The "London Letters" were a series of fifteen articles written by George Orwell when invasion by Nazi Germany seemed imminent, and published in the American left-wing literary magazinePartisan Review. As well as these "London Letters", PR also published other articles by Orwell. On 3 January 1941 Orwell sent the first of his fifteen "London Letters" which were to appear in PR over the next five and a half years. It was included in the March–April 1941 issue.
March–April 1941:
July–August 1941: In his second "London Letter", Orwell answered ten questions – although each question included several sub-questions – put to him by PR on issues such as the tone of the popular press; current British writing; the morale of the regular army; the Home Guard; Labour Party politicians; the amount of democracy and civil liberties; the war economy and the war effort; support for the government.
November–December 1941:
March–April 1942: Nothing is happening politically in England. Certain currents of thought: Whom are we fighting against? ; Our Allies ; Defeatism and German Propaganda ; tobacco situation "has righted itself"; matches very short; watering the beer, third time since rearmament; absence of air raids relaxes black-out; few people sleeping in Tube stations; basements of demolished houses bricked up to use as water tanks in case of fire.
July–August 1942:
November–December 1942:
March–April 1943:
July–August 1943:
Spring 1944:
Summer 1944:
Fall 1944: "It seems to be taken for granted that there will be a General election before the end of the year."; All parties compete to "cash in on the popularity of the U.S.S.R."; MOI and BBC consider Stalin and Franco "completely sacrosanct"; Common Wealth continues to do well at by-elections; Domestic issues dominate people's attention: demobilisation, rehousing, the birthrate ; Conservatives more concerned and "preaching to the working class the duty of self-sacrifice and the wickedness of birth control" while the "Left tends to evade this problem"; "Basic questions that the Left habitually ignores"; "The Tories are not only more courageous,... and they have no scruples about breaking the promises they do make."; "The Communists are using the slogan 'Make Germany Pay' "; The distinction between first class and third class on the railways is being enforced again."; "Home Guard now consists of youths who are conscripted at sixteen or seventeen."; "...in the remotest places one cannot get away from the roar of aeroplanes, which has become the normal background noise, drowning the larks."; "After nine months as a literary editor I am startled and frightened by the lack of talent and vitality"; In spite of paper shortage there is "an enormous output of unreadable pamphlets" from political parties and religious bodies.
Winter 1944: Almost four years since first letter; "suitable moment for a sort of commentary on the previous ones."; "I have to admit that up to... the end of 1942 I was grossly wrong in my analysis of the situation."; "many mistaken predictions"; "many generalizations based on little or no evidence"; "from time to time, spiteful or misleading remarks about individuals"; "I particularly regret having said in one letter that Julian Symons ‘writes in a vaguely Fascist strain’; a quite unjustified statement based on a single article I probably misunderstood."; "Essential error" in "very first letter" when he stated "that the political reaction already under weigh is not going to make very much ultimate difference" and repeated this in various forms for eighteen months; "Britain is moving towards a planned economy, and class distinctions tend to dwindle, but there has been no real shift of power and no increase in genuine democracy."- "In the United States the development seems to be away from Socialism."; Not concerned with correcting the mistakes; "Among British intelligentsia... there were five attitudes towards the war."; "... I don’t share the average English intellectual's hatred of his own country."; "I hate to see England either humiliated or humiliating anybody else."; "To an astonishing extent it is impossible to discover what is happening outside one's own immediate circle."; "One cannot get away from one's own subjective feelings, but at least one can know what they are and make allowance for them."; Latest shortages include feeding bottle teats "unprocurable in some areas... made of reconditioned rubber.. contraceptives are plentiful and made of good rubber." "The Home Guard has been stood down."
Summer 1945: Orwell had spent the previous three months in France and Germany Following the General Election, held "after six years of war"; "in a quite orderly way, and throw out a Prime Minister who has enjoyed almost dictatorial powers"; "weakness of all left-wing parties is their inability to tell the truth about the immediate future.... won’t benefit immediately, but only after, say, twenty years."; "The great need of the moment is to make people aware of what is happening and why, and to persuade them that Socialism is a better way of life but not necessarily, in its first stages, a more comfortable one."; "Like everyone else in England, I know very little about Attlee... one of those secondary figures who step into a leading position because of the death or resignation of somebody else,..."; "The salaried and professional middle class has now largely 'gone left', and its votes were an important factor in swinging the election."; "The news of the Japanese surrender came in yesterday about lunchtime,..."; "Much speculation as to ‘whether the Russians have got it too’."
Summer 1946: "The standing of the Labour Government"; "‘Underground’ Communist M.P.s – that is, M.P.s elected as Labour men but secretly members of the C.P. or reliably sympathetic to it."; Petrol rationing, and forgery of petrol coupons; consumer goods; "...top-hats, for the first time in six years or more..."; "...more literary monthlies and quarterlies have come into being."; BBC... "...anything in the smallest degree highbrow provokes storms of indignation from ordinary radio-users."
A controversy
The September–October 1942 issue of PR carried Orwell's reply to letters sent in by D. S. Savage, George Woodcock and Alex Comfort in response to his "London Letter" of the March–April issue, in which he had criticised "left-wing defeatism" and "turn-the-other-cheek" pacifists, stating that they were "objectively pro-Fascist". In his article he had mentioned several people by name, including Comfort, and referred to the review Now, of which Woodcock was editor, as an example of "the overlap between Facism and pacifism" for publishing contributions by authors who defended these tendencies. In his reply, Orwell reiterated that "Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist"; defended his work for the BBC's Indian broadcasts and refuted Comfort's accusation that he was "intellectual-hunting again".
