This first person study of how the totalitarian regime of the USSR developed and then controlled the people in the eastern European countries is probably the best possible book to read to understand how plausible 1984 actually is. I would highly recommend this book to anyone but with a few warnings as it’s a bit challenging in places. It’s highly intellectual and as good as the author is at explaining concepts they can still take some time to grasp. It’s also challenging sometimes due to the subject matter being discussed, mainly the Holocaust. His explanations of how some of friends became collaborators, or profited from the war and post war occupation, can be difficult as well. Not just because you know he feels hurt by this, but also as he explains the psychological reasons he believes to be behind this it can sometimes feel like he is trying to justify rather than explain their behaviour, and maybe it is a bit of both, and ultimately that’s fine, to explain these behaviours is necessary to try to prevent similar things in the future.

The first section of discussing terms and the method I found quite a struggle, and basically read it and put the book down for a week or so, thinking I’d need to be in a specific state of mind to read it as it required a lot of concentration. This was somewhat correct as the second section on ketman does require a fair bit of thought but then the book settles into case studies and some broader topics which are a lot easier to understand. As a result I read the whole book in 2 sittings, with the 2nd sitting being about 80% of the book.

I really want to see if I can find some of the poetry and other books referenced in this or by the same author but I expect a lot of it will be harder to find in English. This is an extremely powerful book, and whilst I recommend it to anyone, I think it’s going to be extremely useful for those interested in History or Psychology/Sociology. I would also say if you enjoy Dystopian fiction, like 1984, then this is a great book to read to understand more about the characters motivations in those worlds.