Prole orphanages might be a good source for guards. No family connections and a very rough upbringing that makes them hard as nails and delighted to work for food and a modicum of comfort.
Perhaps the guards are the people who had the ambition to be inner party members, but not the talent. It satisfies their desire to have power over others, without them interfering with the operations of the state.
I wonder if they are party members. After all, to enforce the law, they must have knowledge of crime and knowledge that crime exists. Doublethink would be nearly impossible to expect. I would say that all officers are inner party, but NCOs and men must be proles. I would venture to say that they likely had a system like East Germany with Workers' Combat Groups plus the regular service of common conscripts, short-term enlistees, and career NCOs, WOs, and commissioned officers, plus a STASI element infiltrating the border troops plus having their own regiments to quell internal dissent (and appropriately named for Felix Dzerzhinsky).
Regardless of where they are drawn from, I believe there is a very important distinction to be made between a common soldier in the military and those guards deployed by a ministry or the Thought Police. Perhaps they even have their own hierarchal classifications along such lines as the Inner Guard and the Outer Guard, etc.
Keeping in line with your Roman analogy: maybe a military service is a way to check whether a child of inner party member is worth to become an inner party member? This would work in a similar way, in which Roman military service was a must, if Roman citizen wanted to have a political career in the republic.
The same thing they do in Switzerland. No one can hold a political office, or be involved in any kind of government activity unless they enlisted for military service.
Double plus good as always brother, I think them using proles as a source for the soldiers and guards because of the reasons you've pointed out and it's possible that they even use prole Orphanages are a good source for them to utilize if they really wanted too. I doubt they allow outer party members are allowed to join too because of their roles in Oceania, unless it's one of those few exceptions that could be made on Rare occasions.
A very interesting concept. I think, outside of the upper echelons of the military/security police, they are almost certainly recruited from the proles, probably when they are young, and the more nasty and mean spirited the better. It would be doubtfull if they even needed care about any ideology or concern themselves with party doctrin. Their function is purely enforcement. Its unlikely they need any actual soldiers as the war is just a fiction. There are no "Boys on the Malabar front". And if there was some war front, their purpsose is to die, or get captured to be paraded infront of the citizens of Eurasia or East Asia, in the same way Oceania does with their captured soldiers.
I think what you've best done here is identify a fault line in the power structure of Oceania. The officer class of the military and the guards are absolutely needed, yet are the most problematical positions. Collectivization of the political elite is a clever means of thwarting such, but I seriously wonder how long this could last. The Inner Party, despite its small percentage, must still number in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands to maintain a bare skeleton crew of leadership over such a vast population. Some advancement into the Inner Party must exist for the system to last indefinitely, yet by allowing such a thing is fissure towards dissent and change.
Ultimately the party wants you to think that they are indestructible but all systems have faults which build up overtime,the party will eventually collapse and what will fill in the power vacuum would likely be the military class
6:58 I really love how they use the Combine Civil Protection as the Thought Police of INGSOC. Especially when the Combine is just a syfy version of INGSOC.
Great history lesson on the INGSOC soldiers and guards being like civilian volunteers and soldiers of fortune aka mercenaries. Even though the outer party and prole members who are only watch by the thought police and the inner party members, there is always a very sneaky ambitious person in the office corp of the INGSOC soldiers and guards to takeover by discover the many loopholes in there if they are loyal or not.
Hey, brother! I love your videos. I hope your mental health is doing ok. Your voice sounds a little sad sometimes. Maybe it's just the subject matter, or maybe I'm over thinking it. I myself have a pretty monotone voice and people often think I'm always angry, so I can also see how I'm just reading too into it 😅 Whether you're struggling with anything or not, it always brightens my day when I get the youtube notification that there's a new 1984 lore video! Keep up the good work, and take care of yourself, brother!
I am thinking is that proles would be the main source of soldiers and guards, ones with certain talents and traits would be selected for promotions and special duties. I imagine the leadership roles, anything above NCO would be comprised of men who came up through cadets and special training (The youth league for instance). Yes, I do believe the guards would be from other areas, that just makes sense. The Inner party would want to keep a tight grip on the military and security services. EDIT: Missed a word. Don't type tired kids!
One thing they never managed to take away from me when I was an Airman was my personality and ability to think for myself. So many people nowadays base their whole personality around being in the military which always seemed bizarre to me. Wearing a uniform doesn't make you a good person.
As a Fascist, and an ultra-nationalist, I could not agree more; I love my country, and I damn well know our military personnel are not beyond reproach.
@longliveelcaudillo59 yeah exactly. My family and I have served the US and Germany since 1861 service is in our blood we don't walk around wearing Grunt Style shirts and acting like everyone that wasn't in the military is somehow below us. We do our duty then we get on with our lives.
I've mentioned my head cannon on the topic before, but I would like to again on this more relevant video. I think that the great powers actually have two separate militaries, one to sacrifice surplus men and material in the forever war, and another more professional force to protect there core territories, should one of the other two factions try to win the war for real. Inner Force Outer Force.
Ruthless regimes generally put the cheapest, ill-educated, and easily replaced conscripted men on the front-line to wear down the enemy. (Ukraine is the latest example) The best trained and experienced 'professional soldiers' are kept in reserve to deal the deathblow to your enemies after they are worn down. Cannon fodder would be proles. Survive long enough and you move up the ranks into the more valuable professional soldier category. Experience in combat is hard to replace.
Excellent points. There's always inbuilt tension between the regular armed forces and the intelligence apparatus in totalitarian states. So that definition is crucial. Regular armed forces' lower ranks would be Proles. But likely all command officers and pilots would be Inner Party. There are Outer Party officers, but in infantry and certain necessary specializations. Yet these are under constant surveillance from the military intelligence section of the Thought Police. The civilian police are mostly proles as are their version of OMON but both answer to Inner Party commanders. The Thought Police are again Inner Party while the prison guards and lower level thugs are Proles relocated from their original areas. There are no Outer Party members in the Thought Police. So the system functions to check potential Bonarpatism from the military fused to an uprising from the Outer Party which is far more likely than the Prole revolt that Winston dreamed of.
If I had to guess l, the common soldier is a mix of what soldiers have been IRL. Men and women drawn from the proles, drawn by a mix of hunger, desire for improvement in their own situation, and genuine patriotism. I'd imagine the NCOs and lowe officers would be Outer Party since IRL communist countries like Easter Germany thought party membership as a requirement would make for more loyal officers. Inner party would be any rank around the rank of major.
Personally, from when I first saw it on it’s release, I found the grubby white coated ‘technician’ who assists in Winston’s interrogation utterly frightening… his attempt to give himself the spurious authority of a medical or scientific worker seemed so believably human, and yet he is just a disgusting and sadistic minion, probably one of hundreds if not thousands. I don’t think he ever has a line of dialogue in the movie yet in some ways his dedication to his odious work is more frightening than O’Brien and his nonsensical ideology…
Most soldiers would be conscripts. The political officers are ambitious party members who want to advance, like in the NKVD. The guards under their command would be drawn from a pool of recruits who show exceptional loyalty to the party.
In communist state militaries you tended to have political officers functioning in parallel with military officers and somewhat supervising their decisions. The political officers would report to other political officers who would all be party members of one sort or another. The political officers can override the decision of any non-political officer at the same level. Non-political military officers would tend to be recruited from the middle classes as technical specialists. The inner party members would tend to serve in supervisory roles near the top of all organizations. The guards are just going to be standard policeman types. Its where ambitious but competent proles with the right physical attributes and leadership potential will end up.
Given what I know about the behaviour of such regimes IRL, I think that you are correct. A brutalized put also depoliticized security apparatus, aimed at the outer part first and foremost. I would even go further and argue, that the inner party would not provide the officers. Even generals just have to obey the party; no need to allow them a say in party matters. (If there is a political commissariat of the party, is a decision only Big Brother can make)
Could also be that some inner party service as enlisted or even the most basic roles to act as spies. Really I would assume they operate similarly to a lot of dictator style countries usually having at least a couple of police and spy type services that do the duty aboard but also self police eachother. Hard for a army to overthrow when there's a lot of mini parts that make it tricky to build a large force for the job
I imagine it's probably a similar deal to the metrocops in Half Life 2, desperate people will give up morals or subscribe to all sorts of ideologies if offered salvation.
I think guards we see are separate from regular military, there more like NKVD security troops then Red Army troops, that being the army having a internal security role would make it too powerful and thus relaying on a paramilitary troops for internal security as part of the Ministry of Love to keep the army out of domestic affairs. To ensure the Ministry of Love dose not become too powerful, the troops are lightly armed and trained to for internal security. To further prevent threats, there would be a higher number of party members if not entirely consist of party members in the officer ranks then in the regular army.
There's a lot to think about here. They need the military and the security forces, granted the wars they're fighting might be staged so the enforcers might be more like a National Police force than a military. In any case whatever security force the Inner Party has needs to be looked after, indoctrinated, and given quirks that others aren't given. I suppose the best way to look at it might be how other totalitarian nations defend themselves. You can recruit from the party loyalists, at least for the higher positions, but the vast majority are going to be from lower down, so recruiting foreigners (mercenaries if you like or auxiliaries) might make sense. There is something to keep in mind and that's the argument that Machiavelli made in the Prince regarding mercenaries and auxiliaries. He felt their loyalty was at best dubious and that they could switch sides easily. Keep in mind if some theories regarding the ending of the book, the language of Newspeak appendix, which hints the downfall of Big Brother, this might be the reason it fell, because of the soldiers switching sides and overthrowing the government.
You forgot being born into the inner or outer party is NOT hereditary. I would suggest that the military actually drafts, for life more or less, from all levels at a very young age. Soldiers and guards of all ranks actually have it quite good compared to outer party paired with opportunities for significant advancement. BUT they're heavily propagandized and survailed, no "games", combined with their relatively small size make for a loyal and motivated force. Plus posting individuals away from their place of origin reenforces this.
I wonder how well trained these troops and guards are? Are they as good as American and British soldiers where trained. Or are they more like cannon fodder troops?
NCOs? I'm not sure there'd be many at all. The Russian military has very few NCOs, they compensate for this by being Officer heavy. A large number of junior officers without much authority, or operational scope, combined with enlisted soldiers who have no autonomy whatsoever on or off the battlefield. I imagine that the Oceanian army is much the same. The soldiers are definitely proles. Perhaps the junior officers are filled out by the children of outer party members that have undergone indoctrination in their version of the H-Youth. Like the kid in the film who turned in their father. Senior officers are definitely inner party members, no question.
Prole orphanages might be a good source for guards. No family connections and a very rough upbringing that makes them hard as nails and delighted to work for food and a modicum of comfort.
Iraq Republican Guard
That is how Romania did it for their secret police: Securitate
Perhaps the guards are the people who had the ambition to be inner party members, but not the talent. It satisfies their desire to have power over others, without them interfering with the operations of the state.
I wonder if they are party members. After all, to enforce the law, they must have knowledge of crime and knowledge that crime exists. Doublethink would be nearly impossible to expect. I would say that all officers are inner party, but NCOs and men must be proles. I would venture to say that they likely had a system like East Germany with Workers' Combat Groups plus the regular service of common conscripts, short-term enlistees, and career NCOs, WOs, and commissioned officers, plus a STASI element infiltrating the border troops plus having their own regiments to quell internal dissent (and appropriately named for Felix Dzerzhinsky).
I saw that the Guards/Soldiers seemed well-fed, even chubby for some, but the civilians seemed less well-fed
Even in Dune, there's a comment by Thufir Hawat to Baron Harrkonnen on how the soldiers have it better than normal commoners.
Great video, the millitry situation in the world 1984 is really interesting.
Regardless of where they are drawn from, I believe there is a very important distinction to be made between a common soldier in the military and those guards deployed by a ministry or the Thought Police. Perhaps they even have their own hierarchal classifications along such lines as the Inner Guard and the Outer Guard, etc.
Keeping in line with your Roman analogy: maybe a military service is a way to check whether a child of inner party member is worth to become an inner party member? This would work in a similar way, in which Roman military service was a must, if Roman citizen wanted to have a political career in the republic.
The same thing they do in Switzerland. No one can hold a political office, or be involved in any kind of government activity unless they enlisted for military service.
Double plus good as always brother, I think them using proles as a source for the soldiers and guards because of the reasons you've pointed out and it's possible that they even use prole Orphanages are a good source for them to utilize if they really wanted too. I doubt they allow outer party members are allowed to join too because of their roles in Oceania, unless it's one of those few exceptions that could be made on Rare occasions.
A very interesting concept. I think, outside of the upper echelons of the military/security police, they are almost certainly recruited from the proles, probably when they are young, and the more nasty and mean spirited the better. It would be doubtfull if they even needed care about any ideology or concern themselves with party doctrin. Their function is purely enforcement. Its unlikely they need any actual soldiers as the war is just a fiction. There are no "Boys on the Malabar front". And if there was some war front, their purpsose is to die, or get captured to be paraded infront of the citizens of Eurasia or East Asia, in the same way Oceania does with their captured soldiers.
I think what you've best done here is identify a fault line in the power structure of Oceania. The officer class of the military and the guards are absolutely needed, yet are the most problematical positions. Collectivization of the political elite is a clever means of thwarting such, but I seriously wonder how long this could last. The Inner Party, despite its small percentage, must still number in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands to maintain a bare skeleton crew of leadership over such a vast population. Some advancement into the Inner Party must exist for the system to last indefinitely, yet by allowing such a thing is fissure towards dissent and change.
Good point, well made.
Ultimately the party wants you to think that they are indestructible but all systems have faults which build up overtime,the party will eventually collapse and what will fill in the power vacuum would likely be the military class
6:58 I really love how they use the Combine Civil Protection as the Thought Police of INGSOC. Especially when the Combine is just a syfy version of INGSOC.
Great history lesson on the INGSOC soldiers and guards being like civilian volunteers and soldiers of fortune aka mercenaries. Even though the outer party and prole members who are only watch by the thought police and the inner party members, there is always a very sneaky ambitious person in the office corp of the INGSOC soldiers and guards to takeover by discover the many loopholes in there if they are loyal or not.
Hey, brother! I love your videos.
I hope your mental health is doing ok. Your voice sounds a little sad sometimes. Maybe it's just the subject matter, or maybe I'm over thinking it. I myself have a pretty monotone voice and people often think I'm always angry, so I can also see how I'm just reading too into it 😅
Whether you're struggling with anything or not, it always brightens my day when I get the youtube notification that there's a new 1984 lore video!
Keep up the good work, and take care of yourself, brother!
Well thought out. History is always a good teacher.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Would it be possible that the guards and soldiers have their own secret class that very few know of
Could be in the inner party
@@Totalynormalper Or in between the Outer and Inner, a kind of special military class that doesn’t officially exist.
Wouldn't such a class pose a threat to the inner part,I'm sure that they would be fearful of a Caesar or Bonaparte type figure gaining a foothold
@@гоонтроон Maybe
Yes absolutely, Ingsoc SS.
I am thinking is that proles would be the main source of soldiers and guards, ones with certain talents and traits would be selected for promotions and special duties. I imagine the leadership roles, anything above NCO would be comprised of men who came up through cadets and special training (The youth league for instance).
Yes, I do believe the guards would be from other areas, that just makes sense. The Inner party would want to keep a tight grip on the military and security services.
EDIT: Missed a word. Don't type tired kids!
One thing they never managed to take away from me when I was an Airman was my personality and ability to think for myself. So many people nowadays base their whole personality around being in the military which always seemed bizarre to me. Wearing a uniform doesn't make you a good person.
What you wrote as a non-sequitur. You left some thoughts out
As a Fascist, and an ultra-nationalist, I could not agree more; I love my country, and I damn well know our military personnel are not beyond reproach.
@longliveelcaudillo59 yeah exactly. My family and I have served the US and Germany since 1861 service is in our blood we don't walk around wearing Grunt Style shirts and acting like everyone that wasn't in the military is somehow below us. We do our duty then we get on with our lives.
@@rc59191 And that is why I am proud to give you humble personnel this right arm salute.
I've mentioned my head cannon on the topic before, but I would like to again on this more relevant video.
I think that the great powers actually have two separate militaries, one to sacrifice surplus men and material in the forever war, and another more professional force to protect there core territories, should one of the other two factions try to win the war for real. Inner Force Outer Force.
Honestly makes sense,now my head Canon aswell
That makes sense. One lot you don't care about, since they will never come back, another group, you use for all the other things.
Ruthless regimes generally put the cheapest, ill-educated, and easily replaced conscripted men on the front-line to wear down the enemy. (Ukraine is the latest example) The best trained and experienced 'professional soldiers' are kept in reserve to deal the deathblow to your enemies after they are worn down. Cannon fodder would be proles. Survive long enough and you move up the ranks into the more valuable professional soldier category. Experience in combat is hard to replace.
@@aleistercrowley7549 Yes, plus I'd expect there'd be a huge technology gap between the two armies.
love this type of vids
I think the officers are from the inner party and the proles are the cannon fodder.
Excellent points. There's always inbuilt tension between the regular armed forces and the intelligence apparatus in totalitarian states.
So that definition is crucial.
Regular armed forces' lower ranks would be Proles. But likely all command officers and pilots would be Inner Party. There are Outer Party officers, but in infantry and certain necessary specializations. Yet these are under constant surveillance from the military intelligence section of the Thought Police.
The civilian police are mostly proles as are their version of OMON but both answer to Inner Party commanders.
The Thought Police are again Inner Party while the prison guards and lower level thugs are Proles relocated from their original areas. There are no Outer Party members in the Thought Police.
So the system functions to check potential Bonarpatism from the military fused to an uprising from the Outer Party which is far more likely than the Prole revolt that Winston dreamed of.
Your statement is noted.
Double plus good
If I had to guess l, the common soldier is a mix of what soldiers have been IRL. Men and women drawn from the proles, drawn by a mix of hunger, desire for improvement in their own situation, and genuine patriotism.
I'd imagine the NCOs and lowe officers would be Outer Party since IRL communist countries like Easter Germany thought party membership as a requirement would make for more loyal officers.
Inner party would be any rank around the rank of major.
Personally, from when I first saw it on it’s release, I found the grubby white coated ‘technician’ who assists in Winston’s interrogation utterly frightening… his attempt to give himself the spurious authority of a medical or scientific worker seemed so believably human, and yet he is just a disgusting and sadistic minion, probably one of hundreds if not thousands. I don’t think he ever has a line of dialogue in the movie yet in some ways his dedication to his odious work is more frightening than O’Brien and his nonsensical ideology…
Most soldiers would be conscripts. The political officers are ambitious party members who want to advance, like in the NKVD. The guards under their command would be drawn from a pool of recruits who show exceptional loyalty to the party.
In communist state militaries you tended to have political officers functioning in parallel with military officers and somewhat supervising their decisions. The political officers would report to other political officers who would all be party members of one sort or another. The political officers can override the decision of any non-political officer at the same level.
Non-political military officers would tend to be recruited from the middle classes as technical specialists. The inner party members would tend to serve in supervisory roles near the top of all organizations.
The guards are just going to be standard policeman types. Its where ambitious but competent proles with the right physical attributes and leadership potential will end up.
Given what I know about the behaviour of such regimes IRL, I think that you are correct.
A brutalized put also depoliticized security apparatus, aimed at the outer part first and foremost. I would even go further and argue, that the inner party would not provide the officers.
Even generals just have to obey the party; no need to allow them a say in party matters. (If there is a political commissariat of the party, is a decision only Big Brother can make)
Could also be that some inner party service as enlisted or even the most basic roles to act as spies.
Really I would assume they operate similarly to a lot of dictator style countries usually having at least a couple of police and spy type services that do the duty aboard but also self police eachother. Hard for a army to overthrow when there's a lot of mini parts that make it tricky to build a large force for the job
I think they give a prole a helmet. If he puts it on backwards, he's in. If he puts it on correctly, he's shot.
Would you do an episode on the audio play?
I imagine it's probably a similar deal to the metrocops in Half Life 2, desperate people will give up morals or subscribe to all sorts of ideologies if offered salvation.
I think guards we see are separate from regular military, there more like NKVD security troops then Red Army troops, that being the army having a internal security role would make it too powerful and thus relaying on a paramilitary troops for internal security as part of the Ministry of Love to keep the army out of domestic affairs. To ensure the Ministry of Love dose not become too powerful, the troops are lightly armed and trained to for internal security. To further prevent threats, there would be a higher number of party members if not entirely consist of party members in the officer ranks then in the regular army.
Long live big brother
Good comrade
"Oceania tis for thee!"
6:58 'Half-Life 2' reference; quite appropriate.
-Video plusgood-
Plusgood
How do you travel outside airstrip one air or sea
There's a lot to think about here. They need the military and the security forces, granted the wars they're fighting might be staged so the enforcers might be more like a National Police force than a military. In any case whatever security force the Inner Party has needs to be looked after, indoctrinated, and given quirks that others aren't given. I suppose the best way to look at it might be how other totalitarian nations defend themselves. You can recruit from the party loyalists, at least for the higher positions, but the vast majority are going to be from lower down, so recruiting foreigners (mercenaries if you like or auxiliaries) might make sense. There is something to keep in mind and that's the argument that Machiavelli made in the Prince regarding mercenaries and auxiliaries. He felt their loyalty was at best dubious and that they could switch sides easily. Keep in mind if some theories regarding the ending of the book, the language of Newspeak appendix, which hints the downfall of Big Brother, this might be the reason it fell, because of the soldiers switching sides and overthrowing the government.
Music?
What about Comrade Ogilvy? He is apparently an Outer Party member and a junior miIitary officer.
All hail big brother
Room 101
I have a question,Why is infant mortality so high,There is about 160 deaths per 1000 mothers as stated in the book.
Bad conditions, starvation
@@AradSP Here's the thing,Goldstein's book said that people even in a state of decline lived better than their ancestors.
You forgot being born into the inner or outer party is NOT hereditary. I would suggest that the military actually drafts, for life more or less, from all levels at a very young age. Soldiers and guards of all ranks actually have it quite good compared to outer party paired with opportunities for significant advancement. BUT they're heavily propagandized and survailed, no "games", combined with their relatively small size make for a loyal and motivated force. Plus posting individuals away from their place of origin reenforces this.
The upper class always think the workers are dumbAnd we think you are effete
I wonder how well trained these troops and guards are? Are they as good as American and British soldiers where trained. Or are they more like cannon fodder troops?
1950s 1984 film a bit wonky looking 😮
NCOs? I'm not sure there'd be many at all.
The Russian military has very few NCOs, they compensate for this by being Officer heavy.
A large number of junior officers without much authority, or operational scope, combined with enlisted soldiers who have no autonomy whatsoever on or off the battlefield.
I imagine that the Oceanian army is much the same.
The soldiers are definitely proles.
Perhaps the junior officers are filled out by the children of outer party members that have undergone indoctrination in their version of the H-Youth. Like the kid in the film who turned in their father.
Senior officers are definitely inner party members, no question.
I never 'got' that salute 0:07. Wrist crossed palm side up? It looks like they are begging to get their wrist slashed . . . or asking for BDSM.
Foreign Mercenaries you say.
I think the soldiers are made up of outer party members with officers being inner party members
Hey look its the atf
🐕🔫
They are Paraguan police
Keir Starmer Britain