One particular quote from the cited sources especially stood out to me, written in the diary Orwell kept during WW2. He justifies his work as a self-consciously dishonest propagandist for the BBC by saying:
All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth. I don't think this matters so long as one knows what they are doing, and why
Which is really funny considering the widespread idea of "George Orwell" as this anti-authoritarian free speech warrior. Without any other context beyond "Orwell Quote", most people would assume it came from the mouth of O'Brien or some other authoritarian antagonist as a biting criticism of state deception. It's the sort of thing Liberals would love to throw around, putting it in articles they title like "What Orwell can teach us about Putin's misinformation campaign".
But it was written by Orwell speaking as himself, talking about his own attitudes and behavior. And given his later collaboration with the British Information Research Department, the infamous "St George's List" of communists and all those he considered sufficiently adjacent (Jews, homosexuals, anti-racist/"anti-white" activists), it seems unlikely that he ever changed in this regard. The controlling tactics used by IngSoc are far more "English" than they are "Socialist" and the intended horror of the book has less to do with what's being done and more to do with who's doing it. Basically, the scariest thing about O'Brien is his name
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