Tom Secker
Medium
To many, he came close to being a secular saint. George Orwell, born 115 years ago on Monday, was the writer who…www.independent.co.uk
In 1948 the post-war Labour government set up an anti-Communist propaganda unit within the Foreign Office called the…www.spyculture.com
What is missing from his analysis is any facts.
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Medium
Ever
since the revelation that the radical author George Orwell had provided
names of possible communists to British intelligence, liberal
revisionists have claimed he was a crypto-racist and a British spy. Any
honest examination of the available documents shows that not only is
this untrue, Orwell was the subject of surveillance and investigation by
British intelligence for over a decade.
To many, he came close to being a secular saint. George Orwell, born 115 years ago on Monday, was the writer who…www.independent.co.uk
The
Independent recently ran an article asking if Orwell was ‘secretly a
reactionary snitch’. It recounts how in 1996 the declassification of a Foreign Office file chronicling a meeting between Orwell and an agent of the FCO in 1949 shocked many readers and admirers of Orwell’s writings.
Orwell
had met with his friend Celia Kirwan, who worked for the Information
Research Department — an FCO unit devoted to gathering information on
suspected communists and carrying out anti-communist propaganda
operations. He provided her with a list of 38 names of people he
suspected to be pro-Stalin or fellow travelers.
In 1948 the post-war Labour government set up an anti-Communist propaganda unit within the Foreign Office called the…www.spyculture.com
Liberal Reactionaries and Orwell’s ‘Jewish Question’
Even
before the list itself became available, left-wing critics laid into
Orwell for his supposed racism. Alexander Cockburn, who is otherwise an
excellent writer and journalist, said:
There seems to be general agreement by Orwell’s fans, left and right, to skate gently over Orwell’s suspicions of Jews, homosexuals and blacks.
When
Cockburn wrote that in 1998 he was right — there was a tendency for
Orwell’s fans to simply avoid this question. However, by the time Ben
Norton arrived on the scene trying to draw attention to himself by
endorsing the idea that Orwell was a secret bigot, that opinion had
spread all over the internet.
Norton’s article
is full of attention-grabbing phrases like ‘reactionary snitch’,
‘outright counter-revolutionary snitch’ and ‘the first in a long line of
Trots-turned-neocons.’
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