III. “1984” by George Orwell

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a novel written by George Orwell, published in 1949. Martin Gardner was writing, that “Orwell skillfully constructed nightmare belongs to satirical fantasy which portrays future society for the purpose of attacking what the author regards as evil.”(1950, p. 144) The working title of the novel on writing which Orwell worked throughout the 1940s, sounded like «The Last Man in Europe». It is known that the book publisher insisted on the name change to increase the interest of potential readers. The reasons for which the author focused on the title "1984" is not completely clear. The most common opinion is that the year of the novel was elected by a simple rearrangement of the last two digits of the year of its publication – 1948(Shklar, 1985, p. 5). The book depicts the totalitarian system that replaced capitalism. New society denies the freedom and autonomy of the individual. It is characterized by mobilization of all forces for the implementation of the global goal; the concentration of power in the hands of one party, guided by the Big Brother; undivided monopoly of the means of communication; the only true ideology; full control over public and private life; brutal violence against all dissidents and dissent. There is an irreconcilable war outside of the state and material poverty and widespread fear inside of it. Oceania is clearly similar to the USSR: contradictoriness of Socialism and totalitarianism expressed explicitly. Robert Paul Resch described it by next words:

“Orwell's representation of Oceania is incoherent, and its self-contradictions cluster, symptomatically, around its figuration of the middle-class Outer Party and the struggle for freedom of its middle-class protagonist, Winston Smith.” – Robert Paul Resch, p. 139

Since the book was written and published in the mid-20th century, it makes no sense to describe the allusions to the Soviet totalitarian society that this book contains. However, Orwell predicted number of the events that take place in modern society. One of them is unclear and unstable political situation in the world. In “1984” War is an element of brainwashing. Every day the department of propaganda(so-called Ministry of Truth) releases a variety of information that is pretty controversial. Thus, Oceania is at war with Eurasia and is in alliance with Eastasia, and the next day in all newspapers is written that Oceania and Eastasia fighting against Oceania.

The process described is similar to modern conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine. Parties to the conflict are known, but there is no clear understanding of goals of the war. Medias on both sides of the conflict represent all the events differently that it gives the impression that they are talk about different conflicts. Orwell had described and predicted accurately, how would look like a war, jointed with the information war, and did it even before the active events of the Cold War.

Some predictions of Orwell so precise that for some of them individual case studies may be written. In particular, the image of the community's response to the active propaganda. Again, before the start of active events and processes of the Cold War, Orwell described how people react instantly to what the government makes its citizens believe. The book contains episodes when at the beginning of the working day in a special room ministry workers show photos of the opposition on the big screen for members of the party and workers. All the time that the image remains on the screen all members of the party around should angrily blame the. oppositioners, yell and vilify them. Then, the Telescreen displays an image of Big Brother, and everybody should feel happy and welcome him. The same screens hanging at home of every citizen, through that the government broadcasts its propaganda, as well as watching over every member of society(Snyder, 1949, p. 207). Thus, we can assume that Orwell predicted the advent of television in every home, as well as described one of its main objectives — propaganda through broadcasting. It should not be explaned what a percentage of humans even today continues to believe in everything that they see on TV.

However, the most interesting is the introduction of the concept of Newspeak. All citizens of Oceania are required to study the Newspeak Dictionary, in which the state regulates the laws of language, removing all the words that could threaten national security. The use of words not included in the Newspeak is punishable by law. With every new edition of the dictionary Newspeak becomes smaller and shorter. A number of events can be correlated with the process described by Orwell. For example, the recent attempt of the Russian Parliament to ban the public use of foreign words, which was not accepted by the government. But the ban on the use of abusive words on the Internet has been approved. However, it is not clear how the government is going to control abusive words on the Internet. In general, а few events related happened however, progress in this is.

George Orwell was right in various respects with regard to information and methods of controlling minds with it. Again, it is hard to call by the word "prediction" all the examples described, since it is accumulation of the experience that author already had. However, significant number of the features described by Orwell embodied in real life. It is not known whether will something else described by Orwell come true in the future or not.

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