1984 Political Scene

George Orwell and the Political Scene of the Twenty-First Century

Despite today's chaotic and complicated political scene, society continues to keep its foothold strong in the principles of democratic institutions. Additionally and evidently apparent, the world at a political standpoint is in a much better position than it was seventy years ago: The world's dominant powers aren't ruled by totalitarian governments that oppress their people, world war does not plague the earth with death, and society doesn't live in fear of all out nuclear war. These political and more importantly humanitarian issues were a reality for George Orwell during his early life. It was these problems that moved him to write 1984 that was intended to warn others of

Additionally, the USSR (Soviet Union) was a socialist state led by the communist party and its famous brutal dictator, Joseph Stalin. Stalin, among other dictators, was a centerpoint for Orwell when writing 1984 because his tactics were those that resembled the Party: “One can say that Zamyatin’s and Orwell’s examples resemble more the Stalinist and Nazi dictatorships” (Orwell 317). Stalin, along with other high ranking officials, controlled the media, military and economic mobility of the state, similar to the party in 1984. On the other hand, the United States, very much part of the capitalist west, was and still is a federal republic with a free press, and established democratic institutions. Consequently, The United States relations with the then Soviet Union was at an all time low. With this in mind, there was a great panic within the public for fear that the two superpowers would engage in all out nuclear war: “The three existing big power-blocs ‘merely continued to produce atomic bombs and stored them up against the decisive opportunity which they all believed will come sooner or later’ ” (Orwell 319). As seen through history, that day would never come and instead would result in the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new state was born presently known as the Russian Federation. Different from the Soviet Union, The Russian Federation is a semi-presidential state and is pro-democracy. As a result of change in leadership and government, a set of new relations between the United States and Russia began. As of 2017, Russia-United States relations are declining but are still significantly better than they