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Does the socialist-patriot George Orwell offer a model for us today? Specifically for the youngof left or rightfor whom Peter Stanskys book is likely meant to serve as an introduction of sorts?

The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War by Peter Stansky (130 pages, Stanford University Press, 2023)

Less a brief biography than a lengthy essay, this study by Orwell scholar Peter Stansky should give those on the left and right much to ponderand not just about Orwell the writer, but about Orwell the example as well. For Orwelland Peter Stanskylife as a socialist patriot was neither a contradiction in terms nor an oxymoron. Today it is. Especially for the young.

During the Cold War both left and right of all ages sought to stake a claim to Orwell. So which was he? Here Orwell and Dr. Stansky are in complete agreement. Whether as Eric Blair (his birth name) or George Orwell (his pen name), Blair-Orwell was decidedly a man of the left.

As an occasionally frustrated Peter Stansky concedes, Blair-Orwell changed his mind more than occasionally about many things. But at base he had been an English patriot for as long as he could remember, and he was a self-proclaimed democratic socialist of one sort or another for much of his published writing life.

Here Dr. Stansky considers Orwells thoughts and actions in the context of four wars: the Great War of 1914-1918, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

Born in 1903, Eric Blair was too young to have had any direct involvement in the Great War, but he was not too young to defend Englands role in it. Nor was he too young to think, nay to know, that England was worth defending.

Dr. Stansky captures the Blair-Orwell attachment to pre-1914 England with a line from Cyril Connolly, an Orwell compatriot and fellow Etonian: Mr. Orwell is a revolutionary who is in love with 1910. To be a bit more specific, that would be the England of 1910.

Dr. Stansky borrowed that line from a Connolly review of Animal Farm, which was published just after the end of World War II. That would be a time when the author was seriously struggling with questions that he could never resolve and which might well be irresolvable. Here they are: Could truly revolutionary reform be achieved without violenceand without any violence to a nations past, as well as to its commitment to genuine democracy? Secondly, could those who achieve such reforms remain committed to genuine equality and willingly surrender power?

Dr. Stansky contends that Orwell wrote his fable as a warningand not just to those who sought power, but to those who would be asked/required to live under it. And yet the author remains convinced that Orwell remained convinced that his desired vision could be achieved without those in power abusing their power.

Historically speaking, Orwell was aware that Stalin and Stalinism were serial abusers of power. Neither was to be emulated or admired, and both could be avoided. Still, for Orwell, democratic socialism remained not just a realistic goal, but one that offered the best vision of a decent society as well.

Decent was an important word for Orwell. He meant it not just in reference to how people should treat one another, but also in regard to how a nation-state ought to be organized and how its leaders should treat its citizenswho are just that, citizens, rather than subjects or clients. More than that, he associated decency with some version of political and economic equality.

For Orwell, that version meant some never-quite-defined version of state imposed equality, as opposed to simply the minimal safety net of a welfare state. It certainly included state ownership of the major means of production and distribution.

From the mid-1930s to his death, Orwell wrestled with the dilemmas involved in achieving such a goal, while maintaining a decent democracy. He never resolved this dilemma, and he never abandoned it. Reading between the lines, it seems to remain a dilemma for Peter Stansky as well, if only because he is not about to criticize either Orwells goal or his continuing to wrestle with it.

Orwells commitments to both socialism and democracy were heightened by two compelling experiences in the mid-1930s: his road to Wigan Pier and his participation in the Spanish Civil War.

The road led him to the coal mining district of England, as well as to an even greater appreciation for the English working class. And his road to Spain opened his eyes about Stalin and the Soviet Union.

Orwell, the socialist, rather than Orwell the patriot, went to Spain not just to observe, but to fight. And fight he did, even to the point of taking a bullet in the neck. Luckily, he survived the wound, but any thought he might have had that the Soviet Union was a force for good in the world did not survive.

During World War II, Orwell soldiered on the English home frontand in alliance with Moscow, while rallying support for the war and for a fully socialized England. In fact, it was during this war that Orwell, the patriot, and Orwell, the democratic socialist, were on fully united display. For him, this was a doubly good war, both because it would preserve England and because it would advance socialism.

There seem to have been moments when Orwell couldnt decide whether a socialized England would be a better ally or whether a victory in the war would better assure a socialized England. But no matter. Peter Stansky is convinced that Orwell had convinced himself that a socialist England would still be the same England of his youth. Specifically, Orwell believed that that the pre-World War I England (of his memory) and the post-World War II England (of his hopes and dreams) would essentially be the same England.

Orwell lived long enough to see the Labor Party come to power and take the first steps toward building his idealized England. Of course, he didnt live long enough to see his ideal realized, much less to witness the rise and fall of Thatcherism. And the England of today? Its not likely that he would recognize an England that is at once increasingly distinct from the England of his youth and not yet anywhere close to the England of his hope and dreams.

Orwell died believing that a truly democratic England and a fully socialized England remained a single realistic possibility, as well as one that could actually be achieved. On this crucial matter George Orwell did not change his mind at all during the last decade of his life. He lived those years as a socialist patriot, and he died a socialist patriot.

As such, does he offer a model for us today? He seems to be just that for a ninety-year-old Peter Stansky. But otherwise? Specifically the young for whom this book was likely meant to serve as an introduction of sorts?

Those who are young and on the right might read him and try to heed his warnings against permanently centralized permanent political power. Those on the left might read him and seek to advance his dream of democratic socialism.

But could either be interested in emulating Orwell, the socialist patriot? Those on the American left and right have witnessed Orwells treasured, working-class drift to the right, while simultaneously being dismissed and/or abandoned as deplorables by their erstwhile allies and patrons. More than that, those on the left dont much care for the past of their country. That would be the very past that Orwell treasured about his own country. For them, it is a past to be destroyed or at least transcended, rather than preserved.

At the same time, those on the right have no interest in using war as Orwell sought to use World War II. Like Orwell, they might well treasure their countrys past, but they would have no interest in transforming or transcending it. Lastly, given Orwells example, they would be less inclined to risk what Orwell was willing to risk: namely that a socialized England would remain his England of old. As a result, today George Orwell, the socialist patriot, standsand likely will remaina very lonely figure on this side of the ocean, Peter Stanskys admirable effort notwithstanding.

Author John C. Chuck Chalberg once performed a one-man show as George Orwell.

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The featured image, uploaded by JRennocks, is a photograph of the statue of George Orwell at BBC Broadcasting House, taken 14 April 202. This file is licensed under theCreative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War - The Imaginative Conservative