To Orwell Today,

Dear Jackie,

New reports by British Intelligence (MI5/MI6) show that Orwell was under surveillance from 1929 onwards. Some reports seem to have referred to him as an unorthodox Communist while others, more accurately, refer to him as being left-wing and as having nothing to do with the Communist party.

Orwell clearly stated many times his objections to Communism (as did Bertrand Russell who became very disillusioned with Communism after his visit to Soviet Russia). Orwell was always in favour of democratic socialism.

Here's a link to the report on BBC news and below is the part relevant to Orwell:

MI5 confused by Orwell's politics. BBC, Sep 4, 2007 (MI5 monitored socialist writer George Orwell for more than two decades, but did not believe he was a mainstream communist, records have revealed...)

Yours,
Stephen Maule (Winston Smith)

Greetings Stephen (Winston),

Thanks for sending that BBC article. You're so right - and you've said it succinctly - that Orwell clearly stated many times his objections to communism and was always in favour of democratic socialism.

What a laugh that Scotland Yard, MI5 and MI6 were wasting resources investigating Orwell as a communist (a fact no one in their honest mind would ever believe) when communist spies - ie Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt and who-knows-who else - were there right under (and above) their noses.

It's coincidental (or godcidental) that on the very day Orwell died, a top-level American communist - who stood behind Roosevelt at Yalta and was the first Secretary General of the United Nations - Alger Hiss - was sent to prison. Orwell would have gotten a laugh out of that. See ORWELL DIED & HISS JAILED.

There was another article in today's news about that recently-released MI5/MI6 report admitting they were spying on Orwell under pretext of his being a communist. Here's the link and I've posted it in full below yours at the bottom of the page (bolding and underlining key points in both):

Orwell was right - Big Brother was watching. The Age, Sep 5, 2007 (The creator of 1984, which envisages a day when every person's movements are scrutinised by a totalitarian state, was closely watched amid concerns that he was a prominent member of the communist movement....)

All the best,
Jackie Jura

A Scotland Yard Special Branch report in January 1942 said the author of 1984 had "advanced communist views". However, an MI5 officer responded that Orwell "does not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him."

A file from the National Archives also shows MI5 did not object to him having a wartime job at a military base. Orwell was vetted for the post as a correspondent for the Sunday Observer at Allied Forces Headquarters in North Africa.

The Special Branch [Scotland Yard] report said: "This man has advanced communist views and several of his Indian friends say that they have often seen him at communist meetings. "He dresses in a bohemian fashion both at his office and in his leisure hours."

The MI5 officer rang the inspector in charge of the sergeant who wrote the report, to question what it meant. From the call it emerged that Orwell - referred to in the documents by his real name Eric Blair - was thought to be an "unorthodox communist" who did not agree fully with Communist Party views.

The officer from the security service [MI5] wrote: "I gathered that the good sergeant was rather at a loss as to how he could describe this rather individual line hence the expression 'advanced communist views'. "It is evident from his recent writings - The Lion and the Unicorn - and his contribution to Gollancz's symposium The Betrayal Of The Left that he does not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him." 'Bit of an anarchist'

Orwell is best known for books including 1984 and Animal Farm, which criticise totalitarianism, and other works attacking inequality, including Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.

The records show Orwell first came to the attention of intelligence service MI6 in 1929 when he was in France and offered to become Paris correspondent for the Workers Life.

In 1942, a record described him as "a bit of an anarchist in his day and in touch with extremist elements". He had "undoubtedly strong left-wing views, but he is a long way from orthodox communism", it added. [end quoting from BBC article]

George Orwell, the author who coined the phrase "Big Brother is watching you", was himself closely watched by the British secret services, according to documents just declassified.The creator of Nineteen Eighty-Four, which envisages a day when every person's movements are scrutinised by a totalitarian state, was closely watched amid concerns that he was a prominent member of the communist movement.

Files released by the National Archives reveal that in 1942 Scotland Yard was paying close attention to Orwell, then working at the BBC. A report on January 20 by a Sergeant Ewing, of Special Branch, charted the career of Eric Blair — Orwell's real name — from 1927, the year he resigned from the Burma police. "He drifted to Paris and London and has written a few books on his experiences, under the name of Orwell," Sergeant Ewing. "He was practically penniless when he found work with the BBC."

As his political views swung towards socialism in the 1930s, Orwell was commissioned by the publisher Victor Gollancz to write a book about the conditions of the working classes in the north of England. According to police, when Orwell reached Wigan, in Lancashire, the local Communist Party helped to find him accommodation. Before The Road to Wigan Pier was published, the author enlisted to fight against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. There, the brutal actions of the Soviet-backed communists turned him into a lifelong anti-Stalinist.

Working for the BBC during the war, Orwell was placed in charge of the Indian section of the Middle East Department. Sergeant Ewing wrote: "This man has advanced communist views … He dresses in bohemian fashion both at his office and in his leisure hours."

The report was treated with scorn by the Security Service. The minute of a phone call in February 1942 shows an officer, W. Ogilvie, challenging the Special Branch report and highlighting inconsistencies with Orwell's published views: "It is evident from his recent writings … that he does not hold with the Communist Party, nor they with him."

TEMPTED TO VISIT ORWELL (reader says the recent MI-5 report of Orwell has led him to examine more closely his life & writings)

WHY ORWELL WROTE and ORWELL'S DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

ORWELL'S CRYPTO-COMMIE LIST and COMMUNIST/CAPITALIST ORWELL MOVIES