The Revolution and the Party:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.
The party is not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power.
The Party is different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.
They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.
The Party is not like that.
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
Power is not a means, it is an end.
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
The object of persecution is persecution.
The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power.
Now you begin to understand. - George Orwell 1984
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
George Orwell: The Revolution and the Party
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