Archives of Oceania in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and archives of the Polish United Workers’ Party. An attempt of comparative analysis

Abstract

Similarities between totalitarian state Oceania ruled by the Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four to communist rule in Europe and outside of it provoke comparisons. They enable to obtain additional knowledge not only about the book, but also about the system; so it is in the case of my article. In this article I concentrated on the issue of archives and, partly, past and history, illustrated by information from the G. Orwell’s book and archival materials of the Polish United Workers' Party. In Oceania the past was a changing category as a result of full control of all elements linking it to the present (press, books, documents etc.), which led to strengthening the Party’s rule. Documents stored in archives were constantly swapped, so they conform what the Party was claiming at the time. In that situation access to the fabricated studies and sources must have been free. But objective historiography could not exist, even if “historical” books were published. In turn, for the PUWP that ruled in Poland, accomplishments of the party and its predecessors were important for the ideology and legitimizing its authority. The party discerned the
benefits of initiating historical research (not necessarily fully objective) and preserving authentic documents in its archives, which could be used in the research and propaganda. But the holdings of the party’s archives were not accessible for everyone. For example, documents depicting “not progressive” phenomena were rationed. Comparing approach to this issue of the Oceanian Party and of the PUWP shows, that they actually had completely different visions and ways of acting. It leads to a conclusion, that the PUWP hardly resembled similar strands described by G. Orwell, looking on the archival issues.