The word "IngSoc" in George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" is an abbreviation for "English Socialism" and refers to the ideology of the totalitarian Socialist Party that holds power in the state of Oceania. In real history, the term goes back to the Fabian Society, created by the British ruling class to gradually introduce socialism within the British Empire. According to its initiators, such a system should provide the British elite with long-term dominance over a significant part of the world.
According to American writer Richard Poe, "Orwell's dystopia is based on his knowledge of the real plans of the British ruling class." [1]
The names of the British ruling class, depicted by Orwell in the novel under the title the "Inner Party", became known later - thanks to the books of the historian Carroll Quigley "Tragedy and Hope" (1966) and "The Anglo-American Establishment" (1981).
According to Quigley, the structure of the British conspiracy involved two circles, just as described in Orwell's novel:
1. The Inner Circle - the "Society of the Elect" (or Rhodes-Milner group), created in 1891,
2. The Outer Circle - the Round Table movement - an association of helpers formed between 1909 and 1913. [2]
This article covers the basic principles and properties of the IngSoc ideology. Understanding this historical phenomenon is especially important today, when the British ruling class, having finally thrown off the mask of the "beacon of democracy", has moved on to the final stage of the embodiment of the most brutal form of totalitarianism - both in Great Britain itself and in the countries under its control.
INGSOC AS A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
In the novel 1984, IngSoc is presented as the ideology of the ruling Socialist Party. The novel's character, Emmanuel Goldstein, defines IngSoc as an oligarchic collectivism that "rejects and reviles all the principles for which the socialist movement originally stood." IngSoc demands absolute submission from man - mental, moral and physical.
THE GOAL OF INGSOC
The goal of the IngSoc ideology - and in reality, the ideology of the British ruling class - is eloquently explained by the novel's character O'Brien:
"The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end."
INGSOC AS A CONTROL SYSTEM
IngSoc is an elaborate system of psychological control and repression that forces its subjects to admit imaginary crimes and forget rebellious thoughts in order to love Big Brother and the Party more than themselves. The party is personified by the image of Big Brother, an omnipresent figure who constantly appears on television screens and posters, as if he is constantly watching everyone.
SOCIAL CLASS SYSTEM INGSOC
In the novel "1984", IngSoc IngSoc divides society into three social classes, the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the Proles:
1. The Inner Party make policy, affect decisions, and govern; they are known as "The Party". One of their upper-class privileges is (temporarily) shutting off their telescreens, for time alone. They live in spacious, comfortable homes, have good food and drink, personal servants, and speedy transportation. No Outer Party member or Prole may enter an Inner party neighbourhood without a good pretext.
2. The Outer Party work the state's administrative jobs; they are the middle class, whose "members are allowed no vices other than cigarettes and Victory Gin", and who are the citizens most spied upon, via telescreens and surveillance. This is because, according to history, the middle class is the most dangerous; they are the ones to incite revolution, the one thing The Party does not want. They live in rundown neighbourhoods, use crowded subways as transportation, have poorer food and drink, and are denied sex for any other purpose than having children within marriage, and are expected to look at it as a duty, rather than pleasure.
3. The Proles are the lower class of workers. They live in the poorest conditions. The Party keeps them happy and sedates them with alcohol, gambling, sport, sexual promiscuity, and prolefeed (Fabricated books, pornography). They are not constantly watched by The Party. A few agents of the Thought Police mark down and eliminate any individuals deemed capable of becoming dangerous and spread false rumours. Proletariat are 85 percent of Oceania's populace. [3]
MAIN PROPERTIES OF INGSOC
The properties of the IngSoc ideology are reflected in the special terminology used in the novel "1984".
Newspeak
The official language of the state of Oceania is a primitive version of English. The Party has eliminated "unnecessary" words from Newspeak that could cause unwanted thoughts in citizens. Their logic is simple: if you eliminate disturbing concepts from the language, people will stop recognizing and perceiving them. The goal of Newspeak is to eliminate all linguistic nuances so that everyone who speaks the simplified version of the language thinks in accordance with the ideology of the Party.
Newspeak makes extensive use of abbreviations, such as the name of the party "IngSoc" or the names of ministries: MiniTrue (Ministry of Truth), MiniLuv (Ministry of Love), MiniPlenty (Ministry of Plenty) and MiniPax (Ministry of Peace). These abbreviations refer the reader to the political and bureaucratic jargon of the countries where the IngSoc ideology was first implemented - the USSR (Politburo, Comintern, Gulag, etc.) and Nazi Germany (Gestapo, Nazis, etc.).
Since World War II, the British ruling class has been deliberately imposing Newspeak on the younger generations through the cinema and pop music industry. As a result, each successive generation has demonstrated an increasingly simplified aesthetic taste, a weakening of logical thinking, and a diminished ability to express themselves clearly.
Doublethink
Doublethink is the ability to simultaneously accept two mutually exclusive statements as true, with full conviction in each of them. For example: "We have always been at war with Eurasia" and, at the same time, "Eurasia has always been our ally. " Doublethink serves as a manipulative propaganda tool with which IngSoc confuses the population and undermines the ability to think critically.
Doublethink based on ideological contradictions is often used by totalitarian regimes to achieve their political goals. For example, in Nazi Germany, Jews were simultaneously portrayed as inferior to Germans and at the same time as those who secretly ruled the entire world.[4]
A modern example of doublethink is demonstrated by the British BBC, which on the one hand accuses Israel of genocide against the population of the Gaza Strip, and on the other hand criticizes it for insufficient supplies of food and medicine to Gaza. The BBC propaganda ignores the obvious contradiction: there has never been a case in history where a participant in a military conflict would supply food and medicine to its enemy, especially an enemy like the residents of Gaza, led by Hamas, whose goal is to exterminate the Jews. [5]
The BBC is also trying to impose standards on Israel that Britain itself has never followed. The BBC's propaganda was exposed by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas:
"I just want to point out to you what an unusual, I would say singular standard that the world seems to impose on Israel yet again. Israel was viciously attacked on October 7, without provocation. People were slaughtered, children were killed, women were raped, and yet the world expects Israel to provide food to the people from the land that launched that attack. I don't remember the US sending aid to the people of Germany or Japan during World War II. In the middle of a war, a war of aggression that was launched against Israel, Israel really has no responsibility whatsoever to provide any kind of aid into Gaza, and the fact that they're doing so just proves they always go the extra mile because they always face unique standards in the world." [6]
Telescreen
Telescreen is a device is built into the walls of each apartment and installed in public buildings. The telescreen allows the Thought Police to monitor citizens and also acts as a public television. The telescreen broadcasts mandatory viewing programs. Among them are statistics proving that citizens have more food and clothing, live in better conditions, work less, and are healthier, happier, and smarter than they were fifty years ago-despite the obvious opposite of these claims. Thus, telescreens provide constant surveillance and continuous propaganda. [4]
Today, television plays the role of the telescreen as a propaganda tool, and the functions of total surveillance have been taken over by smartphones, smart home appliances, and numerous television cameras placed in populated areas.
Thoughtcrime
Thoughtcrime is any thought that contradicts the ideology of the Party. Even if the thought is not spoken out loud, it is considered a crime. As the character O'Brien notes in the novel: "Thoughtcrime does not entail death - thoughtcrime is death."
To prevent thoughtcrime, each new edition of the Newspeak dictionary reduces the vocabulary of Oceanian citizens, gradually depriving them of the ability to express and even form unwanted thoughts. [4]
The British ruling class has not yet gone so far as to outright ban thoughtcrimes, but it has already passed legislation banning their expression. In 2023, Sunak's government introduced the Online Safety Act, unofficially dubbed the 'Digital Gulag Act.' This law established total internet censorship, abolished the right to privacy, and restricted freedom of speech and access to information. [7, 8]
To ensure compliance with the law, in July 2025 Starmer's left-wing government created a special police unit to monitor social media speech. [9]
The most notorious victim of the British digital gulag was Englishman Samuel Melia, who was sentenced in February 2024 to two years in prison for distributing anti-immigration stickers. [10] At the same time, an illegal migrant from Eritrea, accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old girl, received only 14 months in prison. [11]
According to IngSoc ideology, a rapist immigrant of color is perceived by the ruling class as less of a threat than a white middle-class man who dares to verbally defend his family from violence.
Thought Police
The Thought Police is a government agency responsible for detecting and stopping thought crimes. It constantly monitors the psychological state of Party members and arrests those who, in their opinion, violate the ideology. Police officers watch citizens through television screens in every home, analyzing body language, intonation of speech and facial expressions to detect the slightest signs of dissent.
George Orwell describes the work of the Thought Police in his novel "1984":
"Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by the telescreen; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork." [4]
Two Minutes Hate
In Orwell's novel, the Party holds a daily ritual called the "Two Minutes Hate" - a short but intense outburst of burning hatred and contempt directed at the Party's enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, and his ideology.
This ritual is an important part of the government's efforts to maintain control over the population. During the Two Minutes Hate, citizens are required to express their hatred with the utmost energy and determination. This collective rage serves as a unifying factor in the fight against the Party's enemies and strengthens loyalty to the government. [4]
In the USSR, the role of Emmanuel Goldstein was played by Israel, and the 'Two Minutes of Hate' were the programs of political observer Farid Seiful-Mulyukov, who, from the position of modern IngSoc - a hybrid alloy of neo-Marxism and jihad - tirelessly exposed the "Zionist regime".
In modern Britain, the daily "Two Minutes Hate" is broadcast on television, primarily on the BBC, the official mouthpiece of the royal family, the Foreign Office and MI6. The object of hatred of the British ruling class, as well as the Soviet nomenklatura, is the "Zionist aggressor" Israel. [12, 13] However, British propaganda is distinguished by a more open connection with jihad, since the country's elite has deliberately chosen a course towards the Islamization of Britain. [14]
The ideological kinship between the Soviet and British elites is explained by the close ties between Lenin and Trotsky's group and the British intelligence services. [15] Stalin's attempt to purge the party of British agents - the Trotskyists - was interrupted by the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, when Great Britain became a temporary ally of the USSR. After Stalin's death, the neo-Trotskyist Khrushchev, who had escaped the purges, imposed a pro-British globalist course on the party [1] and, in particular, militant anti-Israelism. Although Khrushchev was ousted in 1964, the changes he introduced in domestic and foreign policy were not reversed and ultimately played a role in the collapse of the USSR. [16]
Ministry of Truth
The Ministry of Truth is responsible for the media, news production, and rewriting history. Its motto is: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."
Ministry officials distort facts and rewrite historical events to fit the party narrative. The ministry uses expressive propaganda to create an atmosphere of the Party's rightness and invincibility, preventing people from doubting its status. [4]
INGSOC AND SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
One of the coordinating centers of the ideology of IngSoc is the Socialist International (Sl) - an international association of left-wing parties and trade unions with headquarters in London. Uniting 156 parties from 126 countries, the Sl is a powerful instrument of influence for the British ruling class.
Thanks to the influence of the Socialist International, the British elite in the 1970s was able to transform the classical left, which defended workers' rights, into a "new left" that made the protection of minority rights its main slogan. Relying on the resources of this organization, London was able to exert international pressure on governments that were pursuing a nationally oriented course.
An example of such pressure was the London-initiated campaign to recognise the non-existent state of "Palestine". Its real aim was to prevent the destruction of the British proxy structure Hamas by the IDF. [17]
Following the announcement by British Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer of recognition of the State of Palestine [18], he was joined by the heads of the British Dominions: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a former governor of the Bank of England and leader of the Liberal Party [19], and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who leads the Labour Party. [20]
Starmer's initiative was also supported by leaders of states that lead left-wing parties or are in the British sphere of influence. Among them:
• Prime Minister of Malta Robert Abela, leader of the Labour Party;
• Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Store, leader of the Labour Party;
• Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez, leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party;
• Prime Minister of Slovenia Robert Golob, leader of the Svoboda Party;
• Prime Minister of Portugal Luis Montenegro, leader of the Social Democratic Party;
• President of France Emmanuel Macron;
• Prime Minister of Ireland Simon Harris, leader of the liberal-conservative Fine Gael party.
In the above list, the members of the Socialist International are:
• Labour Party of Great Britain,
• Labour Party of Australia,
• Labour Party of Norway,
• Labour Party of Malta,
• Socialist Workers' Party of Spain.
The remaining parties and political leaders are, to varying degrees, within London's orbit of influence:
Thus, the Liberal Party of Canada is a member of the Liberal International, whose headquarters are located in London. This international embodies the concept of "liberal imperialism" formulated by the English philosopher John Ruskin.
Slovenia's centre-left Svoboda Party, which combines elements of green politics, centre-leftism and progressivism in its ideology, is part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, headquartered in Brussels.
French President Emmanuel Macron is a former employee of Rothschild & Cie, a bank owned by the Rothschild family, which has remained a symbol of British influence for centuries. [21]
Portugal has historically been dependent on Britain, regardless of the political orientation of the party in power. [22]
The only exception to this list is the Irish party Fine Gael, which strangely combines liberal-conservative ideology with progressivism. The fact that a party that calls itself "conservative" is following the Socialist International line, along with the left-wing parties, raises questions.
CONCLUSION
Understanding the phenomenon of "IngSoc" helps a person maintain an adequate view of the world in the conditions of information noise and the flow of events. This allows one to separate the "wheat from the chaff", that is, to distinguish national interests from the interests of the British ruling class.
Knowing IngSoc helps to determine whose interests are actually being promoted:
• by a specific president, prime minister or party that passes laws that restrict citizens' freedom under the pretext of security or slow down economic development in favor of the climate agenda; or flood the country with representatives of anti-civilization ethnic groups under the guise of filling the labor shortage or helping refugees.
• by a particular media outlet that uncritically spreads propaganda from British outlets such as the BBC, The Guardian, Financial Times, Reuters, The Times, The Telegraph and The Economist, as well as pro-British media in the US, including Bloomberg, The New York Times, Politico, Axios and The Wall Street Journal.
• by a specific journalist, human rights activist or NGO, which, under the guise of justice, equality and humanism, calls for sacrificing the cultural hegemony of ethnic groups that develop and support Civilization, in favor of the dominance of ethnic groups that destroy it.
• by a particular artist who creates works that contribute to the dehumanization and decline of society. These are writers and directors whose works are filled with newspeak, include scenes that humiliate human dignity, or scenes of violence that reduce empathy, or frank erotic episodes that vulgarize the beauty of human relationships.
The novel 1984, which exposes the ideology of IngSoc, serves as a beacon for those who strive to maintain common sense and critical thinking. This outstanding legacy of George Orwell represents a significant contribution to the understanding of human nature and the struggle for freedom.