“ Nations do not escape from their past merely by making a revolution. ”
George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius (1941). copy citation
Author | George Orwell |
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Source | The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius |
Topic | revolution past |
Date | 1941 |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | |
Weblink | https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and... |
Context
“Already it is customary among the more soft-boiled intellectuals of the Left to declare that if we fight against Nazis we shall “go Nazi” ourselves. They might almost equally well say that if we fight Negroes we shall turn black. To “go Nazi” we should have to have the history of Germany behind us. Nations do not escape from their past merely by making a revolution. An English Socialist government will transform the nation from top to bottom, but it will still bear all over it the unmistakable marks of our own civilization, the peculiar civilization which I discussed earlier in this book.”
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