tilthat

TIL That George Orwell’s 1984 was banned and burned in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin’s rule for being anti-communism. Meanwhile in the USA, in 1981, it was challenged in Jackson County, Florida for being pro-communism.

via reddit.com

smallestcitrus

#authoritarianism is the same

be-gay-do-witchcraft

“Authoritarianism is the same” was literally the point of the book. It’s why George Orwell didn’t give a lot of details into what policies the Party had beyond pure authoritarianism. He purposefully took elements of both Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR for the Party because he wanted it to be clear he was critiquing both Stalinism and fascism/nazism. Orwell himself openly identified as a democratic socialist and using his works to criticize leftist ideology rather than authoritarianism is purposefully ignoring the point of the book and using it to fit your own propaganda needs.