A Collection of Essays

by George Orwell

  94. Ras Behari Bose, an Indian nationalist who had worked for his country's independence since 1911. He was held responsible for the organization of certain terrorist movements and in 1915 went to Japan to try to mobilize Asian support for the Indian Independence League which organized the Indian International.Army. In 1943 the leadership of this army passed to Subhas Chandra Bose.

  26 June

  Everyone very defeatist after the Libya business.95 Some of the papers going cold on the Second Front again. Tom Driberg ("William Hickey") wins the Maiden by-election, scoring twice as many votes as the Conservative candidate. That makes 4 out of the last 6 elections that the Government has lost.

  95. On 20 June Tobruk had fallen to the Germans, marking a bad set-back in the North African campaign.

  1 July

  At Callow End, Worcs (staying on a farm). No noise except aeroplanes, birds, and the mowers cutting the hay. No mention of the war, except with reference to Italian prisoners, who are working on some of the farms. They seem to be considered good workers, and for fruit-picking are preferred to the town people who come out from Worcester and are described as "artful". In spite of the feeding difficulties, plenty of pigs, poultry, geese and turkeys about. Cream for every meal at this place.

  Huge bombers flying overhead all day. Also aeroplanes doing extraordinary things, e.g. towing other planes by a wire (perhaps gliders?) or carrying smaller planes perched on their backs.

  3 July

  Vote of censure defeated 475-2. This figure means that there were very few abstentions. The same trick as usual -- the debate twisted into a demand for a vote of confidence in Churchill himself, which has to be given, since there is no one to take Churchill's place. Things are made much easier for the Government by the obvious bad motives of some of its chief attackers, e.g. Hore-Belisha.96 I don't know how much longer this comedy can go on, but not much longer.

  96. Leslie Hore-Belisha (1898-1957), M.P. (National Liberal 1923-42, Independent 1942-45). He became Secretary for War in 1937, and was dismissed by Chamberlain in 1940. Churchill did not give him a place in his government and throughout the war Hore-Belisha remained out of office.

  No reference to the Second Front in Churchill's speech.

  The Japanese are evidently going to attack Russia fairly soon. They appear to be firmly lodged in the outer Aleutians, which can't have any meaning except as a move to cut communications between Russia and the U.S.A.

  The pinks are panicking to an extent they haven't equalled since Dunkirk. The N.S.'s leading article is headed "Facing the Spectre". They take the loss of Egypt for granted. Heaven knows whether this will actually happen, but these people have prophesied the loss of Egypt so often before that their doing so again is almost enough to persuade one that it won't happen. It is curious how they always do what the Germans want them to do -- e.g. for some time past, demanding that we stop the raids on Germany and send our bombers to Egypt. A little earlier we were to send our bombers to India. In each case the same move as was being demanded by the German "freedom" stations. A thing that strikes me also is the airy disdain with which all the pinks talk of our air raids on Germany -- air raids make very little impression etc. etc. And these are the people who squealed loudest during the blitz on London...

  10 July

  A day or two ago a couple of lorries belonging to the navy arrived with a party of Wrens 97 and sailors who put in several hours work weeding out the turnips in Mr Phillips's field. All the village women delighted by the appearance of the sailors in their blue trousers and white singlets. "Don't they look clean, like! I like sailors. They always look so clean." The sailors and Wrens also seemed to enjoy their outing and drinks in the pub afterwards. It appeared that they belonged to some volunteer organization which sends workers out as they are needed. Mrs Phillips explains it: "It's the voluntary organization from Malvern. Sometimes it's A.T.S.98 they send and sometimes it's sailors. Of course we like having them. Well, it makes you a bit independent of your own workpeople, you see. The workpeople, they're awful nowadays. Just do so much and no more. They know you can't do without them, you see. And you can't get a woman to do a bit indoors nowadays. The girls won't stay here, with no picture-house in the village. I do have a woman who comes in, but I can't get any work out of her. It helps a bit when you get a few voluntary workers. Makes you more independent, like."

  97. Women's Royal Naval Service.

  98. Auxiliary Territorial Service, the woman's branch of the army.

  How right and proper it all is, when you consider how necessary it is that agricultural work should not be neglected, and how right and proper also that town people should get a bit of contact with the soil. Yet these voluntary organizations, plus the work done by soldiers in haymaking, etc., and Italian prisoners, are simply blackleg labour. . .

  The "Blue Bell" again shut for lack of beer. Quite serious boozing for 4 or 5 days of the week, then drought. Sometimes, however, when they are shut the local officers are to be seen drinking in a private room, the common soldiers as well as the labourers being shut out. The "Red Lion" in the next village goes on a different system which the proprietor explains to me: "I don't hold with giving it all to the summer visitors. If beer's short, let the locals come first, I say. A lot of days I keep the front door shut, and then only the locals know the way in at the back. A man that's working in the fields needs his beer, 'specially with the food they got to eat nowadays. But I rations 'em. I says to 'em, 'Now look here, you want your beer regular, don't you? Wouldn't you rather have a pint with your dinner every day than four pints one day and three the next.' Same with the soldiers. I don't like to refuse beer to a soldier, but I only lets 'em have a pint their first drink. After that it's 'Half pints only, boys.' Like that it gets shared out a bit."

  22 July

  From Ahmed Ali's last letter from India:

  Here is a little bit of old Delhi which might interest you.

  In a busy street a newsboy was shouting in Urdu: "Pandit Jawaharlal saying his rosary the other way round." What he meant was that he had changed his attitude towards the Government. Questioned he said: "You can never be sure of him; today he says side with the Government and help in the war effort, tomorrow just the opposite." He turned away from me and began shouting his cry, adding: "Jawaharlal has given a challenge to the Government." I could not find this "challenge" in the papers.

  Other newsboys selling Urdu papers: "Germany has smashed Russia in the very first attack." Needless to say I read just the opposite in my English papers the next morning. Obviously the Urdu papers had reported what Berlin had said. No one stops the newsboys from shouting what they like.

  One day going in a "tonga" I heard the driver shout to his horse as he shied: "Why do you get back like our Sarkar! Go forward like Hitler," and he swore.

  It's rather fun going out to the bazaars and markets and listening to the loud gossip -- provided, of course, it is not unbearably hot. I shall tell you more from time to time, if you are interested.

  23 July

  I now make entries in this diary much more seldom than I used to, for the reason that I literally have not any spare time. And yet I am doing nothing that is not futility and have less and less to show for the time I waste. It seems to be the same with everyone -- the most fearful feeling of frustration, of just footling round doing imbecile things, not imbecile because they are a part of the war and war is inherently foolish, but things which in fact don't help or in any way affect the war effort, but are considered necessary by the huge bureaucratic machine in which we are all caught up. Much of the stuff that goes out from the B.B.C. is just shot into the stratosphere, not listened to by anybody, and known to those responsible for it to be not listened to by anybody. And round this futile stuff hundreds of skilled workers are grouped, costing the country tens of thousands per annum, and tagging on to them are thousands of others who in effect have no real job but have found themselves a quiet niche and are sitting in it pretending to work. The same everywhere, e
specially in the Ministries.

  However, the bread one casts on the waters sometimes fetches up in strange places. We did a series of 6 talks on modern English literature, very highbrow and I believe, completely unlistened-to in India. Hsiao Chi'en, a Chinese student, reads the talks in the Listener and is so impressed that he begins writing a book in Chinese on modern western literature, drawing largely on our talks. So the propaganda aimed at India misses India and accidentally hits China. Perhaps the best way to influence India would be by broadcasting to China.

  The Indian Communist Party, and its press, legalized again. I should say after this they will have to take the ban off the Daily Worker; otherwise the position is too absurd.

  This reminds me of the story David Owen told me and which I believe didn't enter in this diary. Cripps on his arrival in India asked the Viceroy to release the interned Communists. The Viceroy consented (I believe most of them have been released since), but at the last moment got cold feet and said nervously: "But how can you be sure they're really Communists?"

  We are going to have to increase our consumption of potatoes by 20 per cent, so it is said. Partly to save bread, and partly to dispose of this year's potato crop, which is enormous.

  26 July

  Yesterday and today, on the Home Guard manoeuvres, passing various small camps of soldiers in the woods, radiolocation stations etc. Struck by the appearance of the soldiers, their magnificent health and the brutalized look in their faces. All young and fresh, with round fat limbs and rosy faces with beautiful clear skins. But sullen brutish expressions -- not fierce or wicked in any way, but simply stupefied by boredom, loneliness, discontent, endless tiredness and mere physical health.

  27 July

  Talking today with Sultana, one of the Maltese broadcasters. He says he is able to keep in fairly good touch with Malta and conditions are very bad there. "The last letter I get this morning was like a -- how you say? -- (much gesticulation) like a sieve. All the pieces what the censor cut out, you understand. But I make something out of it, all the same." He went on to tell me, among other things, that 5 lb. of potatoes now cost the equivalent of 8 shillings. He considers that of the two convoys which recently endeavoured to reach Malta the one from England, which succeeded in getting there, carried munitions, and the one from Egypt, which failed to get there, carried food. I said, "Why can't they send dehydrated food by plane?" He shrugged his shoulders, seeming to feel instinctively that the British government would never go to that much trouble over Malta. Yet it seems that the Maltese are solidly pro-British, thanks to Mussolini, no doubt.

  The German broadcasts are claiming that Voroshilov is in London, which is not very likely and has not been rumoured here. Probably a shot in the dark, to offset their recent failure over Molotov, and made on the calculation that some high-up Russian military delegate is likely to be here at this moment. If the story should turn out to be true, I shall have to revise my ideas about the German secret service in this country.

  The crowd at the Second Front meeting in Trafalgar Square yesterday estimated at 40,000 in the rightwing papers and 60,000 in the leftwing. Perhaps 50,000 in reality. My spy reports that in spite of the present Communist line of "all power to Churchill", the Communist speakers in fact attacked the Government very violently.

  28 July

  Today I have read less newspapers than usual, but the ones I have seen have gone cold on the Second Front, except for the News Chronicle. The Evening News published an anti-Second Front article by General Brownrigg on its front page. I remarked on this to Herbert Read who said gloomily, "The Government has told them to shut up about it." It is true of course that if they are intending to start something they must still seem to deny it. Read said he thought the position in Russia was desperate and seemed very upset about it, though in the past he has been even more anti-Stalin than I. I said to him, "Don't you feel quite differently towards the Russians now they are in a jam?" and he agreed. For that matter I felt quite differently towards England when I saw that England was in a jam. Looking back, I see that I was anti-Russian (or more exactly anti-Stalin) during the years when Russia appeared to be powerful, militarily and politically, i.e. 1933 to 1941. Before and after those dates I was pro-Russian. One could interpret this in several different ways.

  A small raid on the outskirts of London last night. The new rocket guns, some of which are now manned by Home Guards, were in action and are said to have brought down some planes (8 planes down altogether). This is the first time the Home Guard can properly be said to have been in action, a little over two years after its formation.

  The Germans never admit damage to military objectives, but they acknowledge civilian casualties after our bigger raids. After the Hamburg raid of 2 nights ago they described the casualties as heavy. The papers here reproduce this with pride. Two years ago we would all have been aghast at the idea of killing civilians. I remember saying to someone during the blitz, when the R.A.F. were hitting back as best they could. "In a year's time you'll see headlines in the Daily Express: 'Successful Raid on Berlin Orphanage. Babies Set on Fire'." It hasn't come to that yet, but that is the direction we are going in.

  1 August

  If my figures given are correct, the Germans have lost about 10 per cent of their strength in each of the last raids. According to Peter Masefield99 this isn't anything to do with the new guns but has all been done by the night fighters. He also told me off the record that the new F.W. 190 fighter is much better than any fighter we now have in actual service. An aircraft construction man named Bowyer who was broadcasting together with him agreed with this. Oliver Stewart1 considers that the recent German raids are reconnaissance raids and that they intend starting the big blitz again soon, at any rate if they can get their hands free in Russia.

  99. Peter Masefield (1914- ), air correspondent of the Sunday Times 1940-43, personal adviser to Lord Beaverbrook 1943-5; now Chairman of the British Airports Authority.

  1. Major Oliver Stewart, M.C., A.F.C., expert on aeronautics, journalist and broadcaster, and air correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, 1941-58.

  Not much to do over the bank holiday weekend. Busy at every odd moment making a hen-house. This kind of thing now needs great ingenuity owing to the extreme difficulty of getting hold of timber. No sense of guilt or time-wasting when I do anything of this type -- on the contrary, a vague feeling that any sane occupation must be useful, or at any rate justifiable.

  3 August

  David Astor says Churchill is in Moscow. He also says that there isn't going to be any Second Front. However, if a Second Front is intended, the Government must do all it can to spread the contrary impression beforehand, and D.A. might be one of the people used to plant the rumour.

  D.A. says that when the commandos land the Germans never fight but always clear out immediately. No doubt they have orders to do so. This fact is not allowed to be published -- presumable reason, to prevent the public from becoming overconfident.

  According to David Astor, Cripps does intend to resign from the Government and has his alternative policy ready. He can't, of course, speak of this in public but will do so in private. However, I hear that [John] Macmurray when staying with Cripps recently could get nothing whatever out of him as to his political intentions.

  4 August

  The Turkish radio (among others) also says Churchill is in Moscow.

  5 August

  General dismay over the Government of India's rash act in publishing the documents seized in their police raid on Congress headquarters.2 As usual the crucial document is capable of more than one interpretation and the resulting squabble will simply turn wavering elements in Congress more anti-British. The anti-Indian feeling which the publication has aroused in America, and perhaps Russia and China, is not in the long run any good to us.

  2. After the failure of Cripps's mission to India, Congress had become increasingly intransigent and at the beginning of August Gandhi had inaugurated a campaign of civil disobedience. As p
art of its attempts to ensure order, the Government of India raided Congress headquarters and seized the text of the original draft of the Resolution on Indian Independence submitted to the Congress Working Committee, which it then published.

  The Russian Government announces discovery of a Tsarist plot, quite in the old style. I can't help a vague feeling that this is somehow linked up with the simultaneous discovery of Gandhi's plot with the Japanese.

  7 August

  Hugh Slater is very despondent about the war. He says that at the rate at which the Russians have been retreating it is not possible that Timoshenko3 has really got his army away intact, as reported. He also says that the tone of the Moscow press and wireless shows that morale in Russia must be very bad. Like almost everyone I know, except Warburg, he considers that there isn't going to be any Second Front. This is the inference everyone draws from Churchill's visit to Moscow. People say, "Why should he go to Moscow to tell them we're going to open a Second Front? He must have gone there to tell them we can't do it." Everyone agrees with my suggestion that it would be a good job if Churchill were sunk on his way home, like Kitchener. Of course the possibility remains that Churchill isn't in Moscow.

  3. Marshal Timoshenko was successfully withdrawing across the Don to defend the Volga near Stalingrad.