Just have to admit to being impressed by how succinct and clear yet deep this writing was. Easy to read and understand, and certainly gets the point across.
“I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power - till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter - I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity.”
Redacted [by who?] If this was removed by Orwell then it isn't for you to see a reason or not. If removed by the editors of the abve site, then I'd agree that that's a questionable choice; at any rate an ellipsis would be called for.
whether that polling can be trusted I do not know, but I do get the feeling that despite genuine hatred for his actions, a lot of people harbour a soft spot for his persona.
I suspect this is as or more likely a result of his abundant comic depictions as it is the characterisation as a hero-like figure manfully struggling against inevitability.
This is pretty much independent of whether you would attempt to kill him on meeting, knowing everything about him.
Besides, the UK has committed acts of (de facto) shameful collaboration with Stalin, such as the forceful and brutal "repatriation" of Cossacks to the USSR where they faced certain death.
To quote Wikipedia, "On 1 June 1945 the UK placed 32,000 Cossacks (with their women and children) into trains and trucks and delivered them to the Red Army for repatriation to the Soviets [...] most Cossacks were sent to the gulags in far northern Russia and Siberia, and many died").
This was an enormous tragedy and human rights violation, comparable to what deporting thousands of North Korean refugees back to North Korea today would be.
The Cossacks knew it was a death sentence, and they resisted, but obviously in vain. In the words of Julius Epstein (after Wikipedia again): "The first to commit suicide, by hanging, was the Cossack editor Evgenij Tarruski. The second was General Silkin, who shot himself...The Cossacks refused to board the trucks. British soldiers [armed] with pistols and clubs began using their clubs, aiming at the heads of the prisoners. They first dragged the men out of the crowd, and threw them into the trucks. The men jumped out. They beat them again, and threw them onto the floor of the trucks. Again, they jumped out. The British then hit them with rifle butts until they lay unconscious, and threw them, like sacks of potatoes, in the trucks."
No British Jews have ever been deported to the Third Reich. And this certainly may add to the sense of contempt for Stalin, as the Soviet dictator sort of corrupted British politics making the UK an accomplice in a way Hitler never managed to.
> I suspect this is as or more likely a result of his [Hitler's] abundant comic depictions as it is the characterisation as a hero-like figure manfully struggling against inevitability.
That's an alternative explanation, sure (although personally I tend to doubt it)
I think this is highly unlikely to be the explanation
However such general sentiments can 'survive' the knowledge that kickstarted them and propagate in the collective consciousness without it.
very true, but that would require the general public to have known about it at any point, which is doubtful in itself.
if we do take his lesser contempt to be true, which I agree is not a given, a darker hypothesis could develop from Hitler's view of the British as as or more Aryan than the Germans
perhaps this twisted compliment could have seeped into the public (sub)consciousness. but again, whether people are or were actually aware of it is questionable, and whether it would have an effect is equally uncertain
You say it like it’s a bad thing to use rhetoric. But even pg has his own sharp set of rhetorical tools.
In reality much of Orwell's output was the result of his personal feud with Stalinism, deeply conventional and elitist, and not that deep, and it's not surprising that he is today probably the most mindlessly-quoted writer around.
Today's writing about politics mostly seems much more convoluted, bloodless and meaningless.
I don't think that the main reason for that is with the writer though.
I think the reason is the "triumph of liberal democracy" or capitalism.
We have invented a pretty robust sugar-coat for the interests of the powerful.
Nowadays, we even call some of our exploitation schemes "eco-friendly".