1984: Allusion to Stalin and Hitler

1984: Allusion to Stalin and Hitler



Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel written by English author, George Orwell. This is a novel telling about life story of Winston Smith – his struggles, difficulties, decisions and life lead. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a story about seeking for freedom, a quest for liberty against the totalitarian authority that ravaged the whole state which the characters live in. George Orwell’s novel was considered as one of the most famous dystopian fiction in the field of literature. Privacy and security state issues were tackled as the author used allusions to demonstrate the reality he was experiencing to the lives of his very own characters. George Orwell had made sure that he would be able to use his novel in reaching out to the other nations regarding the dangers that communism has. Hence, he was successful. George Orwell was able to describe the experience of the whole nation as it was influenced by actions and decisions by the ruling powers during the earliest era of 1900. George Orwell used his novel in reminiscent of the totalitarian society that had brought a lot of suffering and affliction which was vividly depicted in his novel. Thus, the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, can be concluded to portray Stalin and Hitler: their purpose with their own totalitarian government; their greed for power; their belief of purging the world of sins and desecration;  and their sustenance for authority and total control. Nineteen Eighty-Four is not just an ordinary fictional novel that tells about war and struggle to survive. Rather, it is a warning to the world of the dangers of communism and totalitarian government which both Hitler and Stalin wanted to be realized.

George firsthand experienced the horror and terror of the lengthy totalitarian government in Spain and Russia. This authority was implemented extensively for the leaders to maintain their supremacy and power. People were afflicted with misgivings, sufferings, and agony. Though the world had subtly accepted the diplomacy of communism, still, there were many people who yearn for democracy and total liberation. America often presents the Soviet Union as state of moral experiment wherein people are highly ambiguous. By the time that George Orwell got fed up with the widespread oppression and cruelties, he longed to tell the people of its story and reality. George was keen in demonstrating the ruling powers led by Stalin and Hitler as communist nations which use modern technology in oppressing people and society, closely monitoring and controlling them. Thus, Nineteen Eighty-Four is the perfect totalitarian government that George Orwell used in alluding to both Stalin and Hitler in their quest for absolute power. George Orwell hoped that his book will serve its purpose of preventing the dangers and total destruction of totalitarian government if it would continue up to the near future (Dwan, 2010, p. 381).

The Big Brother presented in the novel was the same kind of potentate leaders such as Stalin and Hitler. However, it seemed that George Orwell had his eye more focused on Stalin rather than Adolf Hitler. Even in the portrayal of the character Big Brother even looks more like Stalin. Furthermore, considering the demographics and descriptions that were used in the novel, most totalitarian states are rather looking all similar. In the novel, Big Brother has focused hatred on his archenemy which was Goldstein which was Trotsky or the Jewish people. Big brother was the head of The Party which then is the most powerful system of censorship, torture, propagandas and suffering. The novel clearly depicts the need of the society and every individual to conform to the principles and notions of The Party which was common for all communist country. In the book, Big Brother even ordered for history to be rewritten in order to suit the ideas of The Party (Carpentier, 2014, p. 179).

In a letter that George Orwell sent to Noel Willmett of the Daily Beast, Orwell mentioned, “I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase” (Marshall, 2014). In Orwell’s viewpoint, if one would consider Hitler out of the game or probably will disappear, it will only add to the expense of strengthening and enforcing people like Stalin or the Anglo-American millionaires, as well as the subtypes of de Gaulle. Continuing further, Orwell stated, “All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms” (Marshall, 2014). These people group themselves round in order to attain some superhuman system and order and adopt the theory wherein the end will always justifies the means. George Orwell strongly believes that everywhere in the world, it seems that almost all people moved on one centralized point. He emphasized his point by stating, “Everywhere the world movement seems to be in the direction of centralized economies which can be made to ‘work’ in an economic sense” (Marshall, 2014). These powerful nations and states are but which not democratically organized institutions and might lead to establishment of caste system. Orwell was afraid that if the Soviet Union would continue to increase its quest for power and authority, the world would crumble and be destroyed. He mentioned, “With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth” (Marshall, 2014). What will be expected is that all the facts will have to fit in concerning words and prophecies particularly those that are infallible and horrifying. George Orwell knew too well that the world is already at chaos. He further emphasized his point with his following statement quote “There is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark” (Marshall, 2014). Right at the moment, in a sense history of the world had already ceased to exist.

Orwell was superb in depicting and portraying a state in which the government controls and monitors every facets and aspects of human life. It was extreme to the point that even having wrong notions, ideals, disloyal thought is crime against the law. As the novel continued to progress, little by little, Winston Smith felt the need to challenge the limits and abuse of the Party’s power. However, he feared what he had discovered. He did not expect the Party’s ability to enslave and totally control its subjects. Thus, leads to dwarfing Winston’s paranoid conceptions and understanding of its reach. Little by little too, the readers will come to understand through Winston’s eyes of what was the reality fast happening – what The Party uses as methodologies and number of techniques to control its citizens in tyranny and subjective obedience, each of which is important aspect and theme to the novel itself.

After the course of the war during the years of 1936 and thereafter, the world yearned for a better cause. Apparently, people should continue on making the future better, by which involving constant criticism in order to attain changes. George knew that if everything will stay as it is, the fearsome world of totalitarian government will come to devour us whole. “The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the government of Oceania itself, just to keep the people frightened” (Orwell, 2004, p. 108) – these lines in the novel would actually come true given that circumstances will not change. The reality was that it had really happened.

In the novel, the truth was already taken out from the picture and lies were compounded to become the reality people lived with (Orwell, 2004, p. 45). This is very much same with the principles that both Stalin and Hitler believes in: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. It would be best to consider the following lines in fully understanding how Stalin and Hitler were directly connected to the novel itself. “The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible and glittering” (Orwell, 2004, p. 74). It was worlds were iron and concrete monstrous machineries and weapons are the ruling hand for authority. It was a nation full of fanatics and warriors all marching forward with cadence and unity. People who are thinking the same things; shouting slogans and motives. It was a world wherein all works, fights, persecutes, and survive. It was “Three hundred million people all with the same face” (Orwell, 2004, p. 74).  It was true that reality was rotten and people cannot do something about it. Terror filled the air and so chaos and discord.


Carpentier, M. C. (2014). The “dark power of destiny” in george orwell’s nineteen eighty

four. Mosaic : A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 47 (1), 179-194.


Philosophy and Literature, 34 (2), 381-393.

Marshall, C. (2014). George Orwell Explains in a Revealing 1944 Letter Why He’d Write

  1. Open Culture. Retrieved July 7, 2014, from


Howe, I. (1983). 1984 Revisited: Totalitarianism In Our Century. New York: Harper Row.

Orwell, G. (2004). 1984. Iowa: 1st World Publishing.


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