The British Crisis
A Letter from London
George Orwell
When I last wrote to you things had begun to go wrong in the Far
East but nothing was happening politically. Now, I am fairly certain, we
are on the edge of the political crisis which I have been expecting for the
better part of two years. The situation is very complicated and I dare say
that even before this reaches you much will have happened to falsify my
predictions, but I will make the best analysis I can.
The basic fact is that people are now as fed up and as ready for a
radical policy as they were at the time of Dunkirk, with the difference that
they now have, or are inclined to think they have, a potential leader
in
Stafford Cripps. I don't mean that people in significant numbers are cry·
ing out for the introduction of Socialism, merely that the mass of the
nation wants certain things that aren't obtainable under a capitalist econ·
omy ·and is willing to pay almost any price to get them. Few people, for
instance, seem to me to feel urgently the need for nationalisation of indus·
try, but all except the interested minority would accept nationalisation
without a blink if they were told authoritatively that you can't have effie·
ient war-production otherwise. The fact is that "Socialism," called by
that name, isn't by itself an effective rallying cry. To the mass of the
people "Socialism" just means the discredited Parliamentary Labour Party,
and one feature of the time is the widespread disgust with all the old politi·
cal parties. But what then do people want? I should say that what they
articulately want is more social equality, a complete clean-out of the
political leadership, an aggressive war strategy and a tighter alliance with
the USSR. But one has to consider .the background of these desires before
trying to predict what political development is now possible.
SOCIAL
EQUALITY
The war has brought the class nature of their society very sharply
home- to English people, in two ways. First of all there is the unmistak·
able
f
1ct that all real power depends on class privilege. You can only get
certain jobs if you have been to one of the right schools, and if you fail
and have to be sacked, then somebody else from one of the right schools
takes over, and so it continues. This may go unnoticed when things are
prospering, but becomes obvious in moments of disaster. Secondly there
are the hardships of war, which are, to put it mildly, tempered for anyone
with over
£2000
a year. I don't want to bore you with a detailed account
of the way in which the food rationing is evaded, but you can take it that
whereas ordinary people have to live on an uninteresting diet and do with·
out many luxuries they are accustomed to, the rich go short of absolutely
nothing except, perhaps, wines, fruit and sugar. You can be almost una£.
fected by food rationing without even breaking the law, though there
is
also a llvel)' Black Market. Then there is bootleg petrol and, quite obvi·
ously, widc:spread evasion of Income Tax. This does not go unnoticed, but
274
