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George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

gutenberg.net.au

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Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#531

Post by braingenious »

Banana699 wrote: post #353
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recently the Washington Post Doxxed the LibsOfTikTok account creator, who's only crime was posting the views of socially liberal people on tiktok. Puhleeze. Can totally understand the anger at what WaPo did, but I call major bullshit on "who's only crime was posting the views of socially liberal people on tiktok." Libs of TikTok regularly took things egregiously out of context, like I remember watching a post of he…

>I remember watching a post of hers and thinking "damn, that's fucked up", and then went and investigated the full source material Any specifics ? what was the actual post and how did LOTT misrepresented it ? >She also regularly republished obvious troll accounts as fact The cat litter thing is the only factual incident where LOTT did in fact post false things, you are free to prove me wrong with links. Besides the f…

Chaya Raichik is a public figure that has gone on national news programs to discuss her views and spread them as widely as possible, furthermore she used her real name in public records associated with the monetization of her brand. Her business entity, LibsOfTiktok isn’t some sort of special class that deserves extra anonymity.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#532

Post by pyuser583 »

harry8 wrote: post #461
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Christopher Hitchens (possibly THE biggest expert on Orwell in the late 20th century, and a great intellectual IMHO) on "Why Orwell Matters" + Q&A (2002) [0]. - Why I write [1] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I-FfrkGiWQ [1]: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

Counterpoint: Christopher Hitchens was an expert on sophistry in the manner of a champion high school debater and doesn't deserve the reflected glory of being noted as "the" Orwell expert. Orwell was rather more courageous, incisive, intelligent, subtle, humane and kind. Hitchens is not in the same intellectual league let alone the same ballpark. Hitchens sucessfully hitched his wagon to Orwell's intellectual greatne…

> Christopher Hitchens was an expert on sophistry in the manner of a champion high school debater and doesn't deserve the reflected glory of being noted as "the" Orwell expert.

I love Hitchens, and agree with you 100%.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#533

Post by pyuser583 »

Bud wrote: post #325
notRobot wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations for other writings and analyses by Orwell?

Since nobody else has brought them up yet, I would recommend ALL of Orwell's Essays, which can be had in various editions.

I’ll have to read them. Some of the most fascinating ideas I’ve come across were in some “Essays by Some Great Writer Known For A Single Novel.”

And it’s fun because I’m one of may a few hundred people on the planet to have read them.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#534

Post by Akronymus »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #503
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Nazi appeal was largely a response to the absolutely crazy things that had happened to Germany between 1914 and 1933. Losing a world war, and all the death and humiliation and privation that entails (The winter of 1916 was known as the Turnip Winter, because of food shortages, and that was barely halfway through the war!). Hyperinflation, where an egg might cost a billion marks. Then a Depression! And all th…

I'm not sure Germany's condition was very exceptional. (What about Italy?) It was more that Nazis simply got into power and once they were in power it was no longer a question of whether the average German accepted it or not. And once Nazis were in power they had the propaganda machinery of the state to make people believe them. It could happen here too, almost did on January 6th. And in Russia, it's a crime to criti…

> It was more that Nazis simply got into power

They got helped quite a bit by fighting communists at the time. They legit were the lesser evil to a lot of people.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#535

Post by belorn »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #202
dcolkitt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint is that regional support for the Nazis generally indicates the opposite. Their weakest electoral performance was in the West and South, which generally was the wealthiest and most liberal part of Germany. By contrast their base of support was the Prussian hinterlands which was already the most militaristic part of the country to begin with, as well as having a weak region economy. I think it’s under-…

Yes, the Nazi appeal was largely a response to the absolutely crazy things that had happened to Germany between 1914 and 1933. Losing a world war, and all the death and humiliation and privation that entails (The winter of 1916 was known as the Turnip Winter, because of food shortages, and that was barely halfway through the war!). Hyperinflation, where an egg might cost a billion marks. Then a Depression! And all th…

Two third of the population was unemployed, and as orewell write here "the situation in Germany, with its seven million unemployed, was obviously favourable for demagogues".

Starving, economical depression and without any hope in sight. Then within a couple of years half or more of those previous unemployed got a job from the government and the government refused to do any more reparations and redirecting those fund back to the populace (farmed food was a common item in reparations).

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#536

Post by junon »

efxhoy wrote: post #355
notRobot wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations for other writings and analyses by Orwell?

Shooting an elephant is a brilliant short essay from his time as a police officer in Burma. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

I think about this piece often after reading it for the first time roughly a year ago. The way he paints the picture really stuck with me, a very vivid depiction.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#537

Post by Anthony-G »

notRobot wrote: post #216
rossdavidh wrote: post #186

So, there's a lot to be said about Hitler and fascism and propaganda and all the other fascinating topics Orwell brings up here, but I'd just like to point out how routinely excellent Orwell's analysis is. Of course I mostly see the best bits brought out and dusted off, no doubt he did mediocre stuff as well, but it is worth noticing how often it turns out that Orwell, nearly a century on, still has plenty in his wri…

Any recommendations for other writings and analyses by Orwell?

One of my favourites is very short (but not sweet): https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

I only started drinking tea a few years ago and found this advice to stand the test of time.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#538

Post by V-2 »

permo-w wrote: post #478
lostlogin wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the comments below the article (generally a bad idea) show that a paragraph of the article seems to have been ‘redacted’. Sources are quoted but I don’t see a reason for the change. “I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power - till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter - I have reflected that I wo…

he is not alone in this feeling. the numbers are no longer on the site, but I remember YouGov [a British polling company] indicated that British people hold Stalin in far more contempt than they do Hitler, even in spite of the far closer proximity and impact of Hitler's crimes. whether that polling can be trusted I do not know, but I do get the feeling that despite genuine hatred for his actions, a lot of people harb…

There would be no Hitler without Stalin to begin with, while the opposite isn't true.

Besides, the UK has committed acts of (de facto) shameful collaboration with Stalin, such as the forceful and brutal "repatriation" of Cossacks to the USSR where they faced certain death.

To quote Wikipedia, "On 1 June 1945 the UK placed 32,000 Cossacks (with their women and children) into trains and trucks and delivered them to the Red Army for repatriation to the Soviets [...] most Cossacks were sent to the gulags in far northern Russia and Siberia, and many died").

This was an enormous tragedy and human rights violation, comparable to what deporting thousands of North Korean refugees back to North Korea today would be.

The Cossacks knew it was a death sentence, and they resisted, but obviously in vain. In the words of Julius Epstein (after Wikipedia again): "The first to commit suicide, by hanging, was the Cossack editor Evgenij Tarruski. The second was General Silkin, who shot himself...The Cossacks refused to board the trucks. British soldiers [armed] with pistols and clubs began using their clubs, aiming at the heads of the prisoners. They first dragged the men out of the crowd, and threw them into the trucks. The men jumped out. They beat them again, and threw them onto the floor of the trucks. Again, they jumped out. The British then hit them with rifle butts until they lay unconscious, and threw them, like sacks of potatoes, in the trucks."

No British Jews have ever been deported to the Third Reich. And this certainly may add to the sense of contempt for Stalin, as the Soviet dictator sort of corrupted British politics making the UK an accomplice in a way Hitler never managed to.

> I suspect this is as or more likely a result of his [Hitler's] abundant comic depictions as it is the characterisation as a hero-like figure manfully struggling against inevitability.

That's an alternative explanation, sure (although personally I tend to doubt it)

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#539

Post by VieEnCode »

culi wrote: post #438
robocat wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The words “communism” and “socialism” have particularly slippery modern meanings - they depend where you are internationally, in time, and your partisanship. I have read a lot of what he wrote, and I am still unsure what he exactly meant by socialism. I find his essay ‘On Nationalism’ difficult to follow, although very interesting. I love all his writings about his own experiences, because his observations are so exc…

At that time in Europe "socialism" basically just meant "good". It was a stand in for a government where you care about each other. Then there's the more "theoretical" definition of socialism. In the US it might seem bewildering why Orwell considered the anarchists of that war to be the "true socialists" (despite Orwell being a communist, he had a lot of support for them). But the truth is that both anarchism and com…

Orwell wasn’t a communist. “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#540

Post by licebmi__at__ »

unmole wrote: post #457
dcolkitt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint is that regional support for the Nazis generally indicates the opposite. Their weakest electoral performance was in the West and South, which generally was the wealthiest and most liberal part of Germany. By contrast their base of support was the Prussian hinterlands which was already the most militaristic part of the country to begin with, as well as having a weak region economy. I think it’s under-…

> I think it’s under-appreciated how much the rise of the Nazis was a direct result of Germany’s loss in World War One. Huh? Even school textbooks talk about how the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles lead to the rise of Hitler. Or as my high school history teacher joked: WW2 started in 1919.

And still even people who agree with this point, will give all kind of validation and mysticisms on the nazi ideology. I mean I might be wrong, but I would be surprised if GGP didn’t also heard/agreed with the historical factors from WWI that explain WWII, but still the discussion went with human nature and a ideology about violence.
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