War and the Threat of External Violence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

War and the Threat of External Violence - Essay Example For the presentation of his statement George Orwell chose the art form of social science fiction. The novel just describes a few months of Winston Smith’s life – life of an ordinary member of society, which is built on the principles of Ingsoc (English Socialism), in the fictional superpower Oceania in 1984 (future). A prototype of the future socialist society can be seen quite clear – it was the Soviet Union of the 30-40’s. The mustachioed leader, Big Brother, privileged comrades of the Inner Party, the Thought Police, great cleansings, forced labor camps, a hysterical search for internal enemies, headed by a mythical traitor Goldstein -Trotsky, gloomy atmosphere of general suspicion, squalid life – these are the familiar elements of Stalin’s dictatorship. However, the technologies and methods of society control and suppression of dissent in the book surpass the Soviet realias. Orwell developed the idea of surveillance and brainwashing with more and more sophisticated technical means to manipulate information on a large scale, as it makes impossible any appearance of unauthorized thoughts. The geographic location of the novel is Air Strip One – a huge faceless province of the totalitarian Oceania, which is the allusion of the former UK. The author shows that even the bastion of European democracy with a long tradition of political freedom, which did not surrender to foreign or domestic fascism, can turn into a giant grim prison in 35 years, if people lose their watchfulness. Now, in the atomic age, the world lives in a state of apocalyptic terror. This is the reason why people are so concerned about the motives of the Apocalypse in literature. However, not the Big Brother unleashed atomic and hydrogen apocalyptic monsters. The main problem of the modern society is that it still has not learned how to adapt its lifestyles, social and political institutions to the great achievements of the technical knowledge. We do not know how the atomic and hydrogen bombs influenced consciousness of millions of people living in the East, where pain and fear can be hidden behind the facade of official optimism. This book is an attempt of a geopolitical prognosis. The world in the novel, after World War II and a small period of peace, is engaged in a nuclear war, which started in the 50’s between the former allies. As a result, the territories of Continental Europe go to the USSR; Britain and America are horror-struck by socialist revolutions. The possibility of such a war is historically justified. The allies, members of the anti-fascist coalition had very different geopolitical interests and united only in the face of fascist aggression. Variants of the further division of the world among the great powers, after Germany’s fall, were considered by Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt as well. The military machine of the Red Army gained an unprecedented power by the end of the war and could â€Å" liberate† the whole Europe easily and only the Second Front opening forced Stalin to confine himself to the Eastern half only. The Allies, in turn, were not averse to kill the â€Å"communist contagion.† Actually, after World War II, two superpowers arouse - the USSR and the USA and by the early 50’s they had nuclear weapons and struggled for world domination. But in the real world nuclear arsenals have grown too quickly, making it impossible to win a nuclear war. Moreover, Stalin’