this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2025
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[โ€“] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This is simply vicious, lol - what a great share, thank you!

EDIT:

Orwell didn't live long enough to see it but Stalin died only three years after 1984 was published, and it was not long after that that his regime was denounced as a tyranny by - guess who - the Soviet leadership.

The Soviet Union is still the Soviet Union, but it is not Stalinist, and the enemies of the state are no longer liquidated (Orwell uses 'vaporised' instead, such small changes being all he can manage) with quite such abandon.

Again, Mao Tse-tung died in China, and while he himself has not been openly denounced, his close associates, as 'the Gang of Four', were promptly demoted from Divinity, and while China is still China, it is not Maoist any longer.

Franco of Spain died in his bed and while, to his very last breath, he remained the unquestioned leader he had been for nearly forty years, immediately after that last breath, Fascism abruptly dwindled in Spain, as it had in Portugal after Salazar's death.

In short, Big Brothers do die, or at least they have so far, and when they die, the government changes, always for the milder.

perhaps this can give us a glimmer of hope in these dark times

[โ€“] PugJesus@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

It's a very... peevish review by Asimov.