But one does not get what these writers would have given, nor anything resembling it more closely than London draught beer resembles beer made with hops.
[on purges in USSR] It is simply a dark mystery, of which the only sizeable fact - sinister enough in its way - is that Communists over here regard it as a good advertisement for Communism. Volume 1, p. 368
On average, too, Indians write and even pronounce English far better than any European race [sic]. Volume 2, p. 254
'Mr Orwell is intellectual-hunting again' (Mr. Comfort). I have never attacked 'the intellectuals' or 'the intelligentsia' en bloc. I have used a lot of ink and done myself a lot of harm by attacking the successive literary cliques which have infested this country, not because they were intellectuals but precisely because they were not what I mean by true intellectuals. The life of a clique is about five years and I have been writing long enough to see three of them come and two go - the Catholic gang, the Stalinist gang, and the present pacifist or, as they are sometimes nicknamed, Fascifist gang. My case against all of them is that they write mentally dishonest propaganda and degrade literary criticism to mutual arse-licking. ...
[on Alex Comfort] But this letter he has chosen to send you is a different matter. Instead of answering what I have said he tries to prejudice an audience to whom I am little known by a misrepresentation of my general line and sneers about my 'status' in England. (A writer isn't judged by his 'status', he is judged by his work). That is on a par with 'peace' propaganda which has to avoid mention of Hitler's invasion of Russia, and it is not what I mean by intellectual honesty. It is just because I do take the function of the intelligentsia seriously that I don't like the sneers, libels, parrot phrases and financially profitable back-scratching which flourish in our English literary world, and perhaps in yours also. Volume 2, p. 265
In theory it is still possible to be an orthodox religious believer without being intellectually crippled in the process; but it is far from easy, and in practice books by orthodox believers usually show the same cramped, blinkered outlook as books by orthodox Stalinists or others who are mentally unfree. The reason is that the Christian churches still demand assent to doctrines which no one seriously believes in. The most obvious case is the immortality of the soul. ..
To dislike a writer's politics is one thing. To dislike him because he forces you to think is another, not necessarily incompatible with the first. Volume 2, p. 335
Left-wing political parties specialize in a bastard vocabulary made up of Russian and German phrases translated with the maximum of clumsiness. Volume 3, p. 162
.. the louder people yap about the proletariat, the more they despise its language. Volume 3, p. 164
The truth is, of course, that the countless English intellectuals who kiss the arse of Stalin are not different from the minority who give their allegiance to Hitler or Mussolini, nor from the efficiency experts who preached ‘punch’, ‘drive’, personality’ and ‘learn to be a Tiger man’ in the nineteen-twenties, nor from the older generation of intellectuals, Carlyle, Creasy and the rest of them, who bowed down before German militarism. All of them are worshipping power and successful cruelty. Volume 3, p. 258
In Mr Chase’s books there are no gentlemen and no taboos. Emancipation is complete, Freud and Machiavelli have reached the outer suburbs. Volume 3, p. 260
James Burnham's theory has been much discussed .. that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of 'cold war' with its neighbours. [here coining the 'cold war' phrase].
Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralized police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a 'peace that is no peace'. Volume 4, p. 26
And those English scientists who do not simply accept the Status Quo are frequently Communists, which means that, however intellectually scrupulous they may be in their own line of work, they are ready to be uncritical and even dishonest on certain subjects. Volume 4, p. 29
It might be called, until some better name is found, the Theory of Catastrophic Gradualism. According to this theory, nothing is ever achieved without bloodshed, lies, tyranny and injustice, but on the other hand no considerable change for the better is to be expected as the result of even the greatest upheaval ..
One must not protest against purges, deportations, secret police forces and so forth, because these are the price that has to be paid for progress: but on the other hand 'human nature' will always see to it that progress is slow or even imperceptible. If you object to dictatorship you are a reactionary, but if you expect dictatorship to produce good results you are a sentimentalist. Volume 4, p. 33
.. temporary relief, such as a sick man gets by turning over in bed ..
In the minds of active revolutionaries, at any rate the ones who 'got there', the longing for a just society has always been fatally mixed up with the intention to secure power for themselves. Volume 4, p. 36
In our day we are less willing to apply biology to politics, partly because we have watched the Nazis do just that thing with great thoroughness and wit horrible results. Volume 4, p. 46
One can imagine him in the Communist Party, one can imagine him falling a victim to Nazi racial theory, and one can imagine him the quixotic champion of some Trotskyist or Anarchist sect. But, as I have tried to make clear, if he had been a politically reliable person he would probably have left behind nothing of interest. Volume 4, p. 48
[discussion of 100,000 Russian rapes in Vienna] The trouble is that if you lie to people, their reaction is all the more violent when the truth leaks out, as it is apt to do in the end. ..
And it is the same with pro-Soviet propaganda. Those who have swallowed it whole are always in danger of a sudden revulsion in which they may reject the whole idea of Socialism. In this and other ways I should say that the net effect of Communist and near-Communist propaganda has been simply to retard the cause of Socialism, though it may have temporarily aided Russian foreign policy. Volume 4, p. 55
Similarly, the first step towards decent Anglo-Russian relations is the dropping of illusions. In principle most people would agree to this: but the dropping of illusions means the publication of facts, and facts are apt to be unpleasant. Volume 4, p. 56
The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends on public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, an how the police behave, depends on the general temper of the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. Volume 4, p. 60
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting. Volume 4, p. 63
If one considers the probabilities one is driven to the conclusion that Anarchism implies a low standard of living. It need not imply a hungry or uncomfortable world, but it rules out the kind of air-conditioned, chromium-plated, gadget-ridden existence which is now considered desirable and enlightened. Volume 4, p. 70
[discussing age and generations] Other things being equal, who is likelier to have the truer vision at this moment, a person of twenty or a person of fifty? One can't say, though on some points posterity may decide. Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. This is an illusion, and one should recognize it as such, but one ought also to stick to one's own world-view, even at the price of seeming old-fashioned: for that world-view springs out of experiences that the younger generation has not had, and to abandon it is to kill one's intellectual roots. Volume 4, p. 72
Money is always a fascinating subject, provided that only small sums are involved. Brute starvation is not interesting, and neither are transactions involving thousands of millions of pounds; but an out-of-work actor pawning his watch-chain and wondering whether next week the watch will have to follow it - that is interesting. Volume 4, p. 74
.. but meanwhile man's power over Nature is steadily increasing. With the aid of the atomic bomb we could literally move mountains: we could even, so it is said, alter the climate of the earth by melting the polar ice-caps and irrigating the Sahara. Isn't there, therefore, something sentimental and obscurantist in preferring bird-song to swing music and in wanting to leave a few patches of wildness here and there instead of covering the whole surface of the earth with a network of Autobahnen flooded by artificial sunlight? [An unpleasant prophecy] Volume 4, p. 105
[Re-housing plan] .. Sir Charles Reilly, who confesses that he did not originally foresee the far-reaching consequences deduced by his disciple - indeed he has slightly the air of a man who has mounted a hobby-horse which turns out to be a unicorn - contributes an Introduction. Volume 4, p. 113
.. In criticizing him one has to rely on memory, and since the person who reads the criticism may never get a chance to read the books, the whole process is rather like taking a blind man to see a firework display. ..
This has come to be a familiar attitude nowadays, and it would be a respectable one if it were carried to its logical conclusion, which would mean remaining passive in the face of war, Revolution, Fascism or anything else. Actually, those who talk in the same vein as Miller always take care to stay inside bourgeois-democratic society, making use of its protection while disclaiming responsibility for it: on the other hand, when a real choice has to be made, the quietist attitude never seems to survive. At bottom, Miller's outlook is that of a simple individualist who recognizes no obligations to anyone else - at any rate, no obligations to society as a whole - and does not even feel the need to be consistent in his opinions. Volume 4, pp. 166-136
And of course it is inclined to be lopsided, as any attempt at universal history probably always must be. Volume 4, p. 144
To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. One thing that helps towards it is to keep a diary or, at any rate, to keep some kind of record of one's opinions about important events. Otherwise, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it. Political predictions are usually wrong, but even when one makes a correct one, to discover why one was right can be very illuminating. In general, one is only right when either wish or fear coincides with reality ...
When one is making out one's weekly budget, two and two invariably make four. Politics, on the other hand, is a sort of sub-atomic or non-Euclidean world where it is quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole of for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously. Hence the contradictions and absurdities I have chronicled above, all finally traceable to a secret belief that one's political opinions, unlike the weekly budget, will not have to be tested against solid reality. Volume 4, p. 154
Political predictions are usually wrong, because they are usually based on wish thinking, but they can have symptomatic value, especially when they change abruptly. Often the revealing factor is the date at which they are made.
Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible. If the Japanese have conquered south Asia, then they will keep south Asia for ever, if the Germans have captured Tobruk, they will infallibly capture Cairo; if the Russians are in Berlin, it will not be long before they are in London: and so on. This habit of mind leads also to the belief that things will happen more quickly, completely, and catastrophically than they ever do in practice. Volume 4, pp. 205-207
Questionnaire, "Are you satisfied with your own solution of the problem and have you any specific advice to give to young people who wish to earn their living by writing?"
.. I had to struggle desperately at the beginning, and if I had listened to what people said to me I would never have been a writer. Even until quite recently, whenever I have written anything which I took seriously, there have been strenuous efforts, sometimes by quite influential people, to keep it out of print.
To a young writer who is conscious of having something in him, the only advice I can give is not to take advice.
.. But if one wants to be primarily a writer, the, in our society, one is an animal that is tolerated but not encouraged - something rather like a house sparrow - and one gets on better if one realizes one's position from the start. Volume 4 p. 236
.. A pickpocket does not go to the races wearing a label 'pickpocket' on his coat lapel, and a propagandist does not describe himself as a propagandist ...
.. What I believe, and will go on believing until I see evidence to the contrary, is that he and others like him are pursuing a policy barely distinguishable from that of the C.P., that they are in effect the publicity agents of the U.S.S.R. in this country, and that when Soviet and British interests appear to them to clash, they will support the Soviet interest. I could not prove this in a court of law, any more than I could have proved before the war that the Catholic church was sympathetic to Fascism. I merely infer it from the speeches, writings and other political acts of Mr Zilliacus and his group, and in particular their persistent efforts to persuade the public of this country that the puppet régimes of eastern Europe are democracies. If Mr Zilliacus is not 'reliably sympathetic' to the C.P., let him show it by his actions. This letter of his, I should say, somewhat supports my thesis. For if what I have suggested is obviously untrue, why does he get so hot and bothered about it?
.. An M.P. is a public figure on whom the electorate have every right to comment, and I should have been shirking my duty in my 'London Letters' to the Partisan Review if I had not said exactly what I thought about the leading men of this country. .. Does he imagine that he and the little group who think like him ought to be specially exempted from criticism? Or is he under the impression that he can frighten me into silence? Let him be sure that I shall continue my efforts to counter totalitarian propaganda in this country. On the other hand, if at any time he changes his views and becomes once again a supporter of democracy, I shall probably be one of the first to notice it, and certainly I shall be very ready to acknowledge it. Volume 4, pp. 228-229
.. gratitude is not a factor in international politics. Volume 4, p. 372
[UK:] But nevertheless it is a country in which people have lived together for several hundred years without knowing civil war, in which the laws are relatively just and official news and statistics can almost invariably be believed, and, last but not least, in which to hold and to voice minority views does not involve any mortal danger. Volume 3, p. 458
.. Indeed, in my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of Socialism as the belief that Russian is a Socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.
And so for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the Socialist movement.
On my return from Spain I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages. [Homage to Catalonia] Volume 3, p. 458
I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure. Volume 3, p. 459
.. Bevin, he said, was far more realistic than Tribune, since he grasped that to oppose Russia it was necessary to rely on America and 'bolster up Fascism', while Tribune was merely sitting on the fence, uttering contradictory slogans and getting nowhere.
I am not often in agreement with Mr Zilliacus, and it is therefore all the more of a pleasure to record my agreement with him on this occasion. Granting him his own special terminology, I think his accusation is fully justified. One must remember, of course, that in the mouths of Mr Zilliacus and his associates, words like democracy, Fascism or totalitarianism do not bear quite their normal meanings. In general they tend to turn into their opposites, Fascism meaning unfaked elections, democracy meaning minority rule, and so on, but this does not alter the fact that he is dwelling on real issues - issues on which Tribune has consistently, over a period of years, failed to make its position clear.
[three alternatives] One is to do as Mr Zilliacus would have us do, i.e. to become part of the Russian system, with a government perhaps less servile than that of Poland or Czechoslovakia, but essentially similar. [2. American orbit, 3. western European Socialist republics ...]
.. From the point of view of the Russians and the Communists, Social Democracy is a deadly enemy, and to do them justice they have frequently admitted it .. The reason is clear enough. Social Democracy, unlike capitalism, offers an alternative to Communism, and if somewhere or other it can be made to work on a big scale - if it turns out that after all it IS possible to introduce Socialism without secret police forces, mass deportations and so forth - the excuse for dictatorship vanishes.
[Tribune's anti-Americanism] What am I to say to these people? I shall tell them what I believe to be the truth - namely that Tribune's anti-Americanism is not sincere but is an attempt to keep in with fashionable opinion. To be anti-American nowadays is to shout with the mob. Of course it is only a minor mob, but it is a vocal one.
.. We are no longer strong enough to stand alone, and if we fail to bring a western European union into being, we shall be obliged, in the long run, to subordinate our policy to that of one Great Power or the other. And .. everyone knows in his heart that we should choose America. .. Certainly there is a small minority that would choose the other way. Mr Zilliacus, for instance, is one of them. I think he is wrong, but at least he makes his position clear. I also know perfectly well what Tribune's position is. But has Tribune ever made it clear?
[ridicule] the upshot is that if from time to time you express a mild distaste for slave-labour camps or one-candidate elections, you are either insane or actuated by the worst motives. In the same way, when Henry Wallace is asked by a newspaper interviewer why he issues falsified versions of his speeches to the press, he replies: 'So you are one of these people who are clamouring for war with Russia?' It doesn't answer the question, but it would frighten most people into silence. Or there is the milder kind of ridicule that consists in pretending that a reasoned opinion is indistinguishable from an absurd out-of-date prejudice. ..
.. if you state your principles clearly and stick to them, it is wonderful how people come round to you in the end.
[Tribune praising Zilliacus] But is Mr Zilliacus grateful? On the contrary, only a few weeks later he turns round and without any provocation delivers a good hard boot on the shins.
It is hard to blame him, since he knows very well that Tribune is not on his side and does not really like him, but whereas he is willing to make this clear, Tribune, in spite of occasional side-thrusts, is not. I do not claim for Mr Zilliacus that he is honest, but at least he is sincere. We know where he stands, and he prefers to hit his enemies rather than his friends. Volume 4, p. 449
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
[Extracts from a Manuscript Note-book] Volume 4, p. 572
