Totalitarianism can be divided into right totalitarianism (fascism and Nazism) and left (communism). The differences lie in the development and support base of the systems. Right totalitarianism has traditionally relied on middle classes seeking to improve their position, tends to be blatantly racist and elitist, rests on hero-worship, and supports private ownership of industrial wealth. Left totalitarianism, on the other hand, appeals to the lower or working classes with the aim of eliminating class distinctions, is theoretically not bigoted, does not rely on a hero cult, and supports collective ownership of industrial wealth. Finally, with right totalitarianism, terror and violence arising from the struggle with the old elite tend to continue and increase, while in left totalitarianism, violence is prominent at the start during the revolution, but levels off once the governmental system has been restructured.
Rather than landing on one side or another, Orwell's novel is a harsh criticism of totalitarianism of all types. 1984 appears to be set in a society that practices right totalitarianism; but it clearly possesses qualities of left totalitarianism as well (notably in the collective ownership of wealth pg.62). The similarities with Josef Stalin's regime cannot go unnoticed. Like Stalin, the Oceanic government embraces characteristics of both fascist and communist authoritarianism: the former glorifies the wisdom of the leader, and the latter, the infallibility of the party. We can see both trends in 1984, where Big Brother (although a fictitious person) is worshipped as the wise and loving leader, and the Party is practically structured around its own supposed authenticity. In addition, many of the particulars of the Oceanic system (such as the Three-Year Plans and the forced-labour camps) appear to be thinly veiled allusions to aspects of Stalin's rule. It can even be conjectured that "Big Brother," with his dark, heavy moustache (pg.4), is actually Stalin.
Though they are not surprising, the two aims of the Party are laid out in startlingly stark terms (pt.2, ch.9): all research is aimed at discovering how to discover someone's private thoughts, and how to kill hundreds of millions of people instantaneously with no warning. Perhaps no other statement in the book to this point so clearly lays out the Party's calculating destruction of personal freedom and its utter disregard for human rights (despite the fact that it calls itself Socialism). The first part of this speaks to Winston and Julia's earlier conversation about the Party's inability to really get inside a person and find out what s/he thinks. The second hovers as more of a damning political statement by Orwell, warning against totalitarian systems and the dangers of allowing those with little respect for human life to obtain power. Surely Orwell had both Stalin and Hitler, and the knowledge of their horrific slaughter of millions, in mind.
According to Party doctrine, since there is no way to validate any truth that deviates from the party's view of reality, that truth no longer exists. This is another important aspect of Orwell's description of the nature of truth, which reflects Stalin's treatment of truth, especially in the thirties. It can also be argued that Orwell is also talking about a development that is taking place in the Western industrial countries, only at a slower pace than it is taking place in Russia and China. The basic question which Orwell raises is whether there is any such thing as "truth." "Reality," so the ruling party holds, "is not external. Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else ... whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth" (pg. 205-206). It is one of the most characteristic and destructive developments of our own society that man, becoming more and more of an instrument, transforms reality more and more into something relative to his own interests and functions. Truth is proven by the consensus of millions; to the slogan "how can millions be wrong" is added "and how can a minority of one be right" (pt2. ch.9). Orwell shows quite clearly that in a system in which the concept of truth as an objective judgment concerning reality is abolished, anyone who is a minority of one must be convinced that he is insane.
George Orwell's "1984" is a statement criticizing Stalin's regime, a government that Orwell saw as a monstrous perversion of Marxist ideals. The society under the rule of Big Brother is a metaphor for Communist societies, specifically Stalin's USSR. Orwell wrote 1984 as a political statement against totalitarianism, speaking out against the destruction of personal freedom, deceitful governments, and artificial truths.
