One of the most harrowing scenes in modern literature is when a cage containing hungry, vicious rats is strapped to Winston’s face in George Orwell’s 1984. Winston, under interrogation by O’Brien for refusing to accept the party’s control of history and memory, cracks under the pressure, leading him to betray his lover, Julia. More importantly, the torture also breaks his will and spirit, ending his resistance to the party. He finally learned to love Big Brother.

George Orwell wrote 1984 over the course of 1947-48, shortly after the defeat of one totalitarian system in large part due to the assistance of another totalitarian state. State-sponsored terror was a notable feature of both of these regimes, used to quash internal dissent for the sake of total control over its citizenry. Often uncivilized and barbaric, physical methods (e.g. torture and execution) were applied to those considered the most dangerous to the system, even if they necessarily weren’t an actual threat.

These two totalitarian systems succeeded in not only creating a citizenry of rigid conformity, but also ones of true believers in their state ideology. What neither could do is control the minds of all of their citizens. Here was the inherent weakness in their respective punitive approaches to ideological discipline. For the Nazis and Italian fascists, Allied victory in WW2 denies us an understanding of what would have happened internally had those regimes lasted longer than they did.

On the other hand, the USSR does allow us a glimpse into what happens with totalitarian regimes that last much longer (in the Soviet case, a typical lifespan). Going soft on state violence after Stalin’s death, a period of economic stagnation set in until it collapsed in the late 1980s. What IS instructive is how quickly ex-Soviet citizens moved to another system, indicating to us that by the time of the USSR’s collapse, most had moved on from Marxism despite decades of party membership/loyalty. People pretended to be communists as long as the system persisted and provided the basics: food, water, shelter, and security. Otherwise, the various communist parties in the Eastern Bloc would not have given up on Marxism-Leninism so quickly. Communism was shown to easily be able to control the physical, but utterly failed to control the mind.

We in the liberal democratic west are different. There is no such thing as state-directed terror against its own citizens, nor will they be tortured by the government either. We are absolutely free to vote as we please, and to say whatever we want without fear of punishment and/or sanction. Our governments do not spy on us, nor do they censor what we choose to read or watch. We are lucky to live in the free world and should show gratitude to our leaders for safeguarding it against threats from abroad and from within.

The above paragraph could only be written sincerely by someone like Winston after having a cage full of rats strapped to his face. To earnestly swallow the shit that I just wrote requires a blind loyalty and devotion that would make even Jim Jones interrupt and caution: “Now hold on just a sec…..think about what you’re sayin’ here.”