Character history Edit

In the novel, Goldstein is a character rumoured to be a former top member of the Party and an early associate of its leader, "Big Brother", but having broken away early in the movement and started "The Brotherhood". Ostensibly "The Brotherhood" is organized into cells, with each member required to read The Book, supposedly written by Goldstein, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Goldstein is always the subject of the "Two Minutes Hate", a daily programme beginning at 11:00 a.m. at which an image of Goldstein is shown on the telescreen and subjected to extreme contempt. The novel raises but leaves unanswered the questions of whether Goldstein or "The Brotherhood" really exist. When asked by protagonist Winston, Inner Party member O'Brien replies as follows: Winston: Does the Brotherhood exist? O'Brien: That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind. O'Brien states that Goldstein's book was written by the Party leadership, including himself, but this statement leaves the questions of Goldstein and the Brotherhood's existence unanswered and may be a lie by O'Brien to deceive Winston. One possible interpretation is that a political opposition to Big Brother — namely, Goldstein — was psychologically necessary in order to distract, unite and focus the anger of the people of Oceania. Ostensibly, Goldstein serves as a scapegoat for the dictatorial regime in Nineteen Eighty-Four and justifies its surveillance and elimination of civil liberties.

Trotsky as potential real-life origin Edit

Trotsky, 1918 Not long after the novel's appearance,[1] a number of contemporary commentators noticed that the biography, appearance, writing style, and political thought of Emmanuel Goldstein resembled that of Leon Trotsky. Born Lev Bronshtein, Trotsky was a close associate of Russian revolutionary Lenin and later the chief rival of Stalin, the latter branding Trotsky a traitor and expelling him from the Soviet Union in 1927. In exile, Trotsky wrote The Revolution Betrayed, denouncing Stalin and the Soviet Union. During the Great Purges of the 1930s, Stalin's propaganda invariably depicted Trotsky as the instigator of all supposed plots and acts of sabotage. In 1940, he was assassinated in Mexico by Ramón Mercader, a Stalinist agent. In 1954, Isaac Deutscher wrote that Goldstein's book in Nineteen Eighty-Four was intended as a "paraphrase" of The Revolution Betrayed.[2] In 1956, Irving Howe described Goldstein's book as "clearly a replica" of Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed, writing that the parts that seemed to be imitating Trotsky were "among the best passages" of the novel.[3] Critic Adrian Wanner, writing in a collection of essays edited by Harold Bloom, described Goldstein's book as a "parody" of The Revolution Betrayed, noting that Orwell was deeply ambivalent about Trotsky.[4] Orwell wrote of Trotskyism that The fact that Trotskyists are everywhere a persecuted minority, and that the accusation usually made against them, i. e. of collaborating with the Fascists, is obviously false, creates an impression that Trotskyism is intellectually and morally superior to Communism; but it is doubtful whether there is much difference.[5]

Contemporary comparisons Edit