Emmanuel Goldstein - the Technology and Practice of Oligarchial Collectivism

Emmanuel Goldstein's "The Technology and Practice of Oligarchial Collectivism", is the book within a book from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. Orwell purposely includes "the book" in his novel not only because it outlines how the Oceania Party controls over the people and how the people are manipulated by the Party, but it also reveals what he thinks about the ideologies of the three great super-states: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. The placement and importance of Goldstein's book by George Orwell emphasizes his beliefs on a dictatorship style government: there are no discernible features of a party's philosophy and therefore all strive for power.

The three great super-states all support different philosophies: Oceania believes in "Ingsoc," Eurasia believes in "Neo-Bolshevism" and Eastasia believes in "Death worship" (205). However, Orwell asserts that their "philosophies are barely distinguishable" and the social systems are the same as well (205). The citizens of each state are not allowed to know philosophies of the other two states because as soon as they come in contact with foreigners, they would realize that their philosophies are the same. This would then indicate that what their Parties have told them are lies, and therefore "the sealed world in which they live would be broken" (204). This clearly illustrates that even though those states insist different names of philosophies, their ideologies aim at the same goal; power.

The Oceania party keeps their power over the people by changing the history and conquering "all the possibility of independent thought" (201). The Party alters the past because it "safeguards the infallibility of the Party" (221). Since the past exists only in written records and human memories, the Party keeps altering the written past and reality and controlling the people's memories by the "doublethink" which is "reality control;" this control is made possible by denying people of Oceania access to the truth (223). The people in Oceania are very used to doublethink, losing the sense of reality. Eventually, they mindlessly believe and follow what the Party says so. This is clearly portrayed when the people take that "two and two make five" as a fact. Other devices of controlling the people's thought are "blackwhite," "crimestop," and "two-minute hate" (220). These prevent people from learning to think for themselves and bear hatred towards the enemies of the Party: Eurasia, Eastasia or Emmanuel Goldstein. The Party even uses warfare in order to hold the populace in its hand and control them to do as it is told.

According to Goldstein's book, warfare plays a role in justifying the Party's existence. First, it creates an atmosphere of fear and portrays their

...