The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism

The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism is a fictional book in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949). It is supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein, the principal enemy of the state of Oceania's ruling party. The Party portrays Goldstein as a former member of the Inner Party who conspired to depose Big Brother and overthrow the government. In the novel, the protagonist, Winston Smith, obtains the banned book from O'Brien, an apparent friend. It is also simply referred to as "the book".

Orwell modelled Goldstein on Leon Trotsky and Goldstein's book was a parody of his 1937 critique of the Soviet Union titled The Revolution Betrayed. He was also influenced by the theory of bureaucratic collectivism in the late 1930s and the writings of American philosopher James Burnham, a former Trotskyist, particularly his 1941 book The Managerial Revolution. His prediction of the emergence of three superstates being at war for world domination influenced Orwell's own description of the three fictional superstates that form the basis of the political geography of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Goldstein's book reveals to Winston the structure, hierarchy and philosophy of Oceania and the motivations of its ruling Party. Orwell received some criticism for interrupting the narrative flow of Nineteen-Eighty Four by placing Goldstein's book at the heart of his novel, but its lengthy thesis provides the ideological and theoretical bases for Oceania's totalitarian regime.

Role in Nineteen Eighty-Four

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the protagonist Winston Smith writes a diary in which he confesses thought crimes, such as his secret hatred of Big Brother and the Party.^[1] In the course of his work life at the Ministry of Truth, Winston approaches O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party, believing him part of the Brotherhood, Goldstein's conspiracy against Oceania.^[2] Initially, O'Brien appears as such, especially in arranging to give Winston a copy of "the book", the possession of which is a crime in Oceania. In conversation, O'Brien tells Winston that "the book" reveals the true, totalitarian nature of the dystopian society that The Party established in Oceania, and that full membership to the Brotherhood requires reading "the book".^[3] Winston describes his first encounter with "the book":

A heavy black volume, amateurishly bound, with no name or title on the cover. The print also looked slightly irregular. The pages were worn at the edges, and fell apart easily, as though the book had passed through many hands. The inscription on the title-page ran:^[4]

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF
OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM
by
Emmanuel Goldstein

Winston manages to read chapters one and three of Goldstein's book, titled "Ignorance is Strength" and "War is Peace", which are two of the contradictory party slogans promoted on the facade of the Ministry of Truth, the remaining slogan being "Freedom is Slavery".^[5] His attempt to join the Brotherhood by reading the book fails when he is arrested by the Thought Police. O'Brien, who had posed as the Brotherhood's leader to gain his trust, casts in doubt the truthfulness of the book when he reveals that it was written by the Inner Party rather than Goldstein, but confirms that its description of the regime is accurate.^[6]

The term Oligarchical Collectivism refers to Ingsoc, the dominant ideology of Oceania and the ideologies of Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia and Death-worship (Obliteration of the Self) in Eastasia. Winston reads two long excerpts of the book establishing how the three totalitarian superstates – Eastasia, Eurasia, Oceania – emerged from a global war, thus connecting the past to his present, the year 1984. It explains the basic political philosophy of the totalitarianism that derived from the authoritarian political tendencies manifested in the Twentieth century. That the three, ostensibly opposing ideologies are functionally identical is the central revelation of "the book".^[7]

Orwell essentially organised Nineteen-Eighty Four into three sections. The first section introduces Oceania from the protagonist's viewpoint, depicting the methods the totalitarian regime uses to control its population, including the Thought Police, telescreens and party political slogans. In this section, Winston, who has only vague memories, attempts to uncover the past through various methods. In the second section, Winston reads a couple of chapters from Goldstein's book, which explains the ideological and theoretical bases for the regime. After reading the book, Winston is still unclear about the motives of the regime and wishes to understand. Only in the third part of the novel does Winston finally learn the motives of the regime after he is arrested and tortured by O'Brien. Initially, Winston believes that the masses are being ruled for their own good, but O'Brien explains that, "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake". O'Brien further explains that the inevitable future resulting from this lust for power is "a boot stamping on a human face - forever".^[8]

By reading excerpts from Goldstein's book, Winston learns that the main principles of Oceania's totalitarian regime are its dependency on the mutability of the past and the use of doublethink. His reading is interrupted before he can finally learn the full revelation of the Party's secret, which is revealed by O'Brien much later in the novel. O'Brien's explanation is that God is power and that the slogan "Freedom is Slavery" defines the Party's immortality and that only when the individual completely submits himself to the collective Party does he become all-powerful and immortal.^[9]

Background

Orwell modelled the character of Emmanuel Goldstein on Leon Trotsky (pictured), one of the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution.

Oceania's principal enemy of the people, Emmanuel Goldstein, is modelled after Leon Trotsky, a former member of the inner circle of the Bolshevik Party whom Stalin purged and then declared an enemy of the people of the Soviet Union, the socialist state that Trotsky had helped found in Russia.^[10] Dorian Lynskey also found similarities to Andreu Nin, the leader of the POUM who was assassinated by the NKVD while Orwell was fighting for the POUM in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War.^[11]

The book has been described as a parody and critique of The Revolution Betrayed (1937), by Trotsky;^[12] and The Managerial Revolution (1941), by James Burnham, a former Trotskyist.^[13][14] Theoretically, Oligarchical Collectivism recalls the theory of bureaucratic collectivism put forth by some Trotskyists in the late 1930s as a description of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. The term was used by the Italian political theorist Bruno Rizzi, who published a book titled The Bureaucratisation of the World in September 1939. It was read by Trotsky, who in November 1939, published an article criticising the book in a journal titled The New International. Rizzi argued that the Soviet Union under Stalin exploited its workers and was neither capitalist nor socialist but was an emerging bureaucratic autocracy that would dominate the world. Trotsky believed that Marxists should continue to support the Soviet Union, but many in America disagreed. James Burnham rejected Marxism completely and wrote The Managerial Revolution after reading Trotsky's summary of Rizzi's book. He agreed that power was falling into the hands of executives of corporations and government administrators and predicted three superstates that would in the future be in conflict for world domination. Orwell was a keen reader of Burnham's book and it was influential on his description of the three totalitarian superstates in Nineteen Eighty-Four.^[15]

Orwell had been struggling to understand the relationship between communism, fascism and capitalism and, after reading Assignment in Utopia by Eugene Lyons, he felt that Stalinism did not seem very different to fascism. In The Totalitarian Enemy, Franz Borkenau presented Nazism and Stalinism as two sides of the same system. In his 1940 review of Borkenau, Orwell preempted the title of Goldstein's book by writing: "The two regimes, having started from opposite ends, are rapidly evolving towards the same system— a form of oligarchical collectivism."^[16]

From the late 1930s until his death, Orwell was mainly concerned about totalitarianism, which he feared would result in the abandonment of objective truth and the distortion of history, in which a leader could control both the future and the past. In a BBC talk in June 1941, he stated: "Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age... [It] isolates you from the outside world, it shuts you up in an artificial universe in which you have no standards of comparison." In a letter written to H. J. Willmett in May 1944, he wrote that history had already ceased to exist: "if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the führer wished it".^[17]

Contents

Goldstein's book represents Orwell's growing concerns about totalitarianism and his vision that modern states are driven towards power for its own sake rather than for improvements to society. It details the perpetual class struggle characteristic of human societies;^[18] beginning with the observation that societies have always divided themselves into three social classes: the High, the Middle and the Low and that their aims are irreconcilable. The High aims to remain in power, the Middle aims to change places with the High and the Low desires equality. Goldstein writes that no progress has ever changed this division. Goldstein's theory presents a development from Orwell's earlier works like Animal Farm in his theory of the totalitarian state. In Goldstein's thesis, the Middle, which displaces the High, becomes tyrannical and openly hostile to equality, using language like Ingsoc or "English socialism" to give the impression of equality. Goldstein writes that by the 1940s, all political thought in any name is authoritarian and hierarchical.^[19]

Oligarchical collectivism: The Oceanian social-class pyramid in the year 1984.

Goldstein explains the structure and philosophy of Oceania and its opposition to liberal ideas in the pursuit of power. Although Ingsoc is an abbreviation of English socialism, it has no real ideology, because its sole purpose is to retain power controlled by a managerial elite. The Inner Party, consisting of politicians, intellectuals and scientists, makes up two percent of the population. Below this elite, the Outer Party, consisting of bureaucratic functionaries make up about twelve percent. The remaining 85 percent of the population in the hierarchy are the proles.^[20]

Initially the Party justifies its control by its dedication to socialist values, presenting itself as a collectivist regime. Oligarchical collectivism means that property is owned by a small group rather than individual Party members. The Party itself is a meritocracy, rather than a hereditary system, as its longevity depends on the continuation of policy. Party members are recruited as a result of their competence and the Party's absolute power is maintained by the Thought Police.^[19]

The Inner Party fears the Outer Party rather than the Proles as they have lost everything and have no future. The Party, through the Ministry of Truth, practices historical revisionism, which robs the Proles of a past, making them incapable of revolution.^[21] In order to prevent any unorthodoxy, the Ministry of Truth uses Newspeak, which makes heresy impossible by omitting words that could express it. Newspeak also reduces thought to simple opposites, such as good and "ungood", an intentional dichotomy that hides nuance and ambiguity while promoting black and white thinking. Inner Party members are further subject to self-deceptive habits of mind, such as crimestop ("preventive stupidity"), which halts thinking at the threshold of politically dangerous thought, and doublethink, which allows simultaneously holding and believing contradictory thoughts without noticing the contradiction.^[22]

Goldstein's book also explains the geographical relationships of the three superstates, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. It explains that the three are in an infinite war and that their frontiers are constantly shifting. Orwell writes that their regimes are essentially the same: "Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare". Their citizens are immobile, having no contact with foreigners and no opportunity to uncover the lies inside the sealed state in which they exist.^[23] Each superstate has the technological capability to destroy their counterparts in a theoretical single, decisive strike, but none of the superstates are a true threat to each other. To counter overproduction and maintain power, they must exist in a state of permanent limited war. By harnessing the hysteria of war and demand for self-sacrifice, each of the superstates declares war not on each other but on their own populace, who are kept ignorant, on the brink of starvation, and overworked. Permanent limited war allows the ruling party to explain the lack of consumer goods and justify its oppression of the masses. This explains the ironic Party slogan that "War is Peace".^[24]

Critical response

Orwell received criticism from critics and publishers for interrupting the narrative of Nineteen Eighty Four by adding a lengthy fictional history in the centre of the novel. Despite this criticism he insisted that its placement and length be maintained. Erika Gottlieb agreed that the section is indispensable for the novel's function as a dystopian satire. She writes that Goldstein's book provides both an analysis of the political trends of the 1940s and a warning of the possibility of a looming political crisis as depicted in the totalitarian regime of Oceania.^[9]

See also

• Songbun