1984 Education: Social, Historical and Political context

Historical and Political Context

To understand 1984, it helps to learn more about the world George Orwell was living in. Orwell had lived through some of the most politically extreme and violent events of the twentieth century. 1984 was published in 1949, just four years after the end of the Second World War. Europe had been devastated by war, millions of people had died, cities had been destroyed, and Britain was still dealing with food shortages, rationing and economic hardship. Orwell took many of these real experiences and pushed them to an extreme.

World War II

During Orwell’s lifetime, fascist dictatorships rose to power across Europe. Adolf Hitler ruled Nazi Germany, Benito Mussolini ruled Italy, and Francisco Franco established a dictatorship in Spain. This time in history shows us how governments can use propaganda, censorship, over-policing of marginalised communities and violence to control populations.  The London of 1984 therefore contains details that would have felt familiar to Orwell’s original readers, with the world being deliberately grey, worn-down and oppressive. This matters dramatically because the world of 1984 feels frighteningly believable rather than completely imaginary. Orwell was also writing in the aftermath of the development and use of nuclear weapons. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 had demonstrated that humanity now could destroy on an unimaginable scale. This contributed to a widespread fear of another global conflict. In 1984, the world exists in a state of permanent war. The constant threat of conflict helps the Party maintain control because people are encouraged to believe that they are under constant attack.

Stalin and the Soviet Union

The Spanish Civil War

In 1936, George Orwell travelled to Spain to fight against fascism during the Spanish Civil War. While there, he encountered not only the conflict between fascists and anti-fascists but also the violent political divisions within the anti-fascist movement itself. Orwell was shot in the throat and narrowly survived this experience. When political repression turned against his own side, Orwell and his wife Eileen were forced to flee Spain. These experiences profoundly influenced Orwell’s distrust of political propaganda and the manipulation of truth. In 1938, he published Homage to Catalonia, a memoir detailing his experiences in Spain, in which he describes the conflict, political divisions, and propaganda he witnessed. This experience helped shape his lifelong interest in how authoritarian regimes and political movements can distort reality and control what people believe. In his novel 1984, this theme manifests as one of the Party’s most powerful weapons: if you can control the past, you can control people’s understanding of the present. Ben, our Assistant Director, dedicated a lot of time during the rehearsal process to researching the Spanish Civil War and its influence on Orwell’s writing.

The Cold War 

When 1984 was published in 1949, a major conflict was beginning: the Cold War. The alliance between Britain and the Soviet Union had broken down after the Second World War, and the world was increasingly divided between competing political and ideological powers, particularly the capitalist West and the communist Soviet Union. This atmosphere of suspicion and fear influenced the world of 1984, where Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are locked in apparently endless conflict. The important thing is that the enemy keeps changing. One moment, Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Later, the Party claims it has always been at war with Eurasia. Winston’s job is to rewrite the records so that the new version of history appears to have always been true. If the world of 1984 is influenced by post-war Britain, what should it look and sound like? If the Party is influenced by authoritarian regimes, how might its propaganda be presented?