Sorry Trots.
George Orwell was a capitalist stooge
Nathan Reed
Parker Cruz
How did he become a neocon before those were even a thing?
James Sanchez
Neoconism comes from Trotskyism.
Aiden Green
No it doesn't, it comes from the Truman doctrine and Kissinger's realpolitik if anything.
Hunter Richardson
I like Orwell, but I think he does exemplify how centre-left liberals can end up being useful idiots for capitalists and fascists. When he joined the Independent Labour Party and fought for the Republican army, he showed himself to be more authentically leftist than the mainstream labor party of his time. However, he was disappointed by the Soviet Union's refusal to support the Spanish Republicans, and he was disgusted by the rise of authoritarianism, both with fascism and with the Soviets. In reaction to that, he wrote a lot of material that could and is predictably used by the right wing against leftists, demonizing socialism in general. It's kind of sad. Reminds me a lot of Christopher Hitchens' move from Marxism to Neoconservatism.
Cameron Murphy
I'm more sympathetic to Orwell. Hitchens also saw himself as this Orwell-like figure but he was no Orwell. For one, Hitchens was extremely popular while alive, and he was also a rank careerist while Orwell died at age 46 from tuberculosis in a nightmare waking fever dream of thinking the world was about to get nuked to bits. He basically croaked right after finishing Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Hitchens was also always name dropping that he wined and dined with blah blah. Orwell was more honest about himself I think and about the phony bullshit "scribbler" business he was in.
Kayden Clark
I think that's a good point. Orwell has never struck me as remotely insincere, while Hitchens has always played the high society political game. Hitchens' work always suffered from a complete disconnect with real people, which I think contributed to his bigotry toward the Muslim world. Regardless of how Orwell's work has been manipulated by those on the right, his work is based on his real experiences, mingling with real people.
Andrew Rodriguez
like Animal Farm? That pathetic masturbation of Trotsky?
Also on the topic of his gallavanting in Spain. He was heavily criticized by other communists because he incited sectarianism for no decent reason other than the fact that he was salty at non-anarchist socialists. He also once caused a disaster; bored at being hidden he shot at rats and gave away the position of his comrades, resulting in an artillery strike on their position that nearly annihilated the group. Good fucking going, causing division in what ought to be a united front and being an incompetent fool who can't curb his own lack of discipline.
Then he goes home being injured and proceeds to write book after scurrilous book about "muh evul authoritarians" and how it was THEIR fault entirely that Spain fell and that socialism wasn't already in action globally.
1984 is the ONLY book of his that has anything decent and that is because it was dedicated to analyzing capitalism.
Bentley Flores
It's also worth noting that none of his works were ever intended as attacks on socialism itself.
He was a non-anarchist socialist fighting with a non-anarchist unit. He was salty at the PSUC for inciting sectarianism as a matter of official policy. They literally did shit like accuse the POUM and CNT-FAI of being a pro-Franco fifth column.
Blake Hughes
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