Political Control Techniques in 1984

Political Control Techniques in 1984

In the year 1984 there is one political party for Oceania, known only as the Party, and led by Big Brother. Nobody opposes the party because the party controls the population using methods such as creating youth organizations, manipulating history through the Ministry of Truth, and the telescreens.

Youth organizations, such as the Spies, teach children to turn in adults to the ThoughtPolice who commit crimes against the Party. Using children to watch their parents for thoughtcrimes is useful towards the Party because children generally go unnoticed and are around you all the time. Also, they live in the same house as you and can monitor you while sleep as well. By teaching the children at an early age to turn in thoughtcriminals helps the Party to keep everything under control. Winston's neighbor, Mrs. Parson's children are part of the Spies, "Another year, two years, and they would be watching her for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency to rebel against the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected to it" (24). When this generation becomes adults, there will be no crimes against the Party because all of the children would have been taught to be completely loyal to the Party.

Another technique that the Party employs to keep the population under control is by the manipulation of history. People use the past as a reference on how to act in the future. By changing the past you also change how people will think and act. The Party can make the rest of the population believe whatever they want them to because they will believe the history they are taught. This is done by altering pictures, textbooks, and newspapers in the Ministry of Truth. Winston was not fooled by the rewriting of history that was being taught and says, "It was not true, for example, as was claimed in the Party history books, that the Party had invented airplanes. He remembered airplanes since his earliest childhood. But you could prove nothing. There was never any evidence" (33). Winston is one of the few people who remember facts such as these before the Party took over, but had no proof because the Party had rewritten history