re: Orwell "left of left"

this article is thoroughly enlightening- cf chomsky on soviet socialism

anti-authoritarian strain vital- Trotzky!

published the text below before- can't find! but is interesting on "real orwell" discussion

"For some reason, the original introduction to the book (animal farm) was found to be ‘inappropriate’ in the U.S.A and the book was banned for a while before a new one was made":

"Yes, certainly there are counter-forces at work but unfortunately, the major effect is disciplinary. This is a point that Orwell notes in works of his that aren't read. Everyone has read Animal Farm, the satire about the Soviet Union. Not many people have read the introduction to Animal Farm, and one of the reasons they never read it is it wasn't published. The introduction to Animal Farm was called Literary Censorship in England. It wasn't published, it was found in his papers years later.

The point of the intended introduction is that the book is about this totalitarian monster society, but I want to talk about England, a free society, to talk about how opinions are suppressed here, because they're suppressed with remarkable efficiency. He doesn't go into the reasons in any great depth; actually he has two sentences about the reasons. One of them is that the press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain thoughts to be expressed. And the other reason is that as you go through a good education -- Oxford, Cambridge, that sort of thing -- you have instilled into you, you sort of internalize the fact that there are some things it just wouldn't do to say. In fact, deeper: it wouldn't do to think. And you become aware that people who do think those things -- now, going beyond Orwell -- people who do think those things and do say them tend to elicit a negative reaction, either to be weeded out of the system or to be marginalized or to be punished in some fashion. And the long-term effect is that success is to some considerable extent contingent on subordination to institutions of power, and that that kind of socialization -- knowing what it wouldn't do to say -- is a good part of our education." (NC)