[the worker fighting his enemy, the policeman I…]

Scan page 9

the worker fighting his enemy, the policeman I do no ask myself which side pst of his work, including his cent slaughter of the Old Isheviks in the mid-'30s bscow Trials.

Animal ¡Orwell had great difficulty itting "Animal Farm", his prody on the degeneration of : Brother Cain-Stalin * Russian revolution. pubhed. Gollancz, the publishg house most closely associed with the pro-Moscow left. turally would not touch it. Neither would Faber and ber or Jonathan Cape.

There is evidence-that the Ministry of Information" it pressure on publishers to ycott "Animal Farm" in der to avoid any antagonism a wartime ally. (In the USA. nilar pressure held up the blication of Trotsky's book • Stalin, printed in 1941 Itil 1946. revolution:

*The creatures outside looked from pig to man and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Totalitarianism

Orwell's increasing fascination with totalitarianism and the workings of dictatorial elites (or 'oligarchies') resulted in "1984", the book that predictably sparked this year's Orwell craze. Here Orwell comes closest to codifying his nightmare vision of a StalinistHitlerite regime ushered in by power-crazed intellectuals.

Underpinning 1984 is a distinct world view, very close to that developed in the early forties by the ex-Trotskyist James Burnham, who quickly went over to reaction and by Max Schachtman, who remained a revolutionary socialist into the '50s.

The similarity is not accidental. Orwell had read Burnham's books and essays. and wrote. several articles discussing Burnham's ideas. Orwell's "Oligarchical collectivist" characterisation of both Russia and Nazi Germany clearly coincided with the origThe Book of the Year: not yet the year of this book inal Burnham-Schachtman analysis (usually called bureaucratic collectivism) and the world of 1984 is clearly based upon Burnham's 1941 book 'The Managerial Revolution"

Orwell summarised Burnham's theses as follows:

'Capitalism is disappearing, but socialism is not replacing it. What is now arising is a new kind of planned. centralised society which will be neither capitalist nor, in any accepted sense of the word, democratic. The rulers of this new society will be the people who effectively control the means of production: that is. business executives, technicians, bureaucrats and soldiers, lumped together by Burnham under the name of "managers• 'These people will eliminate the old capitalist class, crush the working class, and so organise society that all power and economic privilege remain in their own hands. Private property rights will be But the world of the 'Managerial Revolution" and 1984 was not necessarily Orwell's view of how things would actually turn out. Indeed, Orwell described 1984 as a satire. Certainly, it was not some kind of 'last testament" - it was simply the last book he wrote before his death. All the evidence suggests that while Orwell may have believed Burnham to have been "'more right than wrong about the present and immediate past" , he did not accept the managerial revolution as an unstoppable process.

He criticised Burnham for "trying to build up a picture of terrifying, irresistible power" and questioned Burnham's explanation for the motivation of the new class (power for its own sake) in semi-Marxist terms: .:

'''He assumes that the division of society into classes serves the same purpose in all ages. This is practically to ignore the history of hundreds: ofyears.

Noting Burnham's ambivalent attitude to Stalin and Hitler, Orwell detected (correctly) an element of "power-worship' • And that, he commented, "blurs polithas been written about Orwell's attitude to workers. He has been accused of all sorts of middle-class prejudice, of "patronising" workers and even of snobbery. Some of this stems from Orwell's honesty. Unlike most middle class recruits to the socialist cause, he openly admitted his own worries and contradictions, and his inability to transcend his class origins.

It took guts to write: "Here am I. for instance, with a bourgeois upbringing and a working class income. Which class do I belong to? Economically I belong to the working class, but it is almost impossible for me to think of myself as anything but a member of the bourgeoisie. " (Road to Wigan Pier).

This frankness about his stance as an outsider looking unaware of their own potential strength, and the "proles" of 1984 have been pacified by gin, pornography and gambling.

But even at his gloomiest (and in 1984 Orwell certainly was at his gloomiest) hope still lay with the "proles" "strength would turn into consciousness", though it might take a thousand years.

Despite the pessimism of his last years, despite his backwardness on women and gays, despite his "patriotism" and all his other well-publicised faults, Orwell knew which side he was on instinctively, from the guts:

... when I see an actual flesh and blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side l am on.

Scan page 10

Local government unions will fight to defend local government democracy JOHN HARRIS Ken Livingstone THERE are a number of separate issues contained in Martin Thomas' article on the left and local government (December Socialist Organisers).

The Local Government Left WI HANUS OFF THE MET COUNTIES, nalgo GLC & ILEA SIAMLID n0100 Witch-hunts, to organise a public meeting with Peter Tatchell to which 120 came. SO is unlikely to win over large numbers of people out of such activity. But it is tremendously important that we keep the ear of a large number of people, influence their ideas and thereby events, and that we do not isolate ourselves so that we can influence nothing.

What should SO supporters do now?

What are the prospects which face us? Above all the crisis of capitalism remains. The Tories will increasingly attempt to resolve it at the expense of the working class.

Inside the Labour Party there is a clear trend for unity behind Kinnock, whom large sections of the left see as a left winger.

Kinnock's fake leftism has led SO to say that he should put his money where his mouth is. That's the way to do it.

Kinnock's campaign on health cuts could bring into action health and other workers in