about, but also because I am aware of the urgency of spreading this message: Stand firm in the face of injustice! Join forces to stop this insidious attempt at control. Do not let the past repeat itself...

And if this article has helped, even in the slightest, in shaping an opinion, it is an honor and a joy. Because there is no greater joy than leaving a mark on the world. This is, as Michael the Brave said, “the desire I have desired” through this article.

Bibliography

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Translated by Ion Dur and Mircea Ivănescu. Bucharest: Humanitas Publishing House, 2014.

Braunstein, Jean-François. The Woke Religion. Translated by Teodora Necula. Bucharest: Spandugino Publishing House, 2023.

Courtois, Stéphane (coord.). The Black Book of Communism. Crimes, Terror, Repression. Bucharest: Civic Academy Publishing House, 1998.

KCTV (Korean Central Television). Speech by Leader Kim Jong-Un at the National Mothers’ Meeting, Pyongyang, December 2023.

Money, John. Hermaphroditism, gender and precocity in hyperadrenocorticism: Psychologic findings. Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1955.

Orwell, George. 1984. Translated by Mihnea Gafița. Bucharest: Polirom Publishing House, 2012.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Translated by Ona Frantz. Bucharest: Polirom Publishing House, 2017.

Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Translated by Florin Tudose. Bucharest: Trei Publishing House, 2018.

Săndulescu, Al. (coord.). Romanian Literature under Communism. Bucharest: Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, 2000.

World Bank. Economic Update for China – Historic Growth since the 1978 Reforms. Washington, DC, 2022.

U.S. Department of State. 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Washington, DC, 2023.