>Doug wrote:
>
> >>The alternative would be God knows what agonies of despair; or
> >>it might be attempted insurrections which, in a strongly governed place
> >>like England, could only lead to futile massacres and a regime of savage
> >>repression
> >
> >A repression aided by informant-supplied lists of names....
>
>Supplied, that is, long after the above was written, by an extremely ill
>and desperately lonely man, and on proudly-out-of-the-closet comrades. But,
>yes, despicable nonetheless.
But I think there's a precedent for the late-life listmaking in Orwell's fear of revolution in the quoted passage: better the masses should gamble than kick up a fuss, because the repression would just make things worse. Now obviously an armed revolution against a modern state like Britain's would be a pretty difficult and bloody affair, but Orwell's setting up a pretty limited set of options here, all of which suck - despair, gambling, or suicidal revolution. I'm no optimist, but that's too gloomy even for me.
Doug