Talk:Nineteen Eighty-Four/Archive 3

message: The term Big Brother was borrowed by a reality television programme first produced in the Netherlands in 1999 and later copied by many other countries around the world. A group of contestants live in a house under constant surveillance, they are set many tasks and their progress is broadcast on television and the Internet. In what many intellectuals regard as a clanging irony, the show has become a pop culture phenomenon around the world.
Room 101 is the title of a B.B.C. television programme presented by Paul Merton. Guests on the show talk about the people or items they wish to send to Room 101.
Apple Computer based an ad on the book, creating a world famous commercial. It aired nationally in the U.S.A. only once, during Super Bowl XVII (1984), introducing the Macintosh due to be released. In the commercial, Big Brother symbolised IBM. A young athletic heroine, with an Apple logo on her chest, throws a sledgehammer into the screen where Big Brother is preaching propaganda to an audience of bald-headed "zombies".
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:Will someone please tell us what the following lines mean? What is the name of the recording, what are the details of it (tracks, lyrics, etc.)? This is another example of tacking on words that have no meaning. MPLX/MH 17:52, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Television 

message: ==== Literature ====
* It is quite possible that the famous Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote his novel Eden under the influence of 1984.
:What is the meaning of "The atmosphere of control" in the following reference? All of this is getting way off the subject MPLX/MH 17:56, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems far more likely to be inspired by the changes Orwell observed in British Communists when the party line switched abruptly after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and then switched back just as violently when Germany invaded the USSR.  Orwell wrote about this pretty often, IIRC.  In particular, the falling out between the West and the USSR happened after Orwell had been well into writing 1984.  -Ben 15:42, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair point. The official & newsreel (Ministry?) view of the USSR would also have reversed in June 1941 and been heading the other way again in March 1946 ('Iron Curtain' speech). These all look more like inspiration for airbrushed history than differences in report & reality of Empire - but this may be too narrow a point to spend a line on. Propose replacing the whole sentence with something like "Orwell is reported to have said that the book described what he saw as the actual situation in 1948 - after wartime enemies like the USSR had become fated allies overnight; in a country of bombsites, rationing and a possibly-radical new Government; with a world already being divided into 'Zones of Influence' by the powers at the Yalta Conference." Nealc 21:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influence / Inspiration 

message: * It is quite possible that the famous Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote his novel Eden under the influence of 1984.
:What is the meaning of "The atmosphere of control" in the following reference? All of this is getting way off the subject MPLX/MH 17:56, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Literature 

message: * The atmosphere of control inspired the British TV show The Prisoner, the film Brazil directed by Terry Gilliam, George Lucas' THX 1138, Carlos Atanes' FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions, and A Clockwork Orange (both the novel by Anthony Burgess and the film version directed by Stanley Kubrick). Burgess later wrote a book entitled 1985, which was half a detailed analysis of Orwell's novel and half a short dystopian novel of his own. The film Equilibrium borrows elements of Orwell's dystopian future.
On the specific point of the history-rewriting activities of the Ministry of Truth, I've inserted the point that "wartime allies such as the USSR were rapidly becoming peacetime foes ('Eurasia is the enemy. Eurasia has always been the enemy')." This seems to me to be at least as valid a link between the book and contemporary events as any with the dismantling of the British empire. Nealc 10:04, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems far more likely to be inspired by the changes Orwell observed in British Communists when the party line switched abruptly after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and then switched back just as violently when Germany invaded the USSR.  Orwell wrote about this pretty often, IIRC.  In particular, the falling out between the West and the USSR happened after Orwell had been well into writing 1984.  -Ben 15:42, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair point. The official & newsreel (Ministry?) view of the USSR would also have reversed in June 1941 and been heading the other way again in March 1946 ('Iron Curtain' speech). These all look more like inspiration for airbrushed history than differences in report & reality of Empire - but this may be too narrow a point to spend a line on. Propose replacing the whole sentence with something like "Orwell is reported to have said that the book described what he saw as the actual situation in 1948 - after wartime enemies like the USSR had become fated allies overnight; in a country of bombsites, rationing and a possibly-radical new Government; with a world already being divided into 'Zones of Influence' by the powers at the Yalta Conference." Nealc 21:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  TV/films/animation/series 

message: This text is so POOR that it either needs a LOT of work or immediate deletion. It has just been added by User:81.52.217.7 and removed MPLX/MH 20:03, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Population of ...

message: The text above was inserted today without a specific notation on the History of the article and this makes it difficult to spot vandalism or even major changes such as the one above without referencing earlier editions. Perhaps it would be a good idea to insist that when changes are made to existing articles that the person making the changes should note what they are on the entry line when saving them. If not then the unnamed changes should be reversed to avoid the bother of trying to determine what changes have been made. I note that someone else has made another change but I can't figure out what it is. MPLX/MH 22:08, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Further additions, changes, etc.

message: Can I just vote that years don't need acronyms...? (Yes I know it isn't in the article, but it threw me out in the talk page). Notinasnaid 11:00, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "NEF"? 

message: I've just moved this section here; it first struck me as being rather too anoracky for an enclyclopædia, but as I copy-edited it I decided that it was also much too thin.  The supposed plot-holes are either insignificant or easly accounted for.  For example, that a U.S. dominated area adopts a U.K. style of government might be surprising, but is hardly contradictory.  The point about surveillance is misplaced; the point is that at any time one might be being watched — that doesn't imply that one is in fact always being watched.  The tidied-up text, with duplicate links removed and a bit of grammatical/style correction is as follows:
Literary scholars debate the true purpose of Nineteen Eighty-Four — is the novel
meant to portray a futuristic nightmare British society, is it a critique of British society in
the late 1940s, or is it simply another attack on Stalin's Russia? The answer is a combination
of the three. However, the novel suffers from several major plot-holes which cannot satisfactorily explained.
The concept of Oceania is confused throughout the novel. In 1984, it is repeatedly pointed
out that Oceania is controlled by the IngSoc Party (English Socialism, a future version of the
Labour Party), but the entire state was created by the United States. This is contradictory
— if the United States had created Oceania, why would they turn to a British system of
government? It is repeatedly mentioned that a revolution occurred in Britain at some point
shortly after the end of World War II, but it is never stated if similar revolutions took place
across Oceania, specifically in the United States.
The government of Oceania is also debatable. Airstrip One, and its capital London, are
provinces of Oceania (the novel mentions the fact that Airstrip One is the third most
prosperous province of Oceania, presumably behind the United States and Canada). However, the
location of the Oceanic government is never revealed. It is implied that New York is the
capital of Oceania, but if this is so, why are the major centres of government located in
London, a mere provincial city? It can be argued that each province has its own centres of
government, but this is further frustrated by the question of local government — just how
much power does the IngSoc Party have outside London?
Technology provides a further plot-hole, specifically in terms of the telescreens. Throughout
the novel it is mentioned that London is dotted with two-way telescreens, which act as 24-hour
televisions, providing an outlet for propaganda, but are also cameras, allowing security
operatives to watch people. The novel makes it clear that people are never sure when they are
being watched, and so always act in a conformist way if they are within the range of the ever-
present telescreens. However, the concept of constant surveillance is fundamentally flawed
— who is watching the watchers? If everyone has to be kept under surveillance, who
keeps an eye on the thought police? Also, can the thought police be watching everyone all of
the time? This is highly unlikely, due to the size of the population (it is mentioned in the
novel that Airstrip One has a population of around 300 million, an impossible number to keep
under constant surveillance). It is also mentioned that surveillance only really works in urban
areas, and that in the countryside, surveillance devices are virtually non-existent.
:This is an essay. Without NPOV and attribution work I support removing it. 119 18:27, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not, "critical analysis of art is welcome, if grounded in direct observations." ... According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles#Check_your_fiction "Articles about fictional topics should not be simple book-reports, rather the topic should be explained through its significance on the work. The reader should be able to feel like they understand why a character, place, or event was included in the fictional work after reading an article about one." So, it is welcome to see something that isn't a simple plot summary. Goodness knows, there are enough annoying and useless articles about books which are just second rate book reports, without an ounce of insight. But, that said – this stuff does indeed seem too thin, especially the confusion about the difference between "might be being watched" and "are being watched"; it is established in the UK that CCTV cameras do change behaviour, and everyone understands they are not watched all the time. Notinasnaid 19:43, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm speaking from memory here, but also: nowhere is it stated or implied that New York is the capital city of Oceania; 300 million is given as the population of Oceania, not Airstrip One; the stuff about surveillance is weak (no one's watching the watchers, they're abusing their power, that's the whole point.) I support removing it. Robin Johnson 14:56, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: All of this overlooks the possibility (and note that this is based on a viewing of the film and not a reading of the book, so forgive me if I'm out of line here) that it would make no difference to the plot if Oceania as a whole - and indeed, Eurasia and Eastasia - were just fictional entities designed to perpetuate the illusion that the eternal war was one of conquest rather than a means of wasting resources. If that were the case then the rest of the world might just as well be a radioactive desert, "Oceania" just a small piece of England that had somehow survived, and the bombs supposedly being dropped on it by its enemies could be its own.... Lee M 01:37, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's irrelevant. It would make no difference to the plot of the Pickwick Papers either. Robin Johnson 12:49, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I recall, Pickwick didn't feature an all-powerful organisation that claimed to rule half the world. Anyway, if that is what Orwell intended, it would at least put a slightly different complexion on the events of the novel. I'm also reminded of a line from Tolkien (from memory): "you may question the worth of my deeds when they are proved worthless." Lee M 01:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Problems with ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''

message: There used to be an explanation about Orwell's work at the BBC (while it was under the control of the wartime Ministry of Information), as a source of his inspiration. What was wrong with that? This business of deleting knowledge is getting out of hand. MPLX/MH 16:14, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a couple of sentences back.  Suspect they were gutted in the shuffle. -Ben 01:53, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: My imagination or what?

message: I removed these passages from the article, on the grounds that they are speculative and rather poorly written:
For example, "War is Peace" when analyzed through the explanations in Goldstein's book, seems to describe the state that is achieved when the public is focused on a war. Problems and issues in the homeland are glossed over by the events and news of the ongoing battle. It also says how war is executed simply to burn excess surplus of goods that would otherwise elevate the standard of living in society - and a poor society is easier to control than a wealthy one (it also hints that the real purpose behind all war is this).
When "Freedom is Slavery" is analyzed (again through the book Goldstein "wrote") is a throwback to capitalist society. The book and O'Brien refer to them as suit wearing, overweight men with top hats and canes who owned everything around them. As such they had power and control over individual people through their wealth and influence. Therefore a free society isn't free per se, because a capitalist, or someone higher on the "food chain" would be your boss or master, and thus you are the slave. When exercising doublethink, by not having such freedom, you are not a slave since the individual gives themselves to the Party unconditionally - as O'Brien would argue, the individual lives forever through the Party. Thus there is no disparty between both and there is no slavery.
Lastly, if you look at "Ignorance is Strength" you can find something that applies to daily life. The more informed a person is, the more they question, the more they are unsure of the world and existence around them. An intelligent, informed person in this fictional world would question the authenticity of Big Brother, perhaps challenge that the views of the Party are not the best views. However, an ignorant person will blindly accept that Big Brother reigns supreme, that they love the Party and B.B and that the "Party is always right." In short, through doublethink, ignorance is a form of strength.
-- Karada 08:44, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed speculative comments about slogans 

message: I've taken out the word "satirical" from the initial description of 1984 as a "satirical political novel". 1984 is a lot of things, but satire is not one of them. I don't think I'm being nit-picking about this; I think characterizing the book as satire would be misleading to someone who's never read it. It implies a level of humor that, of course, is absolutely not there. 
I'm interested to hear from anyone who disagrees, and apparently there must be someone --- not only was this change revereted sometime after 10 July, but I don't even see that mentioned in the history. Can someone explain how/why? I'm still a little green on Wikipedia, sorry. Thanks. Feel free to e-mail me.
--BrentDanzig 08:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Satire doesn't necessarily imply humourousness. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a satire in that uses analogies and exaggerations to make points about the real world. But I don't want to get into a one-word edit war, so I won't put it back in until I see someone else's opinion. It used to say 'darkly satirical' - perhaps that was better (although 'dark' was one of Orwell's pet-hate meaningless words, so perhaps not.) Robin Johnson 09:13, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is also an argument which states that 1984 is a satire of James Burnham's writings, and the general political climate amongst intellectuals in the late 30s/early 40s. See an essay entitled "Was Orwell a Secret Optimist" in Benoit Suykerbuijk (ed.), "Essays From Oceania and Eurasia", University of Antwerp Press. It's a hard book to find, tho'; the British Library has a copy, as does Liverpool University and Cambridge University. Don't know about the states. --James Kemp 23:51, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, ok, interesting. I might stand corrected. I didn't know all that. --BrentDanzig 10:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is "1984" satirical or not? 

message: Am I alone in thinking that the "Nine Inch Nails" connection is a bit tenuous?  If it must be explained in so many words, then I do not think it belongs next to the other, more easily grasped, references to the work.--ASL 20:33, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recordings section 

message: A large chunk of the living standards section seems to have disappeared. It was rather long, but it contained stuff on the living standards of the inner party, which is important. Perhaps it should be restored and edited more cautiously. Iron Ghost 00:35, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Living Standards 

message: I took out the "Possible Timeline" section recently added by HowardDean because I feel it is clearly original research.  Since my edit involved deleting an entire section of the article, I thought I would just post it on the talk page. -Parallel or Together? 14:55, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible Timeline

message: I've just edited the above section, as it seemed to me to be more of the beginnings of an academic essay than an encyclopedia entry. The POV also seemed a little slanted. --James Kemp 00:47, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Appendix

message: Shouldnt wikipedia articles be written in third person? I mean, I found various occurences of e.g. "we discover that" etc in the text.
For example, shouldnt "The only real knowledge that we have is that" be changed to "The only real knowledge that is known is that" or something?
--85.49.231.112 23:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's very common, even the norm, in literary criticism to use "we" in lieu of, say, "the reader." --Tothebarricades 05:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

text: No. It convolutes the language and makes the articles harder to read. There's nothing 'unprofessional' about writing plain English. Just my opinion, of course. Robin Johnson 11:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally I use "one may notice" instead of "I noticed" for my non-first person writings (essays and such)--Acebrock 03:57, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, using "I" is still taboo in general. --Tothebarricades 09:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think that it should be written in third person. It is, after all, an encyclopedia, and I think it is unprofessional to write informally in an encyclopedia. Chocolateluvr88 10:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I find myself often using we or I, but I don't find it to be wrong. To me it makes me feel like I'm a part of what I'm talking about and makes it more personal seeing that I am often speaking my opinion.--JP 03:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third Person 

message: I have always thought that maybe the year 1984 was chosen because it went along the timeline that Orwell predicted. Right now I am working on a dystopian novel that follows such a timeline (which will be fully established when I submit it because I don't know when I will). By the time 1984 was reached most people wouldn't remember life before the revolution especially because most older people, according to orwell, were killed in the great purges and the rest forced into intellectual surrender. That and people born after the revolution would only know the history that the party taught them. But, then again this is just how I see it.--Acebrock 03:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  1984 chosen as a reasonable point on Orwell's timeline for the future? 

message: I do find the new material that's been put in this section over the last few days very interesting. However, I suspect it to be largely original research, which doesn't belong on Wikipedia. If it can be sourced, that would be nice. Otherwise, I propose quite a big revision the section, by which I mean removing most of it. Robin Johnson 12:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree.  It's really good stuff, and it seems a shame to have to get rid of it.  Morwen - Talk 15:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I think it is, unfortunately. See WP:NOR#Primary_and_secondary_sources - you are doing your own (very interesting) research based on primary sources, and quoting those sources, but the research - the reasoning you are applying to what you find in these sources - is your own. There are WikiMedia sites which do allow this sort of thing - have a look at the "other options" on that page. I hope there is somewhere to put your discussion, because it is definitely worth reading. (A similar section called "possible timeline" was removed some time in the last couple of months, for similar reasons, which might be merged into the same non-Wikipedia article.) I won't make any edits to this 1984 article for another few days, so as to let this discussion run its course. Robin Johnson 10:36, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

text: There's a difference between information gathered from primary sources, and interpretation and analysis of that information. A lot of the assertions made in the new material - such as that the state of Israel was ephemeral in Nineteen Eighty-Four, that the bombing of Colchester was the outbreak of the nuclear war, that nuclear bombardment destroyed Britain's industrial capacity - and the general tone of "this seems to imply that..." rather than "this says that..." - do not come directly from those sources, but from your own analysis of them. It'd be nice to hear what a few other people have to say about this. Robin Johnson 12:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent changes to "History according to 1984" section 

message: The controversy section appears to imply that Orwell may have had an Anti-Irish bias based on the evidence that he gave the novel's chief villian an Irish name. Does this really belong in the article? What is the basis of such an accusation? Iron Ghost 20:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the anti-Irish sentence is being a bit over-sensitive tbh.  Is there any actual evidence that this has caused controversy with Irish people?  Personally I would have thought they would be praising their own countryman for being the pinnacle of the anti-establishment movement, standing up against the system like that, after all as you rightly point out the real villains are the system, not O'Brien. -- Francs2000  00:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Orwell and Ireland

message: In his novel 1984 George Orwell paints a frightening picture.
:Thanks for sharing. --Descendall 00:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orwell the Prophet 

message: I think the following line in the "Religosity" section maybe incorrect
"Goldstein (described as goat-like, as is the devil in Christian tradition)."
I have read the novel many, many times and can only recall Goldstein as being described as "sheep-like" and a possessing a "bleating" voice. Never as a goat.
Although it is only one line in a large document, I think for the sake of thoroughness this should be altered (assuming I'm correct of course)
220.233.30.162 11:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, not in the book, not attributed to a secondary source, looks like it should be taken out. I think this article is infested with OR and will probably go through it some time soon, although I'm a bit afraid of making a one-man crusade of it. Robin Johnson 11:50, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religiosity 

message: The "related works" section is suffering from "listitis" and should be cleaned up. When the list starts including quotes from filler tracks from New Zealand rock bands, it's time for action. Anyone agree/disagree? Previously I've moved these lists to their own article where such things can be added without losing the main article under 60k of bullet points. --Jgritz 03:34, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related works 

message: It is also significant that the main organ of The Party is the The Times. This is certainly not taken from the practice of the Bolsheviks, who did not take over the established newspapers of Tsarist Russia but created their own papers. And the Party also publishes low-level papers, full of nothing but crime, gossip and soft pornography, for the consumption of "the proles". The Bolsheviks, who had a puritan streak, never did anything remotely the like, but such papers are very much part of British life (in Orwell's time and even more nowadays).
It occurs that this is trying to "disprove" the connection between the Party in 1984 and the Bolsheviks. I don't really care if there is a connection or not, but this needs to be reworded and cited. There may be other neutrality problems. - FrancisTyers 00:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I don't think it needs to be cited, unless someone noteworthy has made this observation.  Unless that's the case, it needs to be removed as original literary criticism. --Saforrest 04:45, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Precisely, I was going to suggest that, but decided to err on the side of tact. I agree with Saforrest. WP:NOR! :) - FrancisTyers 18:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I already removed it. agreeing with all f the criticism--Acebrock 18:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: I feel that newspeak was meant to be used to help destroy emotions by not allowing you to say what it is that is being felt. If anyone has other ideas about newspeak I would like to here about it.--Smart Idiot 23:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newspeak 

message: The extent of Zamyatin’s influence on Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has been much debated. Orwell admitted that he was interested in such books and had been making notes for something along those lines. However, in his 4 January 1946 review of WE in Tribune, he states: ‘The first thing anyone would notice about WE is the fact - never pointed out, I believe - that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World must be partly derived from it.’ In a letter to F.J. Warburg on 30 March 1949, he also remarks: ‘I think Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World must be plagiarised from (WE) to some extent...’ Clearly it is unthinkable that Orwell would consciously set out to do the self-same thing, but nowadays it is his book which seems to have the more striking parallels with Zamyatin’s novel.Huxley, incidentally, always denied having read 
WE. 
Good judges have generally rated Zamyatin the superior artist, particularly in his use of ironic humour. Zamyatin’s hero D-503, unlike Orwell’s Winston Smith, is actually an enthusiastic supporter of the One State and it is with comic horror that he finds himself subsiding haplessly into heterodoxy. Some plot elements are obviously common to both works: their heroes keep incriminating diaries for example; Zamyatin’s Guardians are Orwell’s Thought Police; love is posited as an irrational but humanising passion set within a milieu of political authoritarianism; both heroes find themselves temporarily outside their world, in a haven where love can flourish undisturbed; both are eventually crushed in similar ‘scientific’ fashion by the apparatus they have challenged, and both turn into submissive shells to demonstrate that the final horror is not hatred, but indifference. Orwell’s Winston and Julia can meet without emotion; D-503 can watch his lover destroyed without a qualm. 
There are, however, also important points of difference between the novels. Orwell saw Zamyatin as having strong leanings towards primitivism: the free, hairy folk outside the green wall of Zamyatin’s One State are preferable to the monstrously rational, dehumanised activity within. Orwell has reservations here. His equivalent primitives, the ‘proles’ he finds frightening in their energy. Described wholly from the outside and utterly undifferentiated (the ‘middle classes’ are all individuals), they are huge, even bloated, despite starvation conditions. Their animality (‘mare-like buttocks’) strikes Winston as beautiful, but ‘they have no mind’ and are content to absorb an endless diet of pornography, violence and sport. A grimmer symbol than Boxer in Animal Farm, one feels they reflect Orwell’s resigned view of the majority of his fellows. Even if one day the proles somehow overthrow the Party, the world would hardly be more congenial to Winston. 
Zamyatin’s D-503 may be crushed, but unlike Winston he is not alone: the rebellious ‘Mephis’ are very numerous and the end of the book shows them still undefeated - according well with the famous remark in the novel that just as there is no final number, so there can be no final revolution. 
Ultimately, perhaps, what draws the books together is a fundamental similarity of philosophical approach. Orwell says of Zamyatin in his Tribune review:
‘The guiding principle of his State is that happiness and freedom are incompatible... The Single State has restored happiness by removing their freedom.’ This view probably derives, in its modern formulation, from Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor in The Karamazov Brothers. [Dostoevsky also plays with the 2+2=5 concept] Orwell’s Grand Inquisitor, O’Brien, similarly  considers that ‘the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.’ 
Orwell thought that WE, written in 1923 as he supposed, was unlikely to be aimed at Stalinist dictatorship: ‘What Zamyatin seems to be aiming at is not any particular country but the implied aims of industrial civilisation.‘ Zamyatin himself in an interview given in 1932, after he had emigrated from the USSR, claimed: ’This novel signals the danger threatening man, mankind, from the hypertrophy of the power of the machine and the power of the state - any state’. Nor need he have been disingenuous about this. We are better aware than Orwell was of the use of terror under Lenin, of course, and though the book was in fact banned in 1921, the first to suffer this fate under the new Soviet censorship Glavlit, it had circulated in Petrograd literary circles before that, and the first draft dates to 1919 in fact. A perusal of the two novellas Zamyatin wrote in Newcastle in 1916-17 and published in Russia in 1918 (described as ’remarkable in every way’ by Martin Amis) makes it clear that WE is simply the same vision of a static, imposed uniformity nightmarishly developed and extended. That Lenin and the Bolsheviks fitted the pattern was certainly clear to Glavlit in 1921, and recent research has shown that the figure of the Benefactor is indubitably based on Lenin, but the pattern itself, and its informing philosophy was established years earlier and owes much to Zamyatin‘s Newcastle experience. 
Incidentally the word 'prole' is first used, I believe by Jack London in The Iron Heel (1908). It is also used by Orwell's Newcastle friend of the '30s Jack Common.
Orwell's wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy from South Shields on Tyneside  worked at the Ministry of Food during WWII and Bernard Crick, in his biography of Orwell, considers that the Ministry of Truth owes as much to her experience as to Orwell's at the BBC. Her input to the book should not be disregarded.
See my Zamyatin research at  http:/pages.britishlibrary.net/alan.myers
Bandalore 03:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Zamyatin and Orwell

message: (I am referring to this edit).  Ackk, don't be so hasty to trim the article of content!  The parallels with real-world fascism are one of the main points of the book and should not be trimmed out because of length concerns.  Anyway, when an article gets too long, you don't just start slashing it left and right, you break it up into subsections.  I think a "History of Nineteen Eight-Four" or something page might be warranted.  Just don't go excising important content.  --Cyde Weys 11:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that there is far too much original research in this article. What was taken out in that edit is a very good example of the problem. In my opinion, it needs a lot of trimming indeed. Robin Johnson 11:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trimming the article