It critiques 1984 for it's narrow focus on the Stalinist form of totalitarianism, but I see no actual apologia for Stalinism. (The closest is the acknowledgement of the role the USSR under Stalin played as an ally against the Nazis.)
It does argue that 1984 misses the internal instability of totalitarianisms like Stalinism, which besame evident after 1984 was written.
> His critique of the science fiction, that screens which watch you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth could Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly hilarious, if a bit sad.
The critique isn't of screens that watch you back, but of the failure of imagination of Orwell envisioning only screens by which a human watches you in real time rather than one that does so by some automated, scalable means.
Instability compared to what? Stalin's USSR survived major natural disasters and wars, expanded its territory and the leader died in office. Multiple democracies in contemporary Europe were destroyed from the same influences. Only UK, Sweden and Switzerland could be said to be at least as stable as Stalinist USSR.
I despise and hate Stalin, but his regime was fairly stable compared to contemporaries.
Instability compared to what Asimov sees as Orwell's perspective that Stalinism is impervious to internal erosion (including death of the leader.)
Soviet Communism survived, it did not survive unchanged.
> it became more stable as Stalin was driver of instability at the top.
Asimov would, based on the fairly explicit statements in the review on the topic, say that it got more stable precisely because it became less totalitarian.
I’m not interested in arguing whether Asimov is right on this point, but it is indefensible to claim that his painting of Stalinism as tyranny that was explicitly repudiated as such by later Soviet Communism is an apologia for Stalinism.
"Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my contribution. I won't put up a fight."
That is not what instability of regime means. It does not refer to individual being forced to retire. The regime itself was more stable then before. Khruschev retirement did not weakened nor endangered regime.
Stalin did changed people on top too. Some changes and power struggles after his death are not more instability or "touched" communism.
Khruschev was the first one retired. Powerful people before him left power dead (by execution) or by being imprisoned forever. That is being more stable.
It did became safer to both hold power and not to hold it in Russia after Stalin death.
Also, actual Stalin system was remarkably stable.
Finally, the system was that most of the time they don't watch. Only sometimes. Which would describe tech of 2021 quite accurately. It is 40 years later and pretty much that is what we got.
Sure, but that's not really germane to the review, which isn't that 1984 doesn't highlight some things that are real concerns that might affect even non-Stalinist governments (as Stalinism itself includes some elements that can be found outside of it, as well), but that 1984 is basically an unimaginative, literal overlay of Stalinism on top of contemporary (at the time of writing) English society through the biases of the authors social class where the technical elements were relatively unimaginative and poorly thought through in their pragmatics.
Scroll to the bottom of the article.
> His critique of the science fiction, that screens which watch you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth could Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly hilarious, if a bit sad.
> Orwell was unable to conceive of computers or robots, or he would have placed everyone under non-human surveillance.
I guess this answers it
It is also stretch - not making robots did not mean you are not able to imagine them. It means they are not necessary for story. Asimov was not too good with humans, which would be fine. But the idea that it must be robots is weakness of his critique.
This aspect of the Futurians is often memory-holed, I thank you for bringing it to everyone's attention.
His critique of the science fiction, that screens which watch you back is a poor prediction (because how on Earth could Google watch people at scale?!) is particularly hilarious, if a bit sad.