It is important to realize that the current Russomania is only a symptom of the general weakening of the Western liberal tradition. Had the M.O.I. chipped in and definitely vetoed the publication of this book, the bulk of the English intelligentsia would have seen nothing disquieting in this. Uncritical loyalty to the U.S.S.R. happens to be the current orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests of the U.S.S.R. are involved they are willing to tolerate not only censorship but the deliberate falsification of history. To name one instance. At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World — a first‐hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution — the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later, the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin. If a radical intelligentsia had still existed in Britain, this act of forgery would have been exposed and denounced in every literary paper in the country. As it was, there was little or no protest. To many English intellectuals it teemed quite a natural thing to do. And this tolerance of plain dishonesty means much more than that admiration for Russia happens to be fashionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particular fashion will not last. For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the Soviet regime may be the generally-accepted one. But what use would that be in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.
I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don’t convince me and that our civilization over a period of 400 years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian regime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the U.S.S.R. in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:
“By the known rules of ancient liberty.”The word ancient emphasizes the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep‐rooted tradition without which our characteristic Western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency.
And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example of this is the failure of the numerous and vocal English pacifists to raise their voices against the prevalent worship of Russian militarism. According to these pacifists, all violence is evil, and they have urged us at every stage of the war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace. But how many of them have ever suggested that war is also evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparently the Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereas for us to do so is a deadly sin. One can explain this contradiction in only one way — that is, by a cowardly desire to keep in with the bulk of the intelligentsia, whose patriotism is directed toward the U.S.S.R. rather than toward Britain.
I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty; indeed, I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against fascism. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. In our country — it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in Republican France, and it is not so in the United States today — it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact I have written this preface.
George Orwell “The Freedom of the Press”, 1945 (written as the preface to Animal Farm, but not published in Orwell’s lifetime).
May 5, 2025
QotD: English intelligentsia and the Soviet Union
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