In Part Three, O'Brien addresses some of these notions in
talking with the captive Winston. First, he denies the notion that totalitarian regimes
are really working for the good of the people. He notes
emphatically,
We are not interested in the good of others; we
are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only
power, pure power.
Winston
recalls reading Goldstein's supposed book (written in part by O'Brien) which notes that
making people public martyrs for rebelling gives them power. Having people vanish, or
suffer alone, strips the power of public worship away. In this, he notes that other
totalitarian regimes have failed:
All the others, even those who resembled
ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came
very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own
motives.
He continues by
returning to one of the mottos of the state: Freedom is Slavery. Then he reverses it
"Slavery is Freedom," forcing Winsont to notice his own degenerate state which he
"earned" by rebelling. While Winston had believed that the spirit of man would previal,
O'Brien's image of a boot stomping on a human face, is the more likely in this
society.
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