George Orwell and Stalinist Russia

OP

im assuming that you must have read the above books so what did you think of them? are they interesting but fairly easy to read (ie: not insanely descriptive like dickens)

Reply 3

Dionysus

15

Well if you are seriously considering taking on that question, you really need to read both of those first as a bare minimum. Both are fairly simple metaphorical books, yet outstandingly good.

Reply 4

OP

having never read either 1984 or Animal Farm, nor having studied Stalininist Russia (although i did study bolshevik russia), iv got to say that the question does sound really interesting. it's a voluntary project and the question i was originally going to do sounds really dull, but this question sounds really thought-provoking. i think i might go for it becuase i did like the russian module. do you think id be able to write a 5000word essay on that question (i dont think id read any of his other novels becuase i only have the summer to complete the project and am on holiday for quite a lot of the summer)

Reply 5

thegreatstupendo

2

alison_141288

having never read either 1984 or Animal Farm, nor having studied Stalininist Russia (although i did study bolshevik russia), iv got to say that the question does sound really interesting. it's a voluntary project and the question i was originally going to do sounds really dull, but this question sounds really thought-provoking. i think i might go for it becuase i did like the russian module. do you think id be able to write a 5000word essay on that question (i dont think id read any of his other novels becuase i only have the summer to complete the project and am on holiday for quite a lot of the summer)

wouldn't your holiday be the perfect time to read Orwell?

Reply 6

OP

nah. im going to california for 2wks and those wks are jam-packed full of stuff. when my family go on holiday, we dont go to laze on the beach, we go to fill it with as much stuff as poss - lol

so do people think that's a good question then because im not in a position to be able to say whether or not it'll be interesting or will have lots to discuss

Reply 7

dreamqueen

3

i have read both books and studied stalinist russia - it would certainly be extremely interesting and there's a lot to say. I would say they are fairly easy to read. I would reccommend getting one of those little 'access to history' books on stalinist russia - they're really good (I used to have one). If you're worried about reading both books you could just read animal farm and change the question to something like 'how effective is Orwell's animal farm in allowing understanding of the effects of the political system in Russia under Stalin?' (did you know that animal farm is an allegory about what happened in Russia?). If this is a voluntary project then are there any specific criteria that you have to meet? If not then it probably doesn't even matter what your question is. You might want to decide what you actually want to consider, like whether you want to consider the value of Orwell's books when understanding the reality of what happened in Russia, or whether you want to consider the failings of communism, or indeed of stalin as an individual. When you know what approach you want to take the wording of your question is easy

Reply 8

You can polish off animal farm in a few good sit downs, to be honest. It's a simple book you can fly through, and its connections to Soviet Russia are innumerable:

Workers overthrow employers (bolshevik revolution)
government 'of the workers' installed. (soviet union)
two leaders jockying for position. (lenin and trotsky)
the "bad" one gets control and forces the other into exile. (lenin exiles trotsky)
workers get more and more disenfranchised as their "worker" leaders become more and more like their previous rulers that they overthrow (stalin, and shown in animal farm by the pigs walking on two legs, changing the contitution thing, etc).

Obviously there's a lot more, and there's a ton of detail to go into, but that's an obvious outline of the more apparent storyline turns.

Reply 9

Psssh, Russians are Russians! :p:

Reply 10

OP

thanks for those suggestions. iv already submitted the first suggested question (To what extent do the totalitarian regimes presented in Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 bear resemblance to the reality in Stalinist Russia?) and my supervisor was very impressed with that question!!

I've started reading 1984 and am on about pg70 and whilst i do like it, im not getting really into it like i do with some books. i dont know anything about stalinist russia but im actually seeing a lot of similarities with nazi germany (eg: the thing about the ideal race, the gestapo in relation to the 'disappearances of people', indoctrination of the youth) but i can also see references to russia (eg: the proletariat are the ones who could overthrow the Party).

i feel quite smart reading it actually lol

Reply 11

You might wanna edit your title, else it looks like you think 1984 is written by Orwell too.

Reply 12

Piers-

2

DanGrover

You might wanna edit your title, else it looks like you think 1984 is written by Orwell too.

It is

Reply 13

Piers-

It is

I'm such a *******. I was thinking of Brave New World for some reason. My mistake!

Christ, this really isn't my thread. I'm staying out of the bloody History forum!

Reply 14

OP