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George Orwell’s 1984 and Stalin’s Russia Essay

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In George Orwell’s 1984, the strategies used by Oceania’s Political Party to achieve total control over the population are similar to the ones employed by Joseph Stalin during his reign. Indeed, the tactics used by Oceania’s Party truly depicts the brutal totalitarian society of Stalin’s Russia. In making a connection between Stalin’s Russia and Big Brothers’ Oceania, each Political Party implements a psychological and physical manipulation over society by controlling the information and the language with the help of technology. Many features of Orwell's imaginary super-state Oceania are ironic translations from Stalin’s Russia. In Oceania, the Party mainly uses technology as the chief ingredient to implement a psychological …show more content…

For example, when Winston sits down to write in his dairy, he writes “in sheer panic, only perfectly aware of what he was setting down” (Orwell, 11). In this instance, Winston is afraid of the act of writing in a dairy, but he decides to do so in sheer panic. This results as the effect of Oceania’s Party psychological manipulation of the mind. Every time a person decides to do something, they will have a sheer image of the poster and the caption “Big Brother Is Watching You” in the back of their heads. Hence, this action limits the person capability to act freely and express their inner sentiments. (Critical Reception, 11-23) Alike, “The Poster” was the most prominent form of psychological manipulation during Stalin's reign. Until World War I the poster had avoided social themes. However, as Stalin’s Russia rose to war and as a world power, the posters took a turn to be commercial and cultural, an attempt to develop an expanding market and advertise various entertainments. The posters of World War II took on a new task: to mobilize the population in support of the war effort. Stalin’s Posters featured themes of mobilizing the armed forces, reconstructing the economy, as well as various specific war time problems. It was at this point that the government began to make efforts to “shape public opinion” and “arouse patriotic feelings”. The government assigned this task to the mass media. Every political event in Russia found resonance in

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