What Are You Reading

Yep. The Orwell estate had it suppressed for many years, which is kind of an Orwellian move, but I can understand why they'd do it. It's a real dog of a movie.

The 1984 version with John Hurt also fiddles with the ending -- it gives it an ambiguity that wasn't there in the book.

According to Martin Chilton, Culture Editor online :

How the CIA brought Animal Farm to the screen - Telegraph

“The truth about the CIA’s involvement was kept hidden for 20 years until, in 1974,
Everette Howard Hunt revealed the story in his book,
Undercover:Memoirs of an American Secret Agent. (Berkeley Publishing Corp.,U.S.A.)

In January 1950, when Orwell died at the age of 46, New Yorker Hunt had been part
of the CIA’s Psychological Warfare Workshop and he had been sent to obtain the screen
rights to Animal Farm from Orwell’s widow Sonia."

It was this Hunt who later found notoriety as part of the team that broke into Watergate.


“The one person who would not have been happy about the ending of the movie,
would have been Orwell.

In Orwell’s pessimistic conclusion to Animal Farm, the pigs become indistinguishable from
their human masters of old.

In the optimistic CIA-approved ending to the film, the (non-pig) animals ask for help from
the outside. They are helped, enabling them to crush the evil “Stalin” ruler. "

Some endings are more equal than others, it seems.

Hunt was a real piece of work. One of the things he did after leaving the CIA and before he joined the covert-action arm of the Nixon Administration, was go to work for a public relations agency which had been operating as a CIA front since the fifties. Even the Boys From Marketing weren't immune to the Agency's influence.

As for Animal Farm and 1984, Orwell was frustrated during the last years of his life by the common belief that he had intended these books as broad attacks on socialism. As thoroughly documented in Alok Rai's study, Orwell had intended both books as attacks on *Stalinism* as a betrayal of a socialist revolution, but not as an attack on socialism in general. In his own words, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." He remained a believer in democratic socialism and a supporter of the Independent Labour Party, until his death.

LizzieMaine said:

Hunt was a real piece of work. One of the things he did after leaving the CIA and before he joined the covert-action arm of the Nixon Administration, was go to work for a public relations agency which had been operating as a CIA front since the fifties. Even the Boys From Marketing weren't immune to the Agency's influence.

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I’m reading about the "J.F.K. Assassination Homepage" which involved E.W.Hunt when he was a
member of the Secret Service & his presence in Dallas that day. From declassified document there
is also a letter from J. Edgar and the name George Bush of the CIA is named in it. Bush denies it was him.
Yet in the early 70’s he is made director of the CIA.

Hollywood movies pale compared to what is out there !

One of the things pointed out in "Blowback," mentioned earlier, is just how much the early CIA picked up from the Nazis in its employ about how to bend a population to their will. Hunt learned from the best in the business.

LizzieMaine said:

Hunt was a real piece of work. One of the things he did after leaving the CIA and before he joined the covert-action arm of the Nixon Administration, was go to work for a public relations agency which had been operating as a CIA front since the fifties. Even the Boys From Marketing weren't immune to the Agency's influence.


As for Animal Farm and 1984, Orwell was frustrated during the last years of his life by the common belief that he had intended these books as broad attacks on socialism. As thoroughly documented in Alok Rai's study, Orwell had intended both books as attacks on *Stalinism* as a betrayal of a socialist revolution, but not as an attack on socialism in general. In his own words, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it." He remained a believer in democratic socialism and a supporter of the Independent Labour Party, until his death.

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You have to be careful in interpreting what Orwell said publicly as he did invent the term doublethink and he allowed people to think what they wanted of him. However, after he adopted a child after his wife had died, he became much further away from the POUM with which he fought with Communists and Anarchists from 1936 to 1939. He was extremely disillusioned in that fight as the government seemed to be withholding arms and support just to draw out the fight and dilute what was happening. He had to flee for his life with his wife at the end of that.
He split from the Independent Labor party in the late 1930s when they came out in opposition to WWII. He was not a member from then until the end of his life. He doesn't sound very committed to the leftist cause. His writings in the leftist Tribune were always used to criticize Russia and communism. Kind of unusual for a leftist back then. I think his mind is easier understood with his 1945 quote: "I belong to the left and must work with it."
Orwell is not able to be claimed from either side as he truly was a work in progress. Being only 47 at the time of his death, I am sure he would not have been what many think of him now if he had lived another twenty years.

jamespowers said:

You have to be careful in interpreting what Orwell said publicly as he did invent the term doublethink and he allowed people to think what they wanted of him. However, after he adopted a child after his wife had died, he became much further away from the POUM with which he fought with Communists and Anarchists from 1936 to 1939. He was extremely disillusioned in that fight as the government seemed to be withholding arms and support just to draw out the fight and dilute what was happening. He had to flee for his life with his wife at the end of that.
He split from the Independent Labor party in the late 1930s when they came out in opposition to WWII. He was not a member from then until the end of his life. He doesn't sound very committed to the leftist cause. His writings in the leftist Tribune were always used to criticize Russia and communism. Kind of unusual for a leftist back then. I think his mind is easier understood with his 1945 quote: "I belong to the left and must work with it."
Orwell is not able to be claimed from either side as he truly was a work in progress. Being only 47 at the time of his death, I am sure he would not have been what many think of him now if he had lived another twenty years.

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very careful...

George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) who used the pen name “George Orwell” was born June 25, 1903. Motihari, India

and died Jan. 21, 1950 in London, United Kingdom.

He was 46.

I should have said "Labour Party," as in the established liberal party in the UK -- my error. He was a strong supporter of the postwar Atlee government, which was by most standards of a small-s socialist inclination. But he didn't accept or promote the Cold War thesis of Stalinism = all socialism -- much of his rage against Soviet-style Communism can be attributed to the fact that he saw the Stalinist system as a betrayal of his own vision of "democratic socialism."

There were quite a number of anti-Stalin leftist groups around the world in the thirties and early forties. Quite a few Socialist parties followed Trotskyist tendencies, notably the Socialist Workers Party, and I think it's interesting that in "Animal Farm," the Trotsky figure, "Snowball" the pig, is presented as a sincere and sympathetic figure. The CIA-backed movie, of course, changed this to make Snowball a sneaky, scheming, selfish manipulator -- which, ironically, is much in line with the way Stalinist-oriented parties portrayed Trotsky in the real world. I don't think Orwell himself was a Trotskyite, but the portrayal in the book, at least, is interesting.

There were also independent Socialist parties that affiliated with neither a Stalinist nor Trotskyite line and were often highly critical of the Soviet Union -- Norman Thomas's Socialist Party in the US was one example, as was the Daniel DeLeon-founded "Socialist Labor Party," which had quite a few followers in the American labor movement in the Era, and which opposes both the USSR and Maoist China as mere "state capitalism." The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always been militantly anti-Leninist, and was always strongly opposed to the USSR.

Whatever his own personal tendency along the spectrum of socialism, I think I can be pretty certain that Orwell never conflated Soviet Communism with all socialism, or intended his writings to be used thus.

LizzieMaine said:

I should have said "Labour Party," as in the established liberal party in the UK -- my error. He was a strong supporter of the postwar Atlee government, which was by most standards of a small-s socialist inclination. But he didn't accept or promote the Cold War thesis of Stalinism = all socialism -- much of his rage against Soviet-style Communism can be attributed to the fact that he saw the Stalinist system as a betrayal of his own vision of "democratic socialism."

There were quite a number of anti-Stalin leftist groups around the world in the thirties and early forties. Quite a few Socialist parties followed Trotskyist tendencies, notably the Socialist Workers Party, and I think it's interesting that in "Animal Farm," the Trotsky figure, "Snowball" the pig, is presented as a sincere and sympathetic figure. The CIA-backed movie, of course, changed this to make Snowball a sneaky, scheming, selfish manipulator -- which, ironically, is much in line with the way Stalinist-oriented parties portrayed Trotsky in the real world. I don't think Orwell himself was a Trotskyite, but the portrayal in the book, at least, is interesting.

There were also independent Socialist parties that affiliated with neither a Stalinist nor Trotskyite line and were often highly critical of the Soviet Union -- Norman Thomas's Socialist Party in the US was one example, as was the Daniel DeLeon-founded "Socialist Labor Party," which had quite a few followers in the American labor movement in the Era, and which opposes both the USSR and Maoist China as mere "state capitalism." The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always been militantly anti-Leninist, and was always strongly opposed to the USSR.

Whatever his own personal tendency along the spectrum of socialism, I think I can be pretty certain that Orwell never conflated Soviet Communism with all socialism, or intended his writings to be used thus.

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Democratic socialism sounds like one of those double think words. What is the difference? You can't have socialism without a some kind of cooperative ownership of everything. As that is the case, in England, all things are not cooperatively owned. There is private business along with private property. All of that is anathema to real socialism. Now if you call that Democratic socialism, then we have the same thing here.

Again, we have no idea what Orwell would have become as he aged.

2jakes said:

very careful...

George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) who used the pen name “George Orwell” was born June 25, 1903. Motihari, India

and died Jan. 21, 1950 in London, United Kingdom.

He was 46.

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He was even younger then and would have been even more effected by another twenty years.

Hello, I'm new to TFL so I suppose I should say Hello and that I joined because the community seems quite civil and there's lots of interesting threads around.

To keep on topic, I just finished M.R. James first short story collection "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" and I liked it a lot, plenty of enjoyable characters and bucolic settings as is his wont. I'm also two stories into The Complete John Silence Stories by Blackwood and going trough Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith's oeuvre.

jamespowers said:

Democratic socialism sounds like one of those double think words. What is the difference? You can't have socialism without a some kind of cooperative ownership of everything. As that is the case, in England, all things are not cooperatively owned. There is private business along with private property. All of that is anathema to real socialism. Now if you call that Democratic socialism, then we have the same thing here.

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There's lots of variations in the idea of socialism -- without getting into a long theoretical treatise, the basic concept they all share in common is a society in which the means of industrial and agricultural production are collectively owned, and production of commodities is carried out for use rather than for profit. It does *not* preclude the ownership of private property such as houses, cars, personal effects, and so forth, and it doesn't necessarily preclude the existance of small, independent business operations -- even in the USSR, such things existed. What it does oppose is the concentration of capital -- the consolidation of small enterprises into large monopolistic private combines.

There are as many theoretical ways to realize this as there are theorists -- and some of these propose a transition to socialism thru democratic means and established procedures rather than a revolution of the working class. Marxism-Leninism favors the latter over the former, but not all Marxists are Leninists, and not all socialists are Marxists. If I had to try and peg Orwell's beliefs down, I'd say he was definitely in the camp of those who believed in a democratic transition to socialism, and was therefore, by his own description, a "Democratic Socialist." I don't believe he was ever a Marxist in the theoretical sense, but I think he had some notions of class conflict that could be considered to have been influenced by Marxism. He's on the record as supporting Attlee's program, with the proviso that he thought Attlee himself wasn't aggressive enough -- he called him "a tame kitten," and felt that what he did was along the right lines, but wouldn't go far enough.

Agreed that we don't know how he would have evolved past the Attlee era. If I had to guess, though, I'd think he would have found himself in more harmony with the European Social-Democrats rather than any kind of rightward tendency. He might even have flirted with Eurocommunism in the sixties, given its ideological rejection of Moscow, but I don't think he would have embraced it.

Still reading the Pulitzer Prize winner All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. It's beautifully written. I'm taking my time with it to savor just how well done it is.

"Treasure Island," by Robt Louis Stevenson. Haven't read this since my youth. Kind of a nice treat and change of pace.
And ye can lay to that!


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Dower; Cultures of War.

LizzieMaine said:

There's lots of variations in the idea of socialism --

There are as many theoretical ways to realize this as there are theorists -- and some of these propose a transition to socialism thru democratic means and established procedures rather than a revolution of the working class.

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Teepotah.

I thought politics were banned from The Lounge....


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The discussion was about George Orwell's personal politics, which are quite relevant to an understand of his writings. Discussion in a historical context has always been allowed in the Lounge. Nobody was discussing contemporary politics, which is where the line has always been drawn.

I've been reading the Arthur T. Bradley's "Survivalist" series (books 1-3 of 6), but now it is time for some more Ross MacDonald, "The Doomsters" from 1958.

I finished reading, "Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform", by the late, William G. McLoughlin. My next will be, "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand.