Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Seeing the working class in power was unfamiliar yet compelling, and the author recognized it as worth fighting for.
In plain terms
The author felt the working‑class rule was strange but important to defend.
What can you take from it?
A new social order can inspire a sense of purpose.

Where it applies

  • political movements
  • social upheaval

Putting it to work

  • supporting labor rights
  • organizing community action

Questions to consider

  • What makes a particular social order worth fighting for?
  • How does unfamiliarity affect commitment?

Another view

Not all shifts in power are beneficial; outcomes can be mixed.

More from George Orwell

  1. The fat Russian agent was cornering all the foreign refugees in turn and explaining plausibly that this whole affair was an Anarchist plot. I watched him with …

    Permalink to quote #66
  2. Human beings were behaving as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine.

    Permalink to quote #68
  3. All Spaniards, we discovered, knew two English expressions. One was 'O.K., baby', the other was a word used by the Barcelona whores in their dealings with Engl…

    Permalink to quote #65

Related quotes

  1. I once said, 'We will bury you,' and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.

    Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev quote #19
  2. The trade unions that were swayed by Marxist teaching did not want social peace. They calculated that their chances of acquiring political power would improve …

    Robert LeyRobert Ley quote #5
  3. Hitler can't walk over me as he might have done a year ago; I've seen to that. Don't forget that I have three million men, with every key position in the hands…

    Ernst RoehmErnst Roehm quote #6