Typical trot (2001)

First-edition cover

Pamphlet Review from the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘I Know How, But I Don’t Know Why’: George Orwell’s Conception of Totalitarianism. By Paul Flewers.

Flewers’s pamphlet is an attempt to outline and criticise George Orwell’s political views on totalitarianism as revealed especially through 1984 and Animal Farm. As an explanation of why Orwell came to write his masterworks this is a good account. Flewers indicates the way Orwell’s experiences during the Spanish Civil War transformed his thinking, leading to a near-obsession with totalitarianism (particularly vis-à-vis Russia), and picks out his underlying motivation—the quest for “decency”.

As criticism however the work is deficient. In a nutshell, Flewers says that Orwell lacked a clear idea of how Russia became a totalitarian state because he could only observe without analysing. Since Orwell despised grand theories this is hardly surprising. But the deficiency lies not with Orwell but with Flewers. “Why was there no Lenin figure in Animal Farm?” he asks. Why overlook “the democratic features of Bolshevism?” (hack, cough) or view Lenin’s opportunism in 1917 as a “disingenuous and dishonest ruse to win support” (yessiree!). Besides the fact that Animal Farm is satire (I might just as pedantically ask “where’s Martov got to?” or “why doesn’t Makhno make a cameo?”), Orwell makes clear what his intentions were in Animal Farm: “You can’t have a revolution unless you make it for yourself.” Flewers of course denies that “any leadership will inevitably become a ruling elite once it seizes power”. As a Trot he would, wouldn’t he?

Kaz.