Nineteen Eighty-Four Graphics

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Hello! So I was unsure where to put this...I remember there being an alternate party logo thread around, but it hasn't been posted in for five years. So I figured a new thread was better than trying to resurrect that one. My apologies if there's a newer thread that this would fit better in. I looked for one and couldn't find one. Though I may have missed it. Anyway on with the show...

So Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is a favourite of mine. Always has been. And I'm a weird sort. I'm the kind of guy who watches a movie, goes "that was awesome," and then spends the next two days binging on the wiki to learn as much minutia as I can. And I wasn't that different in that regard way back during my grade 9 year of high school when I read, and fell in love with, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Now Nineteen Eighty-Four is actually a pretty infuriating read for someone like me, because part of the plot is that the past is unknowable, at least in terms of the big picture. Still, the bits we get from Winston's internal narration are fascinating to me, and they help illuminate that world's half-forgotten and distorted past. This stuff has been on mind whenever I think of book since I first read it. And I thought "what the hell? Let's make an early logo for the Ingsoc Party. When it was the English Socialist Party. Before Newspeak, possibly even before Big Brother.

So a few things first. I used the '84 movie's logo as the base. Orwell never mentions what Oceana's flag looks like, nor what the English Socialist/Ingsoc movement's emblem is. There have been a few cracks at what it might be in popular culture, but most (if not all) of them draw on the '84 movie's take. So why beat around the bush? My concept starts with the idea that the logo we see in the '84 movie is what the original English Socialist Party emblem morphed into.
Also? I'm running off of the idea that the world of the book is, more or less, set up as depicted. No "Oceania is just Britain" stuff. I went into this with the mindset of "the world pretty much works as described."
So without further delay, here we go!

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Some thoughts on what went into the design.
In keeping with the idea that the world in the book works as presented? I tried to merge the film's symbolism with the symbolism of the British Labour Party during the mid 20th century and that of the Socialist Party of America.
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My thinking is that Oceania likely came into being after the Western Allies and the USSR had a nuclear exchange in the early 50s, following the USSR's betrayal that saw them swallow up all of continental Europe shortly after WWII (where Eurasia comes from). The US and UK, which had been growing more integrated over the years, both saw socialist movements overthrow the government in the wake of the atomic attacks and resulting social and economic instability. In time this leads to the socialist movements in the Anglosphere merging. The English Socialist Party ("English" referring to the culture of the Anglosphere rather than just England) is the result.
So the symbols of the American (shaking hands) and British (shovel, pen, torch) branches of the socialist movement would be utilized. The V comes from the V for Victory sign from WWII, which the new Oceanic government adopts. They may be socialists, but they are committed to defending themselves against those blasted Eurasian Soviets.
That also explains why their symbolism lacks what we would think of as stock socialist/communist imagery. In this world? That symbolism is associated with the communists in the USSR/Eurasia, and the English Socialists don't want any of that association following the atomic exchange.

In my mind this served as the Party's initial emblem in the 50s, during its early revolutionary period. Then the 60s came. The wing of the party that clustered around Big Brother initiated the purges, silencing or eliminating the original leaders of the English Socialist movement and its predecessors. This is around the time Newspeak began to emerge. It was slow at first, with the movement's name being among the initial "translations." The term "English Socialism" wasn't forbidden, but the term "Ingsoc" supplants it more and more in Party use as the 60s go on. By the mid 60s? The Party emblem changes. Both to simplify the image of the regime and to eliminate elements of the old emblem that might recall a more egalitarian and democratic period of its history, which was becoming inconvenient now that Goldstein and his lot were declared enemies of the state.
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Newspeak gains more and more exposure as the 60s transition into the 70s. The regime's power is tightening and the rewriting of history is in full swing. The revised logo changes again in the mid 70s, into what is anticipated to be its final form. The message is simplified once more, with the movement's Newspeak name now supplanting the original ideology's name once and for all.
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A huge thanks if you read all of that. I tend to like graphic design work, and I'm a huge nerd for Nineteen Eighty-Four. So I might use this thread to dump some other ideas I've had if I can find the time to work them out.

Anyway thanks again! Let me know what you all think!
 
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OK so I really like the logo (a bit too busy but that's very in character for a alt-Stalinist political party) and the background story makes a lot of sense.

And I really like the feather and shovel symbol. I had never seen that before, great work!

Perhaps a new party symbol thread would be in order, I must have a few buried around my computer
 
And I really like the feather and shovel symbol. I had never seen that before, great work!
Yeah, it's Labour's first emblem, before they went to the flag wordmark and then the rose. It always had a revolutionary look to it, and I thought it would be a good starting point for the project.

OK so I really like the logo (a bit too busy but that's very in character for a alt-Stalinist political party) and the background story makes a lot of sense.
The busyness was intentional :D
The "WORKERS' LIBERTY" text was a late addition, but I feel it works. It's both a reference to the "LIBERTY" text on the old Labour Party logo and it's kind of a shout out to something here. Years ago there was a post in a "pictures from alternate worlds" thread that was Nineteen Eighty-Four themed. It was displaying the Party's habit of re-writing the past. It was a picture of some workers in a factory with the V and slogan "ENGLISH SOCIALISM- WORKERS' LIBERTY" with pictures of Goldstein and (I think?) Rutherford painted/hanging on the wall.
Then the "revised" version of the picture showed the slogan changed to "INGSOC: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY" and the pictures changed to Big Brother. I can't seem to find that picture (it's probably a dead link by now, ironically enough) but I always liked the slogan "WORKERS' LIBERTY" as motto for Ingsoc before Newspeak and the Doublethink slogans came into use. So this was a fun little shout out to that long-forgotten post.

Of course all of this stuff gets purged from the logo when the Party begins to drift into nakedly totalitarian waters.
 
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So I decided to keep this thread going for general Nineteen Eighty-Four graphic work. Next up, drawing on the above stuff, flags!

Oceania
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The idea here is that the above flag served as Oceania's first "national" flag during its early period. It uses the central emblem from the founding English Socialist Party logo, and was often seen alongside the party flag.
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The two flags would have, in my mind, been used concurrently until the mid 60s, when the simplified logo appears. At that point the idea of separate flags for Oceania and the English Socialist Party is abandoned. The totalitarian clique around Big Brother is in full control and the Party IS the state.
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The logo change is acknowledged at first (the re-writing of history was not yet an ambitious project), but curiously no new national flag is announced. Nor is an announcement made to retire the old one. The new emblem is announced with a degree of fanfare, the new Party flag is rolled out, and the old national flag just...stops appearing.

Eventually the regime's grip on power becomes absolute following the purges of the 60s and the change from the "ENGLISH SOCIALISM" variation of the new emblem to the "INGSOC" emblem is smooth. A brief official announcement of the change is made in the mid 70s to give a bit of a bump to the popularity of Newspeak among the masses but within a year history has been rewritten. First that the INGSOC flag was the original replacement from the 60s. By the late 70s? History has been rewritten again, and the INGSOC version of the logo and flag have always been the emblem of the Party, since the earliest days of the Revolution. No one questions it.
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Eurasia
I stuck with the '84 film's symbolism re: English Socialism and Oceania's symbolism and evolution, but I'm going to be leaving the film behind for Eurasia. We only get the briefest glimpses of the Eurasian flag in the film, from a Two Minutes of Hate propaganda reel. It's in black and white, and we don't get a clear picture. All we know is that a raised fist is involved. I decided to, as I said, leave that behind. Partially because we don't get a good look of the flag in the film (and therefore know next to nothing of the actual design, let alone colourization) and partially because Eurasia needs the least amount of explanation. The book says it easily enough. Russia absorbed continental Europe.

Seeing as the book's timeline essentially claims the USSR betrays the Western Allies after WWII and pushes to the English Channel? We can assume that "Eurasia" as an entity is just the USSR absorbing continental Europe. The fact that Eurasia's ruling ideology is called "Neo-Bolshevism" only further cements this. Eurasia is just an enlarged and hardened Soviet Union. We can summarize that Khrushchev and his fellow reformers never took over, or if they did their reign was short lived or their outlook hardoned by the crapsack world that was to come. Regardless, the Eurasia of Orwell's novel doesn't seem to be a better-off place compared to Oceania. It's likely the old Soviet state, expanded, with the Stalin-era policies built on top of, and reinforce. For all we know, the ruling party may still use Stalin as a figurehead/de-facto leader. Stalin's OTL death lines up with the period where the political movements of Nineteen Eighty-Four first seemed to seize power, so who's to say that "Neo-Bolshevism" wasn't simply a coup by Stalinist loyalists looking to keep his regime running as it had been? With all of that in mind? It's tempting to just use the actual Soviet flag as the flag for Eurasia and call it a day.
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What fun is that though?

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Granted, it's not super-exciting, but my reasoning is such. The expanded Eurasian state would require the Red Army to play a significant role in assimilating and pacifying the peoples of central, northern, and western Europe. The USSR could only achieve this rapid expansion through sheer brutality at first, and knew it. They were committed to the act, and leaned on the Red Army to accomplish their goals. As such the Red Army became a vital part of the regime, hence the adoption of a banner that utilized a design similar to the Red Army's "unofficial" banner of a red star outlined in gold on a red field. The centralized emblem would also serve to keep the state's emblem "front and centre" for propaganda purposes.

Eastasia
If Eurasia is the easiest state in Nineteen Eighty-Four to extrapolate on (basically the USSR but bigger) then East Asia is the hardest.

Eastasia gives us next to nothing. The ruling ideology is referred to as "Death Worship," with Goldstein's book claiming the term is more accurately translated from Chinese "Obliteration of the Self." This doesn't help us, as no Chinese term seems to follow this translation. It does serve to give us our only hint as to the nature of the Eastasian state- that China seems to be the dominant nation in this union of East Asian territory. So I went with that, and assumed that "Death Worship" aka "Obliteration of the Self" is some made-up word by the regime. A word from a Chinese version of Newspeak perhaps. Anyway, China. The briefest hints about East Asia seems to depict them as being the dominant force, so I ran with that.

The alt history isn't hard to figure out if you're able to get into the historical context Orwell was writing in. The new world order the Allies of WWII built originally included a large role for Nationalist China. It was, the Allies assumed, going to be the primary power in East Asia. The rise of the Communist Party of China and the Nationalist movement's defeat during the Chinese Civil War was a shock to the Western world. Shown by the sentiment that Truman somehow "lost" China.
So if we get into the headspace of a British intellectual writing about what the world would look like in forty years in an immediate post-WWII world? We can summarize that Nationalist China would be a dominant power. And that's the base I went with for Eastasia. It makes the most sense given what people would have assumed at the time, and it helps give Eastasia a bit more of a distinct character from Eurasia. And that's always fun :p

So essentially Eastasia is a state where the Kuomintang is dominant. Or was, before the ideology was renamed. This actually works given some OTL events. The KMT was briefly aligned with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who sent advisors to China following the Qing Empire's overthrow. This resulted in the KMT adopting a Leninst party structure in 1923. One that, in the OTL, they wouldn't abandon until the 1990s. This Soviet influence also led to a period of cooperation between the KMT and CCP, with Mao Zedong and other CCP members holding duel membership. So given this OTL info? It's not hard to extrapolate an alternate history where the KMT, as a result of the hardened world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, has a more hardened and totalitarian outlook. The Leninist party structure would give them the means to organize along totalitarian lines, and maybe the chaos of the 50s and 60s (the book mentions Eastasia emerged as a power in its own right in the 60s) caused some of the more totalitarian figures of the OTL CCP (such as Mao) to stay with the KMT in a united front.
Of course that "confused fighting" Orwell writes about Eastasia emerging from was likely a series of purges in Nationalist China against more reform-minded wings of the government, as well as wars of annexation against Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and of course Japan. The post-WWII world of Orwell's book is a chaotic one where a nuclear exchange between Eurasia/the USSR and the western Allies that would become Oceania fundamentally shake the world. The US and Britain would be focused on Europe, and their governments teetering on the edge anyway, close to the English Socialist takeover. This would have freed a Nationalist China, perhaps strengthened by a formal union between the KMT and CCP, to gobble up nearby states to expand itself and gain new sources of natural resources. So for a time the Nationalist Chinese flag would be used.
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If we assume that Eastasia's origins lie in a strengthened and increasingly totalitarian Nationalist China we could stop there, but again, what fun is that? I decided to use the KMT party flag as the basis for a national banner for a few reasons. The first is that it fits with the English Socialists using the INGSOC banner as the national flag for Oceania. All three dominant political ideologies are said to be indistinguishable in any real sense, so it makes sense that Eastasia's ruling party would have the same "the party is the state" mentality. Abandoning the mostly red Nationalist China flag for the mostly royal blue KMT flag also gives it greater distinction from the Eurasia flag. The text, reading "Eastasia," would be an early flag. The text meant to signify that the regime was more than just China.
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In time the ruling ideology of this new state is worked out. "Obliteration of the Self" was born out of a manipulation of Buddhist ideology, mixed with some Confucian ideals about respecting the hierarchy of the state. The new ideology's name eventually replaced the name of the state on the flag, in Simplified Chinese characters. In my mind? Simplified Chinese was ushered in as part of Eastasia's version of Newspeak.
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*note* As I said, there is no term that follows the "Death Worship"/"Obliteration of the Self" name Orwell gave to Eastasia's ruling ideology. I do not speak Chinese, but I played around with a few terms and phrases, settling on the term for "Self Death" as this appears to be the closest to the ideology's intent- ie killing off your own identity so you can serve a greater whole. If anyone who is more knowledgeable about Chinese has a better suggestion, please feel free to say so!

So that's that! I think all in all we have three pretty distinct flags for our three totalitarian superstates.

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Propaganda! Who doesn't love propaganda?
So worked into this is a bit of a fan theory, one based on @Will Ritson 's Images of 1984 TL. It's very well done, and I would recommend anyone who hasn't looked it over do so immediately. Will Ritson's take isn't exactly mine- he leans into the "Oceania is just Britain" idea which I, for the sake of this thread, have steered away from. Still, I appreciate the heck out of what he's done to flesh out some of Orwell's ideas. One of his takes, which I have decided to run with because it's just too good, is that Big Brother is Oswald Mosley. Why is it perfect? A few things.

First, Mosley was already thinking about the concept of a "superstate" early in his political career. First he wanted to unify the British Empire under a revolutionary Labour programme (Birmingham Proposals). Then the same goal, with Fascist national syndicalism and the BUF. By the time Mosley was puttering around in the post WWII world he was talking about the need for a unified Europe based on ethnic nationalism. Mosley was someone who had superstates on the brain, and would be a good person to put in a position of influence in the critical years of a Nineteen Eighty-Four timeline.

Secondly, as states above, Mosley was formally a member of the Labour Party. This is where I basically go with one of Will Ritson's ideas. A point of divergence occurs where Mosley, instead of drifting into fascism, stays with Labour and cultivates a sort of radical following around himself. As such he's not discredited by association with fascism during WWII. The idea I am going with is that Mosley, more or less, always had totalitarian tendencies. The vehicle he chose to advance those ideas was merely window dressing for a general totalitarian outlook that he was always going to drift towards.
So in my mind Mosley leads this radical section of the Labour Party. WWII happens, the Soviets betray the western Allies, and the nuclear exchanges occur. The western Allied governments collapse due to the social and economic stress caused by the fallout of the attacks, and various socialist groups seize power. Mosley's faction being the one to do so in the UK. Then these various socialist movements across the Anglosphere unite to form the English Socialist Party and Oceania, completing slow steps towards integration begun by the US and UK alliance during WWII. Mosley's faction in the new English Socialist regime eventually wins a struggle for power and purges Goldstein and his allies in the 1960s, and by the mid-60s they're more or less in full control. Mosley starts being referred to as "the Big Brother of our Revolution" in the mid-60s, eventually becoming Big Brother by the 1970s.

Another reason this works? It also sort of ties into the theory that Big Brother doesn't exist. Let's assume Mosley dies around the same time in the Nineteen Eighty-Four timeline as he did in the OTL. That means he dies in 1980. Meaning Big Brother, by the time the book actually takes place, has been dead for four years. And has likely been out of the public eye for at least a decade before that. The Party just kept his image alive as he was too powerful a propaganda tool to dispense with.
Mosley was born in 1896, meaning he would have been in his 40s during his heyday in the 1930s/40s (even assuming he stays Labour and doesn't go fascist). And the book describes Big Brother as a mustachioed man in his 40s. So it would make sense to imagine that in the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, where technology has in most areas stagnated at 40s/50s levels, the Party continued to use a photo of Mosley in his 40s even as he aged, and then died.

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A photo of "Big Brother Mosley" during the Revolution's early days.

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So that's Big Brother. Now...what about Oliver Cromwell? Yes Cromwell. The book has one bit that indicates that the English Socialist regime may have a bit of an affinity for Cromwell.
The first chapter of Part II details how Winston and Julia arrange their first secret meeting. They agree to meet in Victory Square (formally Trafalgar Square) during the arrival of some Eurasian POWs under the assumption that the large crowds will make it easier to speak quietly to one and other. Anyway Winston is waiting for her to show up. Nelson's Column has either been repurposed as or replaced by a statue of Big Brother. Winston notes that there's a statue nearby that's supposed to represent Oliver Cromwell. The general vicinity he gives likely means that the statue is a repurposing of, or replacement of, Charles I's statue at Charing Cross on the east side of the square. So the English Socialists chose to emphasize Cromwell over Charles I. Not out of character for a socialist regime, in so much as you could propagandize Cromwell as an early proto-revolutionary against monarchical power.
This also works with the "Big Brother is Mosley" theory because as it turns out Mosley had a bit of a thing for Cromwell. Julie V. Gottlieb and Thomas P. Linehan's The Culture of Fascism: Visions of the Far Right in Britain note that Mosley would use the legacy of Cromwell to win a sort of native legitimacy for the BUF and dispel the notion that it was merely an import of an Italian ideology. Mosley would claim that Cromwell ushered in "the first fascist age in England." If we assume a timeline where Mosley stays left rather than going right but otherwise remains attracted to totalitarian ideals? It's not hard to extrapolate him using Cromwell as a propaganda tool for a radical leftist government. Cromwell is the sort that can appeal to either the right or left, depending on how you choose to cherry-pick his legacy. So it's not crazy to assume that a leftist Mosley would still use Cromwell as a propaganda tool.
This Cromwell poster never appears in the book (that he gets a statue in Victory Square is all that's mentioned of him) but I think it works.

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It should be noted that in my mind Cromwell is a local thing for Airstrip One (Britain). I'm running with the idea that the world of the book works more or less as described, meaning Oceania is a pretty big place. It's likely that each part of Oceania would have its own localized propaganda to appeal to the general cultural history of that part of the world. So the Ingsoc regime plays up Cromwell in Britain but probably plays up Simón Bolívar in similar ways in South America.

You could insert these fine gentlemen in the foundation of Eastasia:
Also, a scenario which reads eerily like a 1984 prequel:
Thanks for both of those! The Blue Shirts Society in particular is really intriguing as far as the origins of Eastasia go...
 
Propaganda! Who doesn't love propaganda?
So worked into this is a bit of a fan theory, one based on @Will Ritson 's Images of 1984 TL. It's very well done, and I would recommend anyone who hasn't looked it over do so immediately. Will Ritson's take isn't exactly mine- he leans into the "Oceania is just Britain" idea which I, for the sake of this thread, have steered away from. Still, I appreciate the heck out of what he's done to flesh out some of Orwell's ideas. One of his takes, which I have decided to run with because it's just too good, is that Big Brother is Oswald Mosley. Why is it perfect? A few things.

First, Mosley was already thinking about the concept of a "superstate" early in his political career. First he wanted to unify the British Empire under a revolutionary Labour programme (Birmingham Proposals). Then the same goal, with Fascist national syndicalism and the BUF. By the time Mosley was puttering around in the post WWII world he was talking about the need for a unified Europe based on ethnic nationalism. Mosley was someone who had superstates on the brain, and would be a good person to put in a position of influence in the critical years of a Nineteen Eighty-Four timeline.

Secondly, as states above, Mosley was formally a member of the Labour Party. This is where I basically go with one of Will Ritson's ideas. A point of divergence occurs where Mosley, instead of drifting into fascism, stays with Labour and cultivates a sort of radical following around himself. As such he's not discredited by association with fascism during WWII. The idea I am going with is that Mosley, more or less, always had totalitarian tendencies. The vehicle he chose to advance those ideas was merely window dressing for a general totalitarian outlook that he was always going to drift towards.
So in my mind Mosley leads this radical section of the Labour Party. WWII happens, the Soviets betray the western Allies, and the nuclear exchanges occur. The western Allied governments collapse due to the social and economic stress caused by the fallout of the attacks, and various socialist groups seize power. Mosley's faction being the one to do so in the UK. Then these various socialist movements across the Anglosphere unite to form the English Socialist Party and Oceania, completing slow steps towards integration begun by the US and UK alliance during WWII. Mosley's faction in the new English Socialist regime eventually wins a struggle for power and purges Goldstein and his allies in the 1960s, and by the mid-60s they're more or less in full control. Mosley starts being referred to as "the Big Brother of our Revolution" in the mid-60s, eventually becoming Big Brother by the 1970s.

Another reason this works? It also sort of ties into the theory that Big Brother doesn't exist. Let's assume Mosley dies around the same time in the Nineteen Eighty-Four timeline as he did in the OTL. That means he dies in 1980. Meaning Big Brother, by the time the book actually takes place, has been dead for four years. And has likely been out of the public eye for at least a decade before that. The Party just kept his image alive as he was too powerful a propaganda tool to dispense with.
Mosley was born in 1896, meaning he would have been in his 40s during his heyday in the 1930s/40s (even assuming he stays Labour and doesn't go fascist). And the book describes Big Brother as a mustachioed man in his 40s. So it would make sense to imagine that in the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, where technology has in most areas stagnated at 40s/50s levels, the Party continued to use a photo of Mosley in his 40s even as he aged, and then died.

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A photo of "Big Brother Mosley" during the Revolution's early days.

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So that's Big Brother. Now...what about Oliver Cromwell? Yes Cromwell. The book has one bit that indicates that the English Socialist regime may have a bit of an affinity for Cromwell.
The first chapter of Part II details how Winston and Julia arrange their first secret meeting. They agree to meet in Victory Square (formally Trafalgar Square) during the arrival of some Eurasian POWs under the assumption that the large crowds will make it easier to speak quietly to one and other. Anyway Winston is waiting for her to show up. Nelson's Column has either been repurposed as or replaced by a statue of Big Brother. Winston notes that there's a statue nearby that's supposed to represent Oliver Cromwell. The general vicinity he gives likely means that the statue is a repurposing of, or replacement of, Charles I's statue at Charing Cross on the east side of the square. So the English Socialists chose to emphasize Cromwell over Charles I. Not out of character for a socialist regime, in so much as you could propagandize Cromwell as an early proto-revolutionary against monarchical power.
This also works with the "Big Brother is Mosley" theory because as it turns out Mosley had a bit of a thing for Cromwell. Julie V. Gottlieb and Thomas P. Linehan's The Culture of Fascism: Visions of the Far Right in Britain note that Mosley would use the legacy of Cromwell to win a sort of native legitimacy for the BUF and dispel the notion that it was merely an import of an Italian ideology. Mosley would claim that Cromwell ushered in "the first fascist age in England." If we assume a timeline where Mosley stays left rather than going right but otherwise remains attracted to totalitarian ideals? It's not hard to extrapolate him using Cromwell as a propaganda tool for a radical leftist government. Cromwell is the sort that can appeal to either the right or left, depending on how you choose to cherry-pick his legacy. So it's not crazy to assume that a leftist Mosley would still use Cromwell as a propaganda tool.
This Cromwell poster never appears in the book (that he gets a statue in Victory Square is all that's mentioned of him) but I think it works.

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It should be noted that in my mind Cromwell is a local thing for Airstrip One (Britain). I'm running with the idea that the world of the book works more or less as described, meaning Oceania is a pretty big place. It's likely that each part of Oceania would have its own localized propaganda to appeal to the general cultural history of that part of the world. So the Ingsoc regime plays up Cromwell in Britain but probably plays up Simón Bolívar in similar ways in South America.


Thanks for both of those! The Blue Shirts Society in particular is really intriguing as far as the origins of Eastasia go...

I really, really like the Cromwellian aspect of Ingsoc, that's a nice catch. The poster is amazing and the logic behind it surprised me quite a lot.

Regarding Mosley as Big Brother... Honestly I can't really fit him in my image of Big Brother, I can see it being retouched to seem less... I don't know, maybe scrawny? There's something in the guy that gives fear, sure, but not the right kind... It's more the fear of disgust one has to a worm than the fear of intimidation to Big Brother. Or perhaps Big Brother as a concept could have emerged from posters of Mosley that, after his dismissal, were reworked into their more impersonal manner. But that's only my own point of view around that aesthetic look.
 
This is absolutely top-notch, @troy , you've picked up on some very nice links, e.g. Mosley and Cromwell, and the logic is compelling. Re. the image of Big Brother, I can't help but see Enoch Powell's face having a more intimidating look. Although Mosley may well have developed a more intimidating look later, or the party might have mixed, say, Kitchener, Mosley and someone like Powell to give the face of Big Brother as used during the book, as @Prince di Corsica suggests :)
 
I really, really like the Cromwellian aspect of Ingsoc, that's a nice catch. The poster is amazing and the logic behind it surprised me quite a lot.
Thanks! The Cromwell line was one of the first things in the book that made me want to know more about the history of that world. I didn't know much about Cromwell at the time, but I knew who he was in a broad strokes sort of way. And it was enough for me to both go "oh yeah that totally makes sense" and "I wonder how that fits into the Ingsoc government's history?"
I think it also stands out to me because it's one thing in the world that we see where history hasn't entirely been trampled on. We don't know what the regime says about Cromwell (it's likely distorted in some way) but in a world where people who were alive yesterday can be vaporized and wiped from the historical record today? The fact that they just have a statue of this historical figure out in a major square is kind of intriguing. And beckons all sorts of questions.

Regarding Mosley as Big Brother... Honestly I can't really fit him in my image of Big Brother, I can see it being retouched to seem less... I don't know, maybe scrawny? There's something in the guy that gives fear, sure, but not the right kind... It's more the fear of disgust one has to a worm than the fear of intimidation to Big Brother. Or perhaps Big Brother as a concept could have emerged from posters of Mosley that, after his dismissal, were reworked into their more impersonal manner. But that's only my own point of view around that aesthetic look.
I totally get that. He's not quite the stern yet comforting yet also terrifying figure Big Brother is described as. It's my singular problem with the Mosley theory. I suppose Mosley may have "grown into" that sort of visage in the 1950s, but pictures of him in that era don't seem to exist. He vanished from the public eye when the British government cracked down on the BUF during WWII and he didn't re-emerge until his last kick at the can in the 60s, by which point he's too old.
Anyway I really like the idea you floated there. That Mosley was among the leaders of English Socialism's totalitarian wing that seized power, but Big Brother as a figure was an invention that borrowed elements of him, and some other figures to serve as an effective figurehead.

This is absolutely top-notch, @troy , you've picked up on some very nice links, e.g. Mosley and Cromwell, and the logic is compelling. Re. the image of Big Brother, I can't help but see Enoch Powell's face having a more intimidating look. Although Mosley may well have developed a more intimidating look later, or the party might have mixed, say, Kitchener, Mosley and someone like Powell to give the face of Big Brother as used during the book, as @Prince di Corsica suggests :)
First off, thanks!
Secondly, Powell is a really good choice. I'm unsure if he ever drifted into left wing politics in a way where he would have emerged as part of the English Socialist regime, but he's intriguing none the less. His brand of conservatism was such that he could fit in with the Ingsoc crowd given enough butterflies, and anyway? It's entirely possible that even if he was a Tory killed off in the Revolution they would have pulled his picture from a database and ran with it.

Good suggestions guys! I'm going to work on that, see where it goes.
 
Eurasia revisited.
So I talked about flags for the three superstates and their ruling ideologies in the second post of this thread. I generally like how everything turned out, but the Eurasia one sort of doesn't sit right. I think it's the lack of text. Both the final iterations of the Oceanian/Ingsoc and Eastasian/Obliteration of the Self flags have the name of the ideology on the flag. Yet the Eurasian (Neo-Bolshevism) doesn't.
At the time I was going off of the idea that Eurasia is the easiest of the superstates to work out in terms of history. The Soviet Union invades continental Europe after the end of WWII. Simple. One could realistically make the case that the USSR's flag would remain the flag of Eurasia unchanged given the straightforward nature of the transition. I didn't want to cop out, so I merged the USSR's flag with the unofficial flag of the Red Army. I left it at that because, again, I like the simplicity of Eurasia. It's the USSR but bigger. No need to go further than necessary.
Even the regime's name hints at that. "English Socialism" was never an actual political movement. It's a thought experiment Orwell conceived of during WWII and presented in his essay The Lion and the Unicorn. He then re-used the term for Oceania's governing party. And as I said above? Obliteration of the Self/Death Worship doesn't seem to be based on an actual Chinese term. So both Eastasia and Oceania are using ideologies that, for all intents and purposes, Orwell made up and lacked a real-world genesis. Eurasia though? Neo-Bolshevism. It's directly referencing the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which makes it unique in a way. Eurasia is the one superstate out of the three to have a regime that actually existed as a government in some way prior to the timeline's 1950s. This all fed into my decision to make the flag as straightforward and as representative of that idea as possible. Yet the lack of text bugs me. So I threw together some mockups, just to see how these looked.

The first is basically the flag above, but with the movement's name (Cyrillic for NeoBol) included.
iAYov1v.png


xVSIOce.png


The second one is based on the civic ensign of the old RSFSR.

xEnZUMe.png


URAVoiA.png


The next three are all based off of older flags of the RSFSR. They all used text, which to me seemed to make them ideal to use as potential templates for a flag that would also include text.

bmbwlBU.png


AIaMzaT.png


2byyWbC.png


aL9e9q5.png


K62JLB0.png


eyd3HxT.png


I'm not sold on all of these, and I think the first one (ie the one closest to my original design) probably works the best. Still, good to get some other ideas out there. Besides, the others would probably work as various banners for the regime in lesser capacities, I'm sure.
 
Eurasia revisited.
So I talked about flags for the three superstates and their ruling ideologies in the second post of this thread. I generally like how everything turned out, but the Eurasia one sort of doesn't sit right. I think it's the lack of text. Both the final iterations of the Oceanian/Ingsoc and Eastasian/Obliteration of the Self flags have the name of the ideology on the flag. Yet the Eurasian (Neo-Bolshevism) doesn't.
At the time I was going off of the idea that Eurasia is the easiest of the superstates to work out in terms of history. The Soviet Union invades continental Europe after the end of WWII. Simple. One could realistically make the case that the USSR's flag would remain the flag of Eurasia unchanged given the straightforward nature of the transition. I didn't want to cop out, so I merged the USSR's flag with the unofficial flag of the Red Army. I left it at that because, again, I like the simplicity of Eurasia. It's the USSR but bigger. No need to go further than necessary.
Even the regime's name hints at that. "English Socialism" was never an actual political movement. It's a thought experiment Orwell conceived of during WWII and presented in his essay The Lion and the Unicorn. He then re-used the term for Oceania's governing party. And as I said above? Obliteration of the Self/Death Worship doesn't seem to be based on an actual Chinese term. So both Eastasia and Oceania are using ideologies that, for all intents and purposes, Orwell made up and lacked a real-world genesis. Eurasia though? Neo-Bolshevism. It's directly referencing the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which makes it unique in a way. Eurasia is the one superstate out of the three to have a regime that actually existed as a government in some way prior to the timeline's 1950s. This all fed into my decision to make the flag as straightforward and as representative of that idea as possible. Yet the lack of text bugs me. So I threw together some mockups, just to see how these looked.

The first is basically the flag above, but with the movement's name (Cyrillic for NeoBol) included.
iAYov1v.png


xVSIOce.png


The second one is based on the civic ensign of the old RSFSR.

xEnZUMe.png


URAVoiA.png


The next three are all based off of older flags of the RSFSR. They all used text, which to me seemed to make them ideal to use as potential templates for a flag that would also include text.

bmbwlBU.png


AIaMzaT.png


2byyWbC.png


aL9e9q5.png


K62JLB0.png


eyd3HxT.png


I'm not sold on all of these, and I think the first one (ie the one closest to my original design) probably works the best. Still, good to get some other ideas out there. Besides, the others would probably work as various banners for the regime in lesser capacities, I'm sure.

I actually really like the third one, it looks definitely distinct and yet deriving from its Soviet roots. Perhaps it's because it helps detach the look from the Soviet Union into whatever descendant state of it Eurasia turns out to be.

Oh and I can totally see Ingsoc having a total devotion to Cromwell and a telling of his story and struggle... that never brings up any religious aspect whatsoever.
 
I love this! Great work!

Any ideas on what happens in the war zones/disputed territories?

It's been a while since I read the book, so I'm not sure if any hints are given, but I'd imagine some smaller states or local militant groups forming in these regions with their own flags and symbols.
 
I actually really like the third one, it looks definitely distinct and yet deriving from its Soviet roots. Perhaps it's because it helps detach the look from the Soviet Union into whatever descendant state of it Eurasia turns out to be.
Yeah, it's a fun idea. The issue is that the USSR absorbs continental Europe. So the trick is figuring out how the USSR could then transition into Eurasia. My personal theory is that Stalin more or less lives as long as he did in the OTL, dying in 1953. The difference is that the world is already hardened in this timeline. The nuclear exchanges have occurred, the Red Army is engaged in brutal repression to bring Central, Western, and Northern Europe into line. The new English Socialist regime in the Anglosphere is forming, or has just formed. Meaning that the old Commonwealth and USA have completed their trans-oceanic integration begun by WWII. In this pressure-cooker of an environment Lavrentiy Beria's faction probably comes out on top in the post-Stalin struggle for power. Nikita Khrushchev's reforming streak would either be dismissed or dismantled by the man himself as the Soviet Union faces these harsher realities.
Beria's faction would seize the apparatus of the Soviet state, and the transition to Eurasia would begin. Neo-Bolshevism was developed as a "new direction" for the party, reusing the old name of the movement to invest it with revolutionary vigour.

That's my take anyway.

Oh and I can totally see Ingsoc having a total devotion to Cromwell and a telling of his story and struggle... that never brings up any religious aspect whatsoever.
Absolutely! Another bit of Winston's internal narration indicates how buildings were described. Anything new-looking and impressive was deemed to have been build after the Revolution. Anything that was clearly older was assigned to a vague term Winston only knew as "the Middle Ages." The Party specifically claims that the centuries of Capitalism built nothing of value.

So we can likely assume that the early modern period of history, which Cromwell belonged to, would be wrapped up into a period in history just entitled "the Middle Ages" and otherwise open to be twisted as the regime needs it to be. In that situation the Ingsoc regime could easily present Cromwell as an early freedom fighter trying to shake off the power of the King and free the people of Britain in this vague Middle Ages period. They could even propagandize Cromwell's Commonwealth as an early proto-revolutionary state that displayed the potential for the common man to rule before those dastardly nobles re-asserted themselves. In that sense Cromwell becomes a bit of a martyr to the Ingsoc cause. A pioneer who led the way for the revolutionary movements to come.
All of Cromwell's religious aspects, his own oppression of the revolutionary Levellers and Diggers, could easily be done away with. Winston notes that in all likelihood no book exists that was printed before 1960. Besides. This is a regime that re-writes history on a day to day level about events that, in some cases, are only a few days old. Twisting Oliver Cromwell into a sort of proto-socialist folk hero would be easy for this lot.

I love this! Great work!

Any ideas on what happens in the war zones/disputed territories?

It's been a while since I read the book, so I'm not sure if any hints are given, but I'd imagine some smaller states or local militant groups forming in these regions with their own flags and symbols.
Thanks!
Orwell is very light on details regarding the population of the disputed territories. All he mentions is that all three powers pretty much treat the people there openly as slaves, and that they pass from master to master, doing the same work for their new overlords that they did before.
While constant warfare would lead to a battered populous (or multiple, in this case) one can assume that the old movements still exist in some form. Perhaps as guerrilla groups or as local warlords who make nice with the various superstates to hold onto local power in exchange for the labour of their population.

The only thing that comes to mind immediately is that Winston mentions in his diary that he went to the movies. It was a war film, and took place in the Mediterranean. He mentions seeing shots of what appeared to be an old Jewish woman attempting to shield her child from machine-gun fire from a helicopter. If this is in any way indicative of the realities in the eastern Mediterranean we can summarize there's some sort of Zionist resistance or movement there. And very likely an Arab equivalent. This can be extrapolated for most of the disputed territories.
I imagine you would have these local warlords or nationalistic guerrilla movements surviving on the fringes of a mostly battered society passing to and from superstates as the fortunes of war change.

Absolutely amazing work! I simply love the work done with the background story. I hope you continue.
Thanks! This is a free-form project. I work and post on ideas as I have them, and try to explain my rationale behind them. I'll be working on this as long as these ideas come to me. I've had this book on my brain since...checks watch...the summer of 2002 :p So I have a lot of ideas to flesh out.
 
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Yeah, it's a fun idea. The issue is that the USSR absorbs continental Europe. So the trick is figuring out how the USSR could then transition into Eurasia. My personal theory is that Stalin more or less lives as long as he did in the OTL, dying in 1953. The difference is that the world is already hardened in this timeline. The nuclear exchanges have occurred, the Red Army is engaged in brutal repression to bring Central, Western, and Northern Europe into line. The new English Socialist regime in the Anglosphere is forming, or has just formed. Meaning that the old Commonwealth and USA have completed their trans-oceanic integration begun by WWII. In this pressure-cooker of an environment Lavrentiy Beria's faction probably comes out on top in the post-Stalin struggle for power. Nikita Khrushchev's reforming streak would either be dismissed or dismantled by the man himself as the Soviet Union faces these harsher realities.
Beria's faction would seize the apparatus of the Soviet state, and the transition to Eurasia would begin. Neo-Bolshevism was developed as a "new direction" for the party, reusing the old name of the movement to invest it with revolutionary vigour.

That's my take anyway.


Absolutely! Another bit of Winston's internal narration indicates how buildings were described. Anything new-looking and impressive was deemed to have been build after the Revolution. Anything that was clearly older was assigned to a vague term Winston only knew as "the Middle Ages." The Party specifically claims that the centuries of Capitalism built nothing of value.

So we can likely assume that the early modern period of history, which Cromwell belonged to, would be wrapped up into a period in history just entitled "the Middle Ages" and otherwise open to be twisted as the regime needs it to be. In that situation the Ingsoc regime could easily present Cromwell as an early freedom fighter trying to shake off the power of the King and free the people of Britain in this vague Middle Ages period. They could even propagandize Cromwell's Commonwealth as an early proto-revolutionary state that displayed the potential for the common man to rule before those dastardly nobles re-asserted themselves. In that sense Cromwell becomes a bit of a martyr to the Ingsoc cause. A pioneer who led the way for the revolutionary movements to come.
All of Cromwell's religious aspects, his own oppression of the revolutionary Levellers and Diggers, could easily be done away with. Winston notes that in all likelihood no book exists that was printed before 1960. Besides. This is a regime that re-writes history on a day to day level about events that, in some cases, are only a few days old. Twisting Oliver Cromwell into a sort of proto-socialist folk hero would be easy for this lot.


Thanks!
Orwell is very light on details regarding the population of the disputed territories. All he mentions is that all three powers pretty much treat the people there openly as slaves, and that they pass from master to master, doing the same work for their new overlords that they did before.
While constant warfare would lead to a battered populous (or multiple, in this case) one can assume that the old movements still exist in some form. Perhaps as guerrilla groups or as local warlords who make nice with the various superstates to hold onto local power in exchange for the labour of their population.

The only thing that comes to mind immediately is that Winston mentions in his diary that he went to the movies. It was a war film, and took place in the Mediterranean. He mentions seeing shots of what appeared to be an old Jewish woman attempting to shield her child from machine-gun fire from a helicopter. If this is in any way indicative of the realities in the eastern Mediterranean we can summarize there's some sort of Zionist resistance or movement there. And very likely an Arab equivalent. This can be extrapolated for most of the disputed territories.
I imagine you would have these local warlords or nationalistic guerrilla movements surviving on the fringes of a mostly battered society passing to and from superstates as the fortunes of war change.


Thanks! This is a free-form project. I work and post on ideas as I have them, and try to explain my rationale behind them. I'll be working on this as long as these ideas come to me. I've had this book on my brain since...checks watch...the summer of 2002 :p So I have a lot of ideas to flesh out.

I really like the idea of Beria creating Eurasia, although from what I recall Beria was more reformist than people give him credit for. In any case, people can change and factions can do away with some influences when time is right...

I remember one thing: during the book, isn't it discussed how Ingsoc is waiting for the generation who remembers the revolution to die out so they can teach the one that has always lived under Ingsoc that it has always been as such? Which would mean the Middle Ages as a pre-Ingsoc period and Cromwell as a founding father would become obsolete. If we follow the same logic as that with Mosley, then one could see Cromwell, as the image of Eternal Ingsoc, merge with the other great symbol of Ingsoc's power... And Cromwell himself becoming Big Brother

Oh and I do like the idea of filling the gaps in the map with states striving to survive under the Big 3.

I like your project. Would you be open to collaboration? I've always enjoyed 1984 and if you'd like could do a few graphs around it.
 
Provinces of Oceania.
Oceania operates on a provincial level. We know that, as the narration describes Airstrip One (Great Britain) as the "third most populous province of Oceania." The provincial nature of Oceania is later detailed in Goldstein's book. In it Oceania is described as having no singular capital. This keeps the peoples of its vast territory from feeling like they're under the control of a distant colonial master. Instead local administrative centres exist, and they always pull their administrators from the local population. In what has to be Ingsoc's singular positive characteristic it's a very strict meritocracy and doesn't concern itself with racism. As it says in Goldstein's book...
Emmanuel Goldstein said:
Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination of one province by another. Jews, Negros, South Americans of pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party, and the administrators of any area are always drawn from the inhabitants of that area. In no part of Oceania do the inhabitants have the feeling that they are a colonial population ruled from a distant capital. Oceania has no capital, and its titular head is a person whose whereabouts nobody knows. Except that English is the chief lingua franca and Newspeak its official language, it is not centralized in any way.

So before I go on I want to acknowledge the good people behind the Hearts of Iron IV mod "Hearts of Iron: 1984" The mod has a few game mode options, and one of them is to play a situation where each superstate is broken down into provinces, all of which are grouped into ironclad alliances built around said superstates. Oceania's were where I got the idea for some of what I will present. I didn't use their breakdown exactly, but there are similarities and I was inspired by some of the flags they used. So I'm getting that out there. If you enjoy HoI IV? Give it a go. It's basically a battle royale in the disputed zones, and a lot of love and care has gone into the focus trees. You can tell the people behind it know their stuff.

Anyway on with the show. Provincial flags.
In my mind provincial flags would have played a HUGE role in early Oceanic history. One only needs to look at the various Soviet propaganda pieces that made use of all of the Soviet Socialist Republic flags to represent the diverse parts of a greater whole. And seeing as, in my mind, part of English Socialism's defining early traits was a reverence for shared Anglo-Saxon cultural traditions? There would be a desire to reflect that. At least early on. Of course provincial flags would grow less prominent as the regime refines itself. I imagine that, by the early 70s, provincial flags were gone. Not formally abolished or ceremonially lowered. It's just that one day...there was only the Ingsoc flag. No mention to the provincial flags was made again, propaganda was updated, old photos and posters edited, and the existence of these banners just swept down the memory hole.
What would they have looked like though? Well I wanted to, as I said, keep some sense of cultural integrity in check. In my mind early English Socialism made a huge deal of itself being a socialist movement grounded in the cultural traditions of the Anglosphere. The nobility and monarchy was toppled in Britain, the industrial capitalistic giants of America were overthrown, but for a while "England was still England," and America was still America, and so on (this is a bit of a twist of how Orwell imagined "English Socialism" would develop in his The Lion and the Unicorn essay).
Still, the regime needed a central emblem. The V for Victory was settled on. It had proven very popular during WWII, and though this was a new regime they fashioned themselves the inheritors of all the best part of the society that had come before. V for Victory could mean anything. Victory of the working man over the forces of capitalism. Victory of the new trans-Oceanic state over the forces of Soviet Eurasia. Victory for the Party. It was also easy to draw, easy to reproduce. More than any other emblem of the regime- torches, crossed pens and shovels, shaking hands, the V was bold and easy for the masses to recognize.

America
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America actually has multiple administrative capitals, but early on they all saw themselves as part of "America," the industrial heart of Oceania. I'm going to take another thing from Hearts of Iron 1984 and claim that, if Oceania does have a singular capital, it's in America. No, it's not New York or Washington. It's in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, in what was once known as Colorado. This location is only known to a few high ranking Inner Party members, and its location is never discussed. Its location- deep in the heart of continental North America and protected by both major oceans and the vast terrain of the continent- made it the perfect location for the upper echelon of the Party clustered around Big Brother to retreat to once the Purges of the 60s were finished with. It's here in this mountain military installation that the various directives to the administrative capitals across Oceania come from.
Again, so few people even know of its existence that Oceania appears decentralized. And in many ways it is. The Party brains in Cheyenne never interfere in a provincial administration centre's means of conducting its own affairs. Propaganda is even decentralized in some ways (as I said, I could see Simón Bolívar playing the same role in South America that Cromwell plays in Airstrip One for propaganda purposes). Each provincial administrative capital draws on its own populace. That they all receive their marching orders from one centre is both acknowledged and dismissed via doublethink.

New York hosted an English Socialist Party Congress in the 1960s. Allegedly attended by Jones, Rutherford, and Aaronson. Of course that was just an unsubstantiated rumour that was dismissed after all three confessed to meeting with the Eurasian General Staff on the date of the Party Congress ;)
And how did they get to Eurasia? Well they left for Siberia from a hidden airbase in....

Canada
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So I was tempted to merge Canada in with the US for a variety of reasons. The first is that a key distinguishing feature between the US and Canada is the latter's continued loyalty to the British Crown. Which would have been abolished in the lead-up to Oceania's formation. In fact it was the position of many a left-wing Canadian prior to the re-alignment after WWII that Canada ought to further integrate into the US and leave ties to Britain in the past.
That being said, I opted to keep Canada separate for a few reasons. First, merging Canada into the US is boring. It's almost a trope as far as alt history goes. And as a proud Canuck myself, I say enough is enough :p
Secondly, like I said earlier, I see English Socialism as playing up its distinctly Anglo-Saxon characteristics. Not so much in an overtly racist way, but more in a cultural chauvinist sort of way. So I can see the appeal in maintaining Canada's identity on the North American continent, at least at first before the totalitarian swing gets going.
Thirdly, while Canada's relationship to the US has been defined by Canada's loyalty to the Crown I could argue that, by the 1950s, a distinct Canadian culture had formed which was neither British or American. If the goal of Oceania's decentralized nature is to keep a group from being lorded over by foreigners, then having Canadian Party members run Canada makes sense.
Finally, Orwell mentions Canada specifically a few times in Nineteen Eighty-Four. First as a place where the Party claims Capitalists prior to the Revolution would send you to toil if you disobeyed them, and then again as the spot where Jones, Rutherford, and Aaronson supposedly took off from to betray state secrets to Eurasia. Now the validity of both statements is suspect at best, but I find it strange that even in a world where the US and British Empire merged that Canada would get some distinct mentions separate from the US. So I opted to keep it somewhat unique.
The maple leaf in the flag is taken from WLM King's proposed national flag for Canada from 1946. King was a proponent of greater US-Canadian integration by the way.

Airstrip One
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So the Union Jack, minus the Cross of St. Patrick. Why? How? A few things.
The first is that, as I said, I view English Socialism's genius as being a form of socialism rooted in Anglo-Saxon cultural norms. Abandoning the Union Jack would likely not have gone over well in immediate post-revolution Britain. And besides, there's that AS heritage that the Party would want to play into. The crosses might be problematic as the Ingsoc regime is very clearly aggressively state atheist. My defences, however, are such. First, this is relatively early on. My own theory is that the regime gets more intolerant of religion as it becomes more nakedly obsessed with power, meaning that early on you probably have English Socialists who value the Union Jack for cultural reasons that outweigh anti-religious sentiment. Secondly? Tying back to Cromwell...Cromwell used a version of the Union Jack. The pieces are there, at least, for the regime to use it in Britain during their early days. The removal of the Cross of St. Patrick does represent an old British socialist goal though, the reunification of Ireland...

Airstrip Two
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Goldstein's book makes it clear that the English Socialist movement grew out of the earlier socialist movements and inherited much, from their slogans, programmes, and phraseology. In fact the book remarks, almost ironically, that by moving to ensure economical inequality is made permanent the regime actually accomplished the earlier socialist movement's primary policy- private property has been abolished by concentrating it in the hands of a collectivized few (Inner Party).
I go on about this to say that despite Ingsoc becoming a nakedly totalitarian ideology it did carry over many aspects of earlier Utopian socialism. The left wing of the British body politic has always been pro-Irish reunification, seeing the Partition as a legacy of colonial rule. This, mixed with Ireland's own troubled history with Britain and the new state's decentralized philosophy, led to the easy decision to include Ulster in the province of Airstrip Two, the island of Ireland. Any residual resistance from the pro Unionist population would be dealt with via arrests and trials for treason or the reassurance that both Airstrips One and Two were part of a grander Oceanic whole.

Atlantic Islands
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Goldstein's book mentions that Oceania controls "...the Atlantic islands including the British Isles..." This says to me that Iceland and the Faroe Islands are under Oceanic control. That makes sense, as the UK and US administered the islands in the wake of Denmark's surrender to Nazi Germany. In this world a new war with Soviet Eurasia erupts soon after WWII ends, meaning that it's very likely American and British soldiers were still occupying these islands when Oceania began to take shape. There's not much here, other than the fact that I used Iceland's flag as a base. The similarities to the Union Jack are also a neat coincidence, leading to a sort of uniformity among some of Oceania's North Atlantic holdings.

Southern Africa
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Oceania's core territory contains Africa south of the River Congo. I've seen some maps or discussion where people assume all of Africa is disputed territory, but that's not accurate. Near the end of the book, after Winston's "rehabilitation," there's talk of a massive battle in Africa. The Eurasian Army is apparently rushing south at an unstoppable pace, and is threatening the Congo itself. Winston gets incredibly agitated, claiming that for the first time he could remember the territory of "Oceania itself" was threatened. He worries that if Southern Africa falls Oceania will be "split in two" as its ports in the Cape are apparently vital to connecting the Americas with Australia. So Africa south of the Congo is very much Oceanian, not disputed territory.
The flag itself was a challenge. The orange-white-blue of the Union of South Africa might not be entirely socialist-friendly, and could be seen as a symbol of Apartheid. Which the Party would likely eradicate, bot to keep the native African populace in Southern Africa from feeling put-upon by colonial forces and because, as stated above, the Party is an extreme meritocracy. It has no time for racism. Seriously. It's Ingsoc's best quality by a country mile. So, it's conceivable that the old South African tricolour might not be suitable. The ANC flag then? Eh...maybe...but given the timeline we're working with? I see the South African Labour Party as Southern Africa's Ingsoc wing forbearer, not the ANC. In any case, I opted to keep the Dutch-inspired flag. First as a sign of cultural continuity, and secondly because the options for a flag at the time would have been limited. To an English Socialist in the 1950s? Better the orange-white-blue tricolour than a red or blue British colonial ensign.

Australasia
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Australia, New Zealand, and the surrounding islands. Australasia is actually a vital province in Oceania, as it's the primary staging ground for attacks upon Eastasia and the attempted re-conquest of India. It's why South Africa is so key. It's the gateway from which the industrial centres and armies in the Americas and Britain get to Australasia.
Australasia's flag is based off of the Eureka Flag, the battle standard of the Eureka Rebellion. The Rebellion, and the flag that represents it, are sort of unique in that both the far right and far left in Australia claims them as their own. What you think they stand for tends to be a test of your own political orientation. In this case, it would be an excellent substitute for the old Australian ensigns. English Socialism's takeover of the Anglosphere would allow them to claim the Eureka Rebellion as their own.

Caribbean
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The Caribbean falls well within Oceania's purview. The provincial administration probably grew out of Britain's old colonial administration. The flag is based off of the West Indies Federation flag. The WIF was an attempt by the UK to merge its holdings in the Caribbean into one federated self-governing Dominion, ala Canada or Australia. The project fell apart due to internal discord. The WIF was proposed around the time that English Socialism was taking root and Oceania was forming, so let's say the design was floating around in some file that the Revolutionary regime found :p

Mexico
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The Ingsoc regime's control over Latin America is the biggest headscratcher of Oceania's internal structure, even once you work out how everything could have occurred. Unlike the US and British Commonwealth? There's an entirely unique culture in Latin America removed from the common Anglo-Saxon connective tissue that bound the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and Southern Africa together.
In my mind the Latin American issue is how Oceania's leadership settled on the decentralized structure. It was, to be sure, a proposal floating around in the English Socialist regime's early days. An effective way to govern the vast territory they now governed. Latin America, however, was falling into civil war and political uncertainty. With its manpower and vast natural resources? It was decided to intervene. In my mind this was Oceania's first test as a unified power. They were able to effectively put down the fighting and restore order. Of course the goal was always to annex these territories, but then the above-mentioned problem came up. These territories were mostly Spanish and Portugese speaking, and they were not bound by the same cultural threads that connected the rest of Oceania.
It's here that Oceanic leadership adopted the decentralized proposal. The English Socialist Party absorbed ideologically sympathetic movements across Central and South America, and used a carrot and stick approach. Loyalty to the Party line was expected, and English was promoted over Spanish and Portuguese (this mirrored the Neo-Bolshevik promotion of Russian over all other languages in Eurasia). This proved easier than some had anticipated. The US and, to a lesser extent, UK had been players in Latin America for centuries. English wasn't unknown, and there was a class of educated professionals proficient in the language ready to lead the charge in exchange for favourable Party status. In exchange for promoting English and Party loyalty the Latin American Party leaders were given autonomy to run their provinces as they saw fit within the confines of the broader Ingsoc system.

Bolivia
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Boliva makes up the southern portion of Central America and the northern portion of South America. It conforms to Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Boliva. The flag is based on that of Gran Columbia, the dominant state in the region and predecessor of Columbia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The name, however, comes from Boliva. Which itself was taken from Simón Bolívar. As I've said before, I see Oceanic propaganda as being very localized. Broad themes are repeated across the nation, but each province has its own unique touches. In the British Isles Cromwell would be mentioned, and the pre-Revolutionary era would be described as a squalid world lorded over by capitalists, the aristocracy, and the monarchy. In South America, however, that rhetoric would be replaced by Simón Bolívar taking the pre-Revolutionary pioneer role, and Spanish colonialism replacing the British class system as the historic villain.

River Plate
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The province takes its English name from the Río de la Plata. It comprises of territory once known as Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, along with the Falklands and South Georgian Islands. It represents Oceania's southernmost point, and its ports form a key part of the South American-South African-Australian sea lane that is vital to Oceania's wars in India and against Eastasia. It's also a massive producer of agricultural goods that are vital to fuelling the Oceanic war machine.

Brazil
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Brazil is a vast place, even among the Oceanic superstate. It not only produces war goods and agricultural products on par with some of the other provinces of Oceania, it's also unique in that stretches of it remain unexplored. The vast Amazon rain forests are a mystery to most citizens of Oceania, and they seem to hold infinite possibilities. Some say that's where Goldstein is hiding, deep in the jungle beyond the reach of the Thought Police. Others share rumours they heard about the Ministry of Peace operating large labs deep in the Amazon, testing experimental weapons that will someday win the war. Still others claim that the Amazon rain forests are home to some of the harshest forced labour camps in Oceania. Where only the most vile traitors and thought criminals are sent. Worked to death in the heat.
How much of this is true or just speculation is left up to the imagination. The Party itself, nor any of its provincial branches, is eager to disclose what really goes on in the deep jungles of Brazil. In all likelihood the "uncivilized" tribes of Brazil, if any of them are left, are among some of the last free people in the world.
 
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I really like the idea of Beria creating Eurasia, although from what I recall Beria was more reformist than people give him credit for. In any case, people can change and factions can do away with some influences when time is right...
Yep, exactly. Beria was a reformer in his own way, but he was also very much someone in Stalin's orbit as it were. His role with Soviet internal security would put him in a prime position to further transform the USSR into a Eurasian state with a similar internal security apparatus as we see in Oceania. We don't know very many details about life in either Eurasia or Eastasia, but we do know from Goldstein's book that the systems in all three states are practically indistinguishable in any real sense. So if we assume Eurasia has its own version of the Thought Police? Putting Beria and his work with the Soviet secret police at the forefront of that would be a good starting point.

I remember one thing: during the book, isn't it discussed how Ingsoc is waiting for the generation who remembers the revolution to die out so they can teach the one that has always lived under Ingsoc that it has always been as such? Which would mean the Middle Ages as a pre-Ingsoc period and Cromwell as a founding father would become obsolete. If we follow the same logic as that with Mosley, then one could see Cromwell, as the image of Eternal Ingsoc, merge with the other great symbol of Ingsoc's power... And Cromwell himself becoming Big Brother
That's a very good point. The regime is always evolving, always rewriting itself. Already we see that in the novel, where barely anyone calls it "English Socialism," replacing it with Ingsoc. "English Socialism" might conjure up ideas of grand cultural traditions and the egalitarian struggle of the early Party after all. That's no good for the regime. Ingsoc, however, is far more...absolute...in meaning.
If we go with the idea that Mosley isn't Big Brother, but merely one of many sources that is composited into Big Brother, then we can assume that eventually Cromwell gets merged into too as the regime refines itself and its version of history. It's always worth noting that the world we see in the novel is Ingsoc's "work in progress." They're not yet at the society they envision, and there are still elements of the pre-Revolutionary world that they have to tolerate and even promote out of necessity. Sooner or later that's going to change...unless the regime falls.

Oh and I do like the idea of filling the gaps in the map with states striving to survive under the Big 3.
Yeah, I do too. It's just human nature, right? Nationalism, ethnic identity, the old borders before the superstates waged unending war over the disputed zones...all of these things would be hard to crush. Even if most of the disputed zones are broken down and easy to intimidate, there would be holdouts of various groups surviving anyway they can.
Further, such groups would be so concerned with their own survival that they would pose no real threat to the internal power structure of any of the superstates, nor are they any real hindrance to the war goals of any of them. So it's unlikely Oceania, Eurasia, or Eastasia would make concentrated efforts to destroy them. They're all focused on constantly backstabbing each other, looking for the right moment to win the war they know, deep down, won't come :D

I like your project. Would you be open to collaboration? I've always enjoyed 1984 and if you'd like could do a few graphs around it.
The more the merrier! I'd love collaboration.
 
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