The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (Penguin Modern Classics)

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The difference between Socialism and capitalism is not primarily a difference of technique. One cannot simply change from one system to the other as one might install a new piece of machinery in a factory, and then carry on as before, with the same people in positions of control. Obviously there is also needed a complete shift of power. New blood, new men, new ideas – in the true sense of the word, a revolution. As soon as one considers any problem of this war – and it does not matter whether it is the widest aspect of strategy or the tiniest detail of home organization – one sees that the necessary moves cannot be made while the social structure of England remains what it is. Inevitably, because of their position and upbringing, the ruling class are fighting for their own privileges, which cannot possibly be reconciled with the public interest. It is a mistake to imagine that war aims, strategy, propaganda and industrial organization exist in watertight compartments. All are interconnected. Every strategic plan, every tactical method, even every weapon will bear the stamp of the social system that produced it. The British ruling class are fighting against Hitler, whom they have always regarded and whom some of them still regard as their protector against Bolshevism. That does not mean that they will deliberately sell out; but it does mean that at every decisive moment they are likely to falter, pull their punches, do the wrong thing. George Orwell’s war-time call to change, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, was published on February 19th, 1941. On this February 19th, Dr Philip Bounds, author of Orwell and Marxism and an Orwell Society member, takes a look at Orwell’s book, paying particular attention to its first part, ‘England Your England’. But do I mean that there will no opposition? Of course not. It would be childish to expect anything of the kind. In the short run, equality of sacrifice, ‘war-Communism’, is even more important than radical economic changes. It is very necessary that industry should be nationalized, but it is more urgently necessary that such monstrosities as butlers and ‘private incomes’ should disappear forthwith. Almost certainly the main reason why the Spanish Republic could keep up the fight for two and a half years against impossible odds was that there were no gross contrasts of wealth. The people suffered horribly, but they all suffered alike. When the private soldier had not a cigarette, the general had not one either. Given equality of sacrifice, the morale of a country like England would probably be unbreakable. But at present we have nothing to appeal to except traditional patriotism, which is deeper here than elsewhere, but is not necessarily bottomless. At some point or another you have got to deal with the man who says ‘I should be no worse off under Hitler’. But what answer can you give him – that is, what answer that you can expect him to listen to – while common soldiers risk their lives for two and sixpence a day, and fat women ride about in Rolls-Royce cars, nursing pekineses?

His description of the inevitable and desirable socialist revolution in England was hopelessly utopian. Revolutions rarely go so well despite the best intentions of the instigators. Previous winner Peter Beaumont and previously longlisted Lindsey Hilsum both pay tribute to Marie Colvin, killed in Syria this week He believes in nationalism (as against a world government which he considers not viable) but concludes that a nation is beyond political or military cultures. He would rather drive his nationality in England's law, literature and commercial culture (a nation of shopkeepers). The history of the past seven years has made it perfectly clear that Communism has no chance in western Europe. The appeal of Fascism is enormously greater. In one country after another the Communists have been rooted out by their more up-to-date enemies, the Nazis. In the English-speaking countries they never had a serious footing. The creed they were spreading could appeal only to a rather rare type of person, found chiefly in the middle-class intelligentsia, the type who has ceased to love his own country but still feels the need of patriotism, and therefore develops patriotic sentiments towards Russia. By 1940, after working for twenty years and spending a great deal a money, the British Communists had barely 20,000 members, actually a smaller number than they had started out with in 1920. The other Marxist parties were of even less importance. They had not the Russian money and prestige behind them, and even more than the Communists they were tied to the nineteenth-century doctrine of the class war. They continued year after year to preach this out-of-date gospel, and never drew any inference from the fact that it got them no followers.Orwell’s reflections on the press culminate in his creation of Winston Smith, the anti-hero of his dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four – published in 1949 just months before he died. For Winston is a media worker at the Ministry of Truth altering the records of The Times to conform to the current dogma. So Orwell’s damning critique of the press persists to the very end.

Orwell, George (1970 [1941]) The Lion and the Unicorn, Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds) The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 2: My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin pp 74-134 Orwell genel büyüleyici genel bakış açısı yerine bu kez sosyoloji ve siyaset içeren uzunca bir makale yazmış. Hakkındaki türlü dedikodulara karşın Sosyalizme ne kadar inandığını, katıksız bir anti-faşist olduğunu net olarak görebilirsiniz. I have spoken earlier of the soundness and homogeneity of England, the patriotism that runs like a connecting thread through almost all classes. After Dunkirk anyone who had eyes in his head could see this. But it is absurd to pretend that the promise of that moment has been fulfilled. Almost certainly the mass of the people are now ready for the vast changes that are necessary; but those changes have not even begun to happen. The legend of the two animals may have been intensified by the Acts of Union 1707 and it was one year later that William King (1663–1712) recorded a verse very similar to the first stanza of the modern rhyme. [1] This seems to have grown to include several other verses. Apart from those above only one survives: But who are the pro-Fascists? The idea of a Hitler victory appeals to the very rich, to the Communists, to Mosley's followers, to the pacifists, and to certain sections among the Catholics. Also, if things went badly enough on the Home Front, the whole of the poorer section of the working class might swing round to a position that was defeatist though not actively pro-Hitler.

Orwell and the ‘unreality’ of royal coverage

Orwell compares England to a Victorian family (p.30): everyone has a right to feel included, but the wrong ‘relatives’ hold sway, in a difficult, stiff, awkward environment. The ‘good’ people, in Orwell’s eyes (generally young, always working-class) have little to no power. I think this is a critical but mostly fair assessment of British culture: then and now, we were really ‘made’ by the Victorians and their mores, and as a naturally (small-‘c’) conservative country not much has changed. In fact, this sort of structure may have worked rather well in the 18th and 19th centuries, before (according to Orwell) the ruling class qualitatively deteriorated as they became less relevant. In Ancient Greece, aristocratic influence declined as democracy became popular; similarly, as the English middle class gained political influence through votes, the aristocracy’s importance declined, combined with the ‘social decay’ of businessmen entering the upper class and ruining their exclusivity. It doesn’t help that the older people who dominate the ‘Victorian family’ structure (p.54-5) tend to be rather clueless about change, and with the passing of time they don’t know what’s going on (and this has never become clearer than today, when so many MPs are clueless about how the Internet works, and the role it plays in people’s lives). It’s only natural that they become Conservatives who long for the ‘good old days’. The English Revolution - The argument is made for an English democratic socialism, sharply distinct from the totalitarian communism of Stalin. Orwell gives a sweeping trenchant review of the current political scene in England then in 1941. All the parties of the left are incapable of reform, the Labour Party most of all since it is the party of the trade unions and therefore has a vested interest in the maintenance and flourishing of capitalism. The tiny communist party appeals to deracinated individuals, but has done more to put the man in the street off socialism than any other influence. His criticism of left-wing intelligentia ('And from that they will proceed to argue that, after all, democracy is “just the same as” or “just as bad as” totalitarianism.') is just as relevant today as it was in 1941. Leading on to the relationship between the economy and the war effort, there’s much focus on weapons manufacturing and how to stimulate it: however, I feel like Orwell slightly twists the narrative again for his own argument. We were undeniably old-fashioned in our tactics in 1914, especially in the use of horses, bayonets, and the like, but by the end of the war we’d progressed remarkably, inventing tracer bullets, aircraft carries, and the tank. (This is not to mention perhaps the most significant invention, radar, which was not conceived until the Second World War.) There was a big difference between 1914 and 1918: we learned our lesson, although we would have to learn it again in the Second World War. Orwell’s criticism is fair, but I feel he was neglectful on the point of adaptation. Richard Lance Keeble was chair of The Orwell Society, 2013-2020. His book of recent essays, Orwell’s Moustache , is to be published by Abramis, of Bury St Edmunds, later this year