tered by Orwell’s exposure of totalitarianngovernance that they resorted to namecalling:nmaggot, hyena, swine, neurotic,nand worse. This pleased Orwell, for, asnMeyers notes, their childish splutteringn”made [him] feel he must have strucknhome.”nFor an author who was subjected to sonmuch naming, no one did it as well EricnBlair himself He decided to use a pennname for his first book, Down and Out innParis and London (1933), fearing his autobiographicalnreport on living with thenlower classes might embarrass his family,nhi retrospect, however, it is difficult not tonread into his decision other intentions:nWho could be more virtuously Englishnthan George, the island’s patron saint,nEdmund Spenser’s Red Cross Knight?nAnd Orwell is the name of a river runningnfrom Ipswich to the North Sea, anpart of the English countryside Blairnloved so much. Not by design —he wasntoo unassuming for that—but perhaps byninstinct, Blair aligned himself with a legendarynknight by defending his countrynfrom the ideological dragons of the 20thncentury.nOrwell’s decision to write under anpseudonym is suggestive in another way:nIt is the mark of his self-invention. He wasnnot a natural writer. He had neithernWaugh’s elegance nor Aldous Huxley’snlearning, the novelists with whom he isnmost often grouped today. Ruth Fitter, anpoet and family friend, described his firstnefforts as being “like a cow with a musket.”nWliat drove Orwell to make himselfnan effective writer was his unblinkingnmoral vision. As a member of what he sardonicallyncalled “the lower-upper-middlenclass” and a beneficiar)’ of an oppressivenimperial system, he felt it his duty to tellndie truth to his countr)’men and help endnthe injustices that were everywhere hidingnin the miasma of unquestioned convention.nIn The Road to Wigan Piern(1937), he wrote of the “immense weightnof guilt” he needed to expiate:nI felt that I had got to escape notnmerely from imperialism but fromnever’ form of man’s dominion overnman. . . . Wliat I profoundly wantedn.. . was to find some way of gettingnout of the respectable world altogedier.nThis he did from 1928 to 1931, first becomingna restaurant dishwasher in Farisnand then returning to England to join thenhomeless tramping from town to town,-n26/CHRON:CLESnlooking for handouts or work. By recordingnthese experiences in Down and Out,nhe began to create the George Orwell wennow regard as the moral voice of his age,na role that seems to have pleased and embarrassednhim in equal measures. Turningnup at his friends’ homes in vaguelynproletarian athre, he endured a certainnamount of teasing for wearing his socialnconscience on his fraying sleeve. GyrilnConnolly, his friend from Eton, once remarkednthat he “could not blow his nosenwithout moralising on conditions in thenhandkerchief industr)’.” But Orwell gavenas good as he got. While at Connolly’snhome one night, Peter Quennell stoppednby on his way to a niore exalted occasionnfor which he was wearing formal eveningndress. “So you sHll wear the uniform ofnthe class enemy,” Orwell teased hisnfriend.nThe work in which Onvell most memorablyndramatized the chilling consequencesnof “man’s dominion overnman” was his last, J984. Its phenomenalnsuccess (over 40 million copies sold innmore than 60 languages, according tonMeyers) has made Orwell’s name an adjective,nfrequenriy used by people whonhave never read the book. “Orwellian”nstands for the routine, casual abuse of bureaucraticnpower by those who expect ordinaryncitizens to bow uncomplaininglynto official authority and big money.nAlong with his name, Orwell’s terms ofnpolitical injustice have passed into ourncommon vocabulary: thoughtcrime,ndoublethink, memory-hole, unperson,nthought police. Big Brother, and more.nNo other writer has so successfully sensitizednus to language’s political undercurrents.nWithout Orwell, would we haventaken as much notice as we did whennStanley Fish of Duke University arrogantlyncoined the term “politically correct,”nusing it to indicate his leftward litmusntest of academic worthiness?nI have found J 984 a useful gauge ofncharacter. I first discovered this over 20nyears ago when a colleague of mine noticednI had assigned the novel to one ofnmy undergraduate classes.n”You’re not still teaching that?” henasked incredulously. “Our students arenreally too sophisHcated for it, you know.”n”Yes, I suppose you’re right,” I agreed,n”if you mean the word in its originalnsense. There’s little doubt their mindsnhave been shamefully sophisticated bynwhat passes for education today.”nUntil that moment, I had not reallynnnthought much about my colleague onenway or the other. He had always seemedna nice enough, competent young fellow.nBut now he stood revealed as a gulliblynsoftheaded victim of changing intellectualnfashions. It was apparent that he hadnbeen all-too-easily sophisticated—that is,ntraduced—by Marxist propaganda. FromnHie moment Orwell showed up on theirnradar, the far left had been doing everythingnpossible to portray him as a misanthropicncrank who had cravenly betrayednhis youthful revolutionar)’ idealism. Thatnthey succeeded at all with this transparentnslander has always astonished me.nAs Meyers explains clearly and in indisputablendetail, the communists firstntook aim at Orwell in 1938, while he wasnfighting on their side in Spain againstnFranco’s forces. Since he presented himselfnas an independent-minded socialist,nthey judged him “politically unreliable,”nmeaning he refused to subscribe to thenStalinist line. For this “crime,” they schedulednhim for assassination; a sniper shotnhim in the neck. (The communists havenalways denied this, but Meyers provesntheir treacher)’ with documents from Sovietnfiles and with fascinating interviewsnwith two aging British communist participantsnin the Spanish Civil War.) Afternpartially recovering from his wound, henand his wife — who had joined him innBarcelona — had to flee for their lives tonParis. The communists had targeted notnonly fliem but all the anti-Franco forcesnwitii whom they were supposedly allied.nSaving the nascent Spanish Republic ol>nviously came second to political correctness,nlliose who did not bend to their willnwere deemed Trotskyites and slated forntorture and liquidation.nOver the years, the reds became increasinglynenraged that they had failed toneliminate the man who became one ofntheir most potent critics. After Spain, Orwellnmade it his life’s mission to unmasknthe communist cause for the ghasfly shamnit was. His success is ever’vhere evident.nOrwell has become an honored hero ofnboth the right and the anticommunistnleft. His works played a substantial role innundermining the Soviet system. Meyersnreminds us that, v’hen Pope John Paul IInwas archbishop of Krakow in 1977,.he allowedna lecture entitled “Orwell’s 1984nand Contemporary Poland” to be deliverednin church, despite the government’snban. In 1984, the Solidarit)’ Movementnissued a clandestine Orwell stamp andndistributed illegal editions of AnimalnFarm and J 984. If taking up arms inn