The history behind 1984
DURING THE 1940S,
ORWELL BELIEVED
WAS DROWNING
5 Art of darkness
Hungarian-British author Arthur
Koestler, whose novel Darkness at
Noon (1940) was mined by Orwell
for images of Soviet incarceration
Accused by allies p
A group of Marxist POUM militia
in Barcelona, 1936; Orwell can be
seen at the rear of the column.
Many POUM members were killed
after being accused by Stalinists of
conspiring with Trotsky and Franco