Editing George Orwell (section)

===Politics===
Orwell liked to provoke arguments by challenging the status quo, but he was also a [[tradition]]alist with a love of old English values. He criticised and satirised, from the inside, the various social milieux in which he found himself. In his ''Adelphi'' days, he described himself as a "[[Toryism|Tory]]-[[Anarchism|anarchist]]".<ref>{{Citation |first = Richard |last = Rees |title = Orwell: Fugitive from the Camp of Victory |publisher = Secker & Warburg |year = 1961}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |first = Rayner |last = Heppenstall |title = Four Absentees |publisher = Barrie & Rockcliff |year = 1960}}</ref> Of [[colonialism]] in ''Burmese Days'', he portrays the [[English colonist]]s as a "dull, decent people, cherishing and fortifying their dullness behind a quarter of a million bayonets."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Orwell |first1=George |title=Burmese Days |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=56}}</ref> Writing for ''Le Progrès Civique'', Orwell described the [[British Raj|British colonial government]] in Burma and India:

{{Blockquote|"The government of all the Indian provinces under the control of the [[British Empire]] is of necessity despotic, because only the threat of force can subdue a population of several million subjects. But this [[despotism]] is latent. It hides behind a mask of democracy... Care is taken to avoid technical and industrial training. This rule, observed throughout India, aims to stop India from becoming an industrial country capable of competing with England&nbsp;... Foreign competition is prevented by an insuperable barrier of prohibitive customs tariffs. And so the English factory-owners, with nothing to fear, control the markets absolutely and reap exorbitant profits."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Orwell |first1=George |title=Comment on exploite un peuple: L'Empire britannique en Birmanie |trans-title=How a Nation Is Exploited – The British Empire in Burma |url=https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/how-a-nation-is-exploited-the-british-empire-in-burma/ |via=Orwell Foundation |journal=Le Progrès Civique |date=4 May 1929 |issue=CW 86 |translator1-first=Janet |translator1-last=Percival |translator2-first=Ian |translator2-last=Willison}}</ref>}}
[[File:Logo of the Independent Labour Party.svg|alt=The letters "ISLP" in white on a red circle|thumb|upright|Orwell joined the British [[Independent Labour Party]] during his time in the [[Spanish Civil War]] and became a defender of [[democratic socialism]] and a critic of [[totalitarianism]] for the rest of his life.]]
The Spanish Civil War played the most important part in defining Orwell's socialism. He wrote to Cyril Connolly from Barcelona on 8 June 1937: "I have seen wonderful things and at last really believe in Socialism, which I never did before."<ref>{{Citation |first = Cyril |last = Connolly |contribution = George Orwell 3 |title = The Evening Colonnade |publisher = David Bruce & Watson |year = 1973|title-link = The Evening Colonnade }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title = The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters |first = George |last = Orwell |volume = 1&nbsp;– An Age Like This 1945–1950 |page = 301 |publisher = Penguin}}</ref> Having witnessed [[Anarcho-syndicalism|anarcho-syndicalist]] communities and the subsequent brutal suppression of the anarcho-syndicalists, anti-Stalin communist parties and revolutionaries by the Soviet Union-backed Communists, Orwell returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-[[Stalinism|Stalinist]] and joined the British [[Independent Labour Party]].<ref>Crick (1982), p. 364</ref>

In Part 2 of ''The Road to Wigan Pier'', published by the [[Left Book Club]], Orwell stated that "a real Socialist is one who wishes—not merely conceives it as desirable, but actively wishes—to see tyranny overthrown". Orwell stated in "Why I Write" (1946): "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."<ref name=whyiwrite/> Orwell's conception of socialism was of a planned economy alongside democracy.<ref>{{cite book |last= Steele|first= David Ramsay|date= 20 July 2017|title= Orwell Your Orwell: A Worldview on the Slab|location= |publisher= St. Augustines Press|page= |isbn= 978-1587316104|quote= For Orwell, socialism is a planned society by definition, as contrasted with capitalism, which is by definition unplanned. So closely was socialism identified with planning that socialists would sometimes use a phrase like 'a planned society' as a synonym for socialism, and Orwell himself does this too...Democracy too is part of Orwell's picture of socialism, though when he employs the term 'democracy,' he is usually referring to civil liberties rather than to decisions by majority vote—not that he rejects majoritarian rule, but that when he talks about 'democracy,' this is not uppermost in his mind.}}</ref> Orwell was a proponent of a federal socialist Europe, a position outlined in his 1947 essay "[[Toward European Unity]]", which first appeared in ''[[Partisan Review]]''. According to biographer [[John Newsinger]]:
{{Blockquote|"The other crucial dimension to Orwell's socialism was his recognition that the Soviet Union was not socialist. Unlike many on the left, instead of abandoning socialism once he discovered the full horror of Stalinist rule in the Soviet Union, Orwell abandoned the Soviet Union and instead remained a socialist—indeed he became more committed to the socialist cause than ever."<ref name="newsinger"/>}}

Orwell was opposed to rearmament against [[Nazi Germany]] and at the time of the [[Munich Agreement]] he signed a manifesto entitled "If War Comes We Shall Resist"<ref>{{cite news |title=The reluctant patriot: how George Orwell reconciled himself with England |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/12/reluctant-patriot |work=New Statesman |date=6 January 2014 |access-date=3 February 2019 |archive-date=8 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210508171253/https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/12/reluctant-patriot |url-status=dead }}</ref>—but he changed his view after the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] and the outbreak of the war. He left the ILP because of its opposition to the war and adopted a political position of "revolutionary patriotism". On 21 March 1940 he wrote a review of [[Adolf Hitler]]'s ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' for ''[[The New English Weekly]]'', in which he analysed the dictator's psychology. Asking "how was it that he was able to put [his] monstrous vision across?", Orwell tried to understand why Hitler was worshipped by the German people: <blockquote>The situation in Germany, with its seven million unemployed, was obviously favourable for demagogues. But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of ''Mein Kampf'', and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches...The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, [[Prometheus]] chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Orwell |first=George |url=https://bookmarks.reviews/george-orwells-1940-review-of-mein-kampf/ |title=George Orwell's 1940 Review of 'Mein Kampf' |date=21 March 1940 |work=New English Weekly |access-date=29 September 2021 }}</ref></blockquote>

In December 1940 he wrote in ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' (the Labour left's weekly): "We are in a strange period of history in which a [[revolutionary]] has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary." During the war, Orwell was highly critical of the popular idea that an Anglo-Soviet alliance would be the basis of a post-war world of peace and prosperity.<ref>{{cite web |last = Collini |first =Stefan |title = E.H. Carr: Historian of the Future |work=The Times |location=UK |date=5 March 2008 |url = http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3490032.ece |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080516030341/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3490032.ece |url-status = dead |archive-date = 16 May 2008 |access-date =9 November 2008}}</ref> In his reply (dated 15 November 1943) to an invitation from the [[Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl|Duchess of Atholl]] to speak for the British League for European Freedom, he stated that he could not "associate himself with an essentially Conservative body" that claimed to "defend democracy in Europe" but had "nothing to say about [[British imperialism]]". His closing paragraph stated: "I belong to the Left and must work inside it, much as I hate Russian [[totalitarianism]] and its poisonous influence in this country."<ref name="In Front of Your Nose">Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.). ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose (1945–1950)'' (Penguin)</ref>

Orwell joined the staff of ''Tribune'' magazine as literary editor, and from then until his death, was a left-wing (though hardly orthodox) Labour-supporting [[democratic socialist]].<ref name="Woodcock1984">{{Cite book|last=Woodcock|first=George|author-link=George Woodcock |title=The crystal spirit: a study of George Orwell|year=1967|publisher=Jonathan Cape|location=London|isbn=978-0947795054|page=247}}</ref> On 1 September 1944, writing about the [[Warsaw uprising]], Orwell expressed in ''Tribune'' his hostility against the influence of the alliance with the USSR over the allies: "Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Do not imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking [[propagandist]] of the sovietic regime, or any other regime, and then suddenly return to honesty and reason. Once a whore, always a whore."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Orwell |first=George |date=1 September 1944 |title=As I please |url=https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19440901.html |work=Tribune |pages=15}}</ref> According to Newsinger, although Orwell "was always critical of the 1945–51 Labour government's moderation, his support for it began to pull him to the right politically. This did not lead him to embrace conservatism, [[imperialism]] or reaction, but to defend, albeit critically, Labour reformism."<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite web |url=http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr276/newsinger.htm |title=John Newsinger in ''Socialist Review'' Issue 276 July/August 2003 |publisher=Pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk |access-date=21 October 2010 |archive-date=13 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181013191304/http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr276/newsinger.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>
[[Special Branch (Metropolitan Police)|Special Branch]], the intelligence division of the [[Metropolitan Police]], maintained a file on Orwell for more than 20 years of his life. The dossier, published by [[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]], states that, according to one investigator, Orwell had "advanced Communist views and several of his Indian friends say that they have often seen him at Communist meetings".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/sep/04/booksnews.nationalarchives|title=Odd clothes and unorthodox views – why MI5 spied on Orwell for a decade|last=Bates|first=Stephen|date=4 September 2007|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en|access-date=19 September 2018}}</ref> [[MI5]], the intelligence department of the [[Home Office]], noted: "It is evident from his recent writings—'The Lion and the Unicorn'—and his contribution to Gollancz's symposium ''The Betrayal of the Left'' that he does not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6976576.stm |title=MI5 confused by Orwell's politics |date=4 September 2007 |work=BBC News |access-date=22 November 2008}}</ref>