1984 George Orwell

The book 1984 by George Orwell takes place in London, Oceania that is ruled by a totalitarian government. Oceania’s leader is big brother, an enigmatic symbol whose actual existence is unknown. The organization of the government is divided in four ministries: Ministry of Peace “which concerned itself with war”; Ministry of Love “which maintain law and order”; Ministry of Truth, “which concerneditself with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts”; and Ministry of Plenty “which was responsible for economic affairs”. Life in Oceania is indivisible from the government in every way, meaning that every aspect of the civil, commercial and political life in Oceania is under government control. This system is supported by a propaganda campaign and a strong coercive power and the constantvigilance of the population. This is a hyperbole of a totalitarian government and the way it works can be compared to historic events in which people were ruled by this kind of state, the biggest examples are The Nazi Germany with its leader Adolph Hitler and The Soviet Union with Joseph Stalin. These kind of governments have been theorized by Carl Schmitt around 1920.
Carl Schmitt thinkspolitics are represented by the relation friend- enemy, meaning that a strong government has to create public enemies; politics are then the antagonism between the enemy and those who are part of the government. In Oceania the biggest enemy is Goldstein, in germany the Jews, In the Soviet Union, the Capitalists.
In Oceania, the streets are completely covered by propaganda like the poster with theface of Big Brother. The most important one is the one with the three party slogans: “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGHT. But propaganda isn’t only seen in posters, but also in everything the party makes as books or movies that are in charge of the Ministry of Truth. This material contains the Party’s ideology which they want to spread to the citizens An ideology is the baseof a totalitarian government and is where the system is based on and what the citizens have to look up to. We also have the “Five Minute Hate”, a five-minute reunion in which the Party shows images or speeches of people who are considered as enemies, this kind of mass movement, or festivity create in order to get the people to be also against them and to feel that they are part of something thatreflects their own ideas, but actually those ideas are injected by the party.
The Nazis and the Soviet Socialists had also their huge propaganda campaigns that helped to build their totalitarian governments. Talking about the Nazi, they had a Ministry of propaganda in charge of Joseph Goebbels who build a pro-Nazi propaganda campaign highly related to anti-Semitism. We can mention as mere examplethe movie “Triumph des Willens” (Triumph of the Will), Also posters with Hitler on them that say things as “”Adolph Hitler is victory”. The nazi propaganda also reflects their ideology and creates mass movement. For example this sign: “German people’s comrades! German housewives! You all know the disgraceful methods that so-called “German” Jews abroad are using to incite against the Germanpeople and Adolf Hitler’s national government. If we do not want to give up and sink into deeper misery, we must defend ourselves. We therefore call on you to heed the appeal of our Führer, the German people’s chancellor, for a boycott against the Jews.”
The Soviet Union propaganda was based on Marxism-Leninism ideology to support the party and you could have founded it everywhere: radio, posters, andmovies even in schools. The posters said things such as “Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth” or “To have more, we must produce more. To produce more, we must know more”.
According to Schmitt the government most important and only tool is its coercive power that is to say the threat of physical violence against the citizens, such a tool is monopolized by the government only.
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