Winston was gelatinous with fatigue¹. Gelatinous was the right word. It had come into his head spontaneously. His body seemed to have not only the weakness of a jelly, but its translucency². He felt that if he held up his hand he would be able to see the light through it. All the blood and lymph had been drained out of him by an enormous debauch³ of work, leaving only a frail⁴ structure of nerves, bones, and skin. All sensations seemed to be magnified. His overalls⁵ fretted⁶ his shoulders, the pavement tickled⁷ his feet, even the opening and closing of a hand was an effort that made his joints⁸ creak.

 

He had worked more than ninety hours in five days. So had everyone else in the Ministry⁹. Now it was all over, and he had literally¹⁰ nothing to do, no Party work of any description, until tomorrow morning. He could spend six hours in the hiding-place and another nine in his own bed. Slowly, in mild afternoon sunshine, he walked up a dingy¹¹ street in the direction of Mr Charrington's shop, keeping one eye open for the patrols, but irrationally¹² convinced that this afternoon there was no danger of anyone interfering¹³ with him. The heavy brief-case that he was carrying bumped against his knee at each step, sending a tingling¹⁴ sensation up and down the skin of his leg. Inside it was the book, which he had now had in his possession for six days and had not yet opened, nor even looked at.

 

On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks¹⁵, the rolling of drums and squealing¹⁶ of trumpets¹⁷, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars¹⁸ of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns -- after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax¹⁹ and the general hatred²⁰ of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium²¹ that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings²³, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces -- at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.

 

There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration²⁵ in one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet²⁶ banners were luridly²⁷ floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator²⁸ of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull³⁰ over which a few lank³¹ locks straggled, was haranguing³² the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic³³ by the amplifiers, boomed forth³⁴ an endless catalogue of atrocities³⁵, massacres³⁶, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians³⁹, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage⁴⁰ yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding²² for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap⁴¹ of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled⁴³ through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion⁴⁴. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage⁴⁵! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous⁴⁶ interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds⁴⁷ and trampled⁴⁸ underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies⁴⁹ of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched⁵⁰ forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.

 

The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax. But at the moment he had other things to preoccupy⁵¹ him. It was during the moment of disorder⁵² while the posters were being torn down that a man whose face he did not see had tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Excuse me, I think you've dropped your brief-case.' He took the brief-case abstractedly, without speaking. He knew that it would be days before he had an opportunity to look inside it. The instant that the demonstration was over he went straight to the Ministry of Truth, though the time was now nearly twenty-three hours. The entire staff of the Ministry had done likewise. The orders already issuing from the telescreen, recalling them to their posts, were hardly necessary.#p#分页标题#e#

 

Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete⁵³. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs -- all had to be rectified⁵⁴ at lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere. The work was overwhelming, all the more so because the processes that it involved could not be called by their true names. Everyone in the Records Department worked eighteen hours in the twenty-four, with two three-hour snatches of sleep. Mattresses⁵⁵ were brought up from the cellars and pitched all over the corridors: meals consisted of sandwiches and Victory Coffee wheeled round on trolleys⁵⁶ by attendants from the canteen. Each time that Winston broke off for one of his spells of sleep he tried to leave his desk clear of work, and each time that he crawled back sticky-eyed and aching, it was to find that another shower of paper cylinders⁵⁸ had covered the desk like a snowdrift, half burying the speakwrite and overflowing⁵⁹ on to the floor, so that the first job was always to stack them into a neat enough pile to give him room to work. What was worst of all was that the work was by no means purely⁶⁰ mechanical. Often it was enough merely to substitute one name for another, but any detailed⁶¹ report of events demanded care and imagination. Even the geographical⁶² knowledge that one needed in transferring the war from one part of the world to another was considerable.

 

By the third day his eyes ached unbearably⁶³ and his spectacles needed wiping every few minutes. It was like struggling with some crushing physical task, something which one had the right to refuse and which one was nevertheless neurotically⁶⁴ anxious to accomplish. In so far as he had time to remember it, he was not troubled by the fact that every word he murmured into the speakwrite, every stroke of his ink-pencil, was a deliberate lie. He was as anxious as anyone else in the Department that the forgery⁶⁵ should be perfect. On the morning of the sixth day the dribble⁶⁶ of cylinders slowed down. For as much as half an hour nothing came out of the tube; then one more cylinder⁵⁷, then nothing. Everywhere at about the same time the work was easing off. A deep and as it were secret sigh went through the Department. A mighty⁶⁷ deed, which could never be mentioned, had been achieved. It was now impossible for any human being to prove by documentary evidence that the war with Eurasia had ever happened. At twelve hundred it was unexpectedly announced that all workers in the Ministry were free till tomorrow morning. Winston, still carrying the brief-case containing the book, which had remained between his feet while he worked and under his body while he slept, went home, shaved himself, and almost fell asleep in his bath, although the water was barely more than tepid⁶⁸.

 

With a sort of voluptuous⁶⁹ creaking in his joints he climbed the stair above Mr Charrington's shop. He was tired, but not sleepy any longer. He opened the window, lit the dirty little oilstove and put on a pan of water for coffee. Julia would arrive presently: meanwhile there was the book. He sat down in the sluttish armchair and undid⁷⁰ the straps⁷¹ of the brief-case.

 

A heavy black volume, amateurishly⁷² bound, with no name or title on the cover. The print also looked slightly irregular. The pages were worn at the edges, and fell apart, easily, as though the book had passed through many hands. The inscription⁷³ on the title-page ran:

 

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF

 

OLIGARCHICAL⁷⁴ COLLECTIVISM

 

by

 

Emmanuel Goldstein

 

Winston began reading:

 

Chapter I

 

Ignorance is Strength

 

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic⁷⁵ Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided⁷⁶ in many ways, they have borne countless⁷⁷ different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied⁷⁸ from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals⁷⁹ and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium⁸⁰, however far it is pushed one way or the other.

 

The aims of these groups are entirely⁸¹ irreconcilable⁸²...

 

Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the page with his hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children: in the room itself there was no sound except the insect voice of the clock. He settled deeper into the arm-chair and put his feet up on the fender. It was bliss⁸³, it was eternity⁸⁴. Suddenly, as one sometimes does with a book of which one knows that one will ultimately read and re-read every word, he opened it at a different place and found himself at Chapter III. He went on reading:#p#分页标题#e#

 

Chapter III

 

War is Peace

 

The splitting up of the world into three great super-states was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third, Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused fighting. The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general they follow geographical lines. Eurasia comprises the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal to the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles⁸⁵, Australasia, and the southern portion of Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.

 

In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently⁸⁶ at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating⁸⁷ struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare⁸⁸ of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological⁸⁹ difference. This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing⁹⁰ attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous⁹¹. On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping³⁸, looting, the slaughter⁹² of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals⁹³ against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious⁹⁴. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses⁹⁶ which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In the centres of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths. War has in fact changed its character. More exactly, the reasons for which war is waged have changed in their order of importance. Motives⁹⁷ which were already present to some small extent in the great wars of the early twentieth century have now become dominant⁹⁸ and are consciously recognized and acted upon.

 

To understand the nature of the present war -- for in spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war -- one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. None of the three super-states could be definitively⁹⁹ conquered even by the other two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces. Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity¹⁰⁰ and industriousness¹⁰² of its inhabitants. Secondly¹⁰³, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble¹⁰⁴ for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death. In any case each of the three super-states is so vast that it can obtain almost all the materials that it needs within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has a direct economic purpose, it is a war for labour power. Between the frontiers of the super-states, and not permanently in the possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong, containing within it about a fifth of the population of the earth. It is for the possession of these thickly-populated regions, and of the northern ice-cap, that the three powers are constantly struggling. In practice no one power ever controls the whole of the disputed area. Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery that dictates¹⁰⁵ the endless changes of alignment¹⁰⁶.

 

All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, and some of them yield important vegetable products such as rubber which in colder climates it is necessary to synthesize by comparatively expensive methods. But above all they contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever power controls equatorial Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or Southern India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies. The inhabitants of these areas, reduced more or less openly to the status of slaves, pass continually from conqueror¹⁰⁷ to conqueror, and are expended¹⁰⁸ like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control more labour power, to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, and so on indefinitely. It should be noted¹⁰⁹ that the fighting never really moves beyond the edges of the disputed areas. The frontiers of Eurasia flow back and forth between the basin of the Congo and the northern shore of the Mediterranean¹¹⁰; the islands of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific are constantly being captured and recaptured by Oceania or by Eastasia; in Mongolia the dividing line between Eurasia and Eastasia is never stable; round the Pole all three powers lay claim to enormous territories which in fact are largely unihabited and unexplored: but the balance of power always remains¹¹¹ roughly even, and the territory which forms the heartland of each super-state always remains inviolate¹¹². Moreover, the labour of the exploited peoples round the Equator is not really necessary to the world's economy. They add nothing to the wealth of the world, since whatever they produce is used for purposes of war, and the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. By their labour the slave populations allow the tempo¹¹³ of continuous warfare to be speeded up. But if they did not exist, the structure of world society, and the process by which it maintains itself, would not be essentially¹¹⁴ different.#p#分页标题#e#

 

The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously¹¹⁵ recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of that period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient -- a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete -- was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate¹¹⁶ person. Science and technology were developing at a prodigious¹¹⁷ speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the impoverishment¹¹⁸ caused by a long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly¹¹⁹ regimented society. As a whole the world is more primitive¹²⁰ today than it was fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage¹²¹, have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped, and the ravages¹²² of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have never been fully¹²³ repaired. Nevertheless the dangers inherent in the machine are still there. From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery¹²⁴, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately¹²⁵ for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy¹²⁶, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process -- by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute -- the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

 

But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction -- indeed, in some sense was the destruction -- of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed¹²⁷ a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. To return to the agricultural past, as some thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards mechanization which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly¹²⁹, by its more advanced rivals.

 

Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by restricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during the final phase of capitalism¹³⁰, roughly between 1920 and 1940. The economy of many countries was allowed to stagnate¹³¹, land went out of cultivation¹³², capital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity. But this, too, entailed¹³³ military weakness, and since the privations it inflicted¹³⁴ were obviously unnecessary, it made opposition¹³⁵ inevitable¹³⁶. The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.#p#分页标题#e#

 

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending¹³⁷ labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress⁹⁵, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped¹³⁸ as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is b