Ortve11's Essay:. at Last 11.11 1'17 ) by Bernard D

Ortve11's Essay:. At Last 11.11 1'17 ) By Bernard D. Nossiter political situation at the censorship can be expected present time." He would not LONDON—In the war from the British daily press, year of 1944, George Orwell take it either. "extremely centralized, and could not find a publisher The frustrated Orwell most of it owned by wealthy for his brilliant, anti-Soviet then typed out an eight- men who have every motive fable, "Animal Farm." page, single-spaced essay on to be dishonest on certain He was under contract to "The Freedom of the Press," topics." Victor Gollancz, a fellow describing his difficulties But the awful fact is that traveler who had rejected and excoriating the treason "the same kind of veiled "Homage to Catalonia" and of the intellectuals. He in- censorship also operates in quickly turned down the far tended it as a preface for books and periodicals . .. any- deadlier new book. "Animal Farm," when and if one who challenges the pre- Orwell then sent it to Jon- the book appeared. vailing orthodoxq finds him- athan Cape who consulted But at last, in 1945, Seeker self silenced with surprising an unnamed official in the and Warburg took it. The effectiveness. A genuinely un- wartime Ministry of Infor- preface, however, was held fashionable opinion is almost mation. Cape wrote that the out. The book, of course, never given a fair hearing ... official conversation led him was an enormous success, "At this moment, what is to "see now that it might be translated into 16 languages demanded by the prevailing regarded as something even before Orwell's death orthodoxy is an uncritical which it was highly ill-ad- soon after. admiration of Soviet Rus- vised to publish at the pres- The unpublished essay sia . . ". For all know, by the ent time. . the fable does was found in May of last time this book is published follow . . . so completely the year among the papers of my view of the Soviet re- progress of the Russian So- Roger Senhouse, a partner gime may be the generally viets and their two dictators of publisher Fred Warburg. accepted one.But what use . it would be less offensive This week, it has at last would that be in itself? To if the predominant caste in been printed, by The Times exchange one orthodoxy for the fable were not pigs." Literary Supplement. another is not necessarily an Orwell next turned to T. S. In the words of Bernard advance. The enemy is the Eliot, a conservative direc- Crick, who is working on a gramaphone mind, whether tor of Faber and Faber. The study of Orwell as a politi- poet praised Orwell's "dis- or not one agrees with the cal writer, the essay is "in- record that is being played tinguished piece of writing" temperate" but also "among but wondered whether "this at the moment," Orwell the most significant" that writes. is the right point of view Orwell had ever written, from which to criticize the As so often, Orwell had Orwell writes that self- hit on a home truth. Today, of course, anti-Soviet books are commonplace. But writ- . ers who have attempted to discuss racism in the Jew- ish . middle-class or ques- Orwell's tioned the sanctity of Indira Gandhi's' "socialist" India have confronted problems akin to Orwell's. Essay: "If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no mat- ter what means. And who are its enemies? It always At Last appears that they are not only those who attack it ESSAY, From B1 openly and consciously, but taken doctrines. in other those who "objectively" en- danger it by spreading mis- words, defending democracy involves destroying all inde- See ESSAY, B10, Col. 3 pendence of thought. "If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear ... It is the lib- erals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: It is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface."