Most plausible scenario that could create George Orwell's 1984?

With a POD of 1949, the time Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four, create a Threeist dystopia by the year 1984.

Oceania includes all of the Americas, Oceania, South Africa, and British Isles.
 
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I could see it happening if WWII dragged on longer and longer than in OTL. The Nazis took over Western Europe but didn't invade the Soviet Union when it did. Soviets concentrate in Asia and get into a death struggle between Japan and Nationalist China. Fearful of the Nazi threat, the United States elects a hard-right military government that basically merges with the anglosphere.

WWII happens and leads to Soviet conquest of more of Eastern Europe but chaos in Asia as the Chinese Communists fight with the Japanese imperialists. Stalin survives longer than in OTL and gets into a nuclear war with the authoritarian United States, leading to American conquest of South America and Soviet conquest of all of mainland Europe.

The economy in tatters, ideological elements in the Politburo depose Stalin and create the Neo-Bolshevism state. In the United States the right-wing government allies with leftist elements to create Ingsoc, solidifying control against an increasingly restive populace.

Continuation of bloody war in Asia, colony after colony given independence, eventually saps the ideological strength of China and Imperial Japan. Japanese officers suddenly take power from the government and reach an accord with radical elements of the Chinese, creating the government of Eastasia to counter the two new superstates and prevent imperialism from reaching their shores once again.
 
I could see it happening if WWII dragged on longer and longer than in OTL. The Nazis took over Western Europe but didn't invade the Soviet Union when it did. Soviets concentrate in Asia and get into a death struggle between Japan and Nationalist China. Fearful of the Nazi threat, the United States elects a hard-right military government that basically merges with the anglosphere.

WWII happens and leads to Soviet conquest of more of Eastern Europe but chaos in Asia as the Chinese Communists fight with the Japanese imperialists. Stalin survives longer than in OTL and gets into a nuclear war with the authoritarian United States, leading to American conquest of South America and Soviet conquest of all of mainland Europe.

The economy in tatters, ideological elements in the Politburo depose Stalin and create the Neo-Bolshevism state. In the United States the right-wing government allies with leftist elements to create Ingsoc, solidifying control against an increasingly restive populace.

Continuation of bloody war in Asia, colony after colony given independence, eventually saps the ideological strength of China and Imperial Japan. Japanese officers suddenly take power from the government and reach an accord with radical elements of the Chinese, creating the government of Eastasia to counter the two new superstates and prevent imperialism from reaching their shores once again.

While that seems like a good way to build up history to explain the book, Orwell wrote Nineteen Eight Four in 1949 after WW2 already ended.
 
Per the book?

Limited atomic war (not hydrogen bombs) in the early 1950s [possibly due to Stalin dying earlier] results in a stalemate in which the Anglosphere plus South America end on one side, Mao is more successful, and the Soviet army pushes through Europe.

In the USA, Joe McCarthy goes so far overboard he alienates support for Right-wing actions, and the Old Left pushes for a successful -- legal and elective -- takeover of the USA. [They then find they don't like being subservient to Moscow any more than Mao does, and split.]

War being the health of the State, all three governments find it advantageous to keep the alive and well. At the same time, they all realize the damage one solitary madman at the top of the pile is likely to do, so they opt for a more collective form of leadership.

Orwell wrote his book over a three year period as a warning, since he saw what he thought were clear signs of something similar happening. It may be argued the popularity of the book helped prevent its fulfilment as prophecy.
 
In Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower (early '90s), the United States essentially becomes a third world country. There's environmental change with widespread drought, a new drug of abuse, etc, and the government and regular citizens just can't get a handle on things.

Among other outcomes, some corporations essentially reintroduce slavery, whatever official labor laws say. They have "security" personnel to prevent people from leaving, they say people owe debt, but even that part hardly matters.
 
Britain gets really really bad during the war and falls into socialist revolution.

Oh, you meant if the words of the Party are taken as true? Then I don't know.
 
WWIII sometime in the early 1950s, either Korea escalates as happens in that new HT novel or Stalin strikes West as he seriously considered.



Soviets win the War, conquering most of Western Europe. The US adopts a somewhat China-centric policy and so non Maoist forces actually control a good chunk of the country.


The British and the Americans are exhausted and bankrupt, and the end of the war triggers an economic depression. A series of scandals, bad policies etc. ultimately triggers a revolution which spreads elsewhere in Anglosaxony eventually resulting in Ingsoc achieving control of North America and the British isles and then crushing Latin America, the South Africans etc. with overwhelming force.

The Soviets meanwhile undergo a de-Stalinfication in some respects, (perhaps post-Stalinism is a better word) and reform into the Eurasian Union, they are too busy consolidating control of their conquests to do much else.


Eastern Asia is eventually united a bit later. By the mid 1960s all of the world has fallen to these three powers, though one suspects their grip on most places is not as tight as it is in urban England.


The problem is figuring out just how a revolution could happen in the United States given a post 1945 POD, losing WWIII would be humiliating, but I'm not sure it would cause such a collapse.
 
With a POD of 1949, the time Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four, create a Threeist dystopia by the year 1984.
maybe three mega-corporations which have essentially divided up the world?

with governments as fig leaves of course. And the corporation might even occasionally pay a token fine, but we all know who's really in charge.
 
While that seems like a good way to build up history to explain the book, Orwell wrote Nineteen Eight Four in 1949 after WW2 already ended.
If we have a PoD at the end of WW2, or maybe even in 1948, we could have communist takeovers in Western Europe so the Soviet bloc would end in the English channel, and Britain gets closer to the US. But this does not explain why London is the centre of Oceania.
 
If we have a PoD at the end of WW2, or maybe even in 1948, we could have communist takeovers in Western Europe so the Soviet bloc would end in the English channel, and Britain gets closer to the US. But this does not explain why London is the centre of Oceania.

That's assuming party info is considered reliable. ;)
 
If we have a PoD at the end of WW2, or maybe even in 1948, we could have communist takeovers in Western Europe so the Soviet bloc would end in the English channel, and Britain gets closer to the US. But this does not explain why London is the centre of Oceania.

Well, there could be a WW3 that breaks out some time in 1949.

Soviets invade the UK, so they join with the US as North Atlantic Union. Which sound like random space-filling empire, but considering the Franco-British Union almost came into existence in 1940 (it was only rejected because the idea was introduced a few hours before surrender to the Germans when there was no time to debate) it might not be that crazy.

Later as Eurasia and China become more powerful and the US and UK need more resources to fight against the Soviet bloc, South American countries and Australia are pressured into joining, creating the Oceanic Union, then Oceania.

That's assuming party info is considered reliable. ;)

London could be the military capital.
 
I'm pretty sure London wasn't any kind of capital at all. It sounded like just a minor outpost which is why it was called Airstrip 1.
 
The Korean war escalates - by 1952 China and the US are at full scale war in all of East Asia. Stalin uses this opportunity to get revenge for the Berlin blockade and attacks Western Europe.NATO heavily outnumbered uses nukes to stop the Soviet advance in Europe and the Chinese advance in Asia. The Soviets nuke Britain and perhaps due to pressure develop the R-7 a few years earlier and manage to bomb the US as well.
Stalin dies in 1953 and Beria becomes his sucessor by killing Kruschev. He propagates "Neo Bolshevism" and creates a police state worse than the NKVD and Gestapo combined - In 1954/55 Eurasia was born.

Meanwhile the US becomes hysterical and McCyarthism goes into overdrive. The US declares an anti communist crusade and absorbs/conqueres Britain, South Africa and Australia in order to "protect" them from communism. Newly formed (around 1955) Oceania decides to spy on its citizens and creates a police state in order to prevent any spread of neo bolshevism. Communism in China collapses and is replaced with some Kamikaze like ideology from Japan. The new death worshipping China absorbes India and eastern Asia - thus by the mid 1960s Eastasia is born.
 
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