I just ran across this site where the owner is posting pages from Orwell's diaries on the same days they were written. A lot of the diary is about his chicken-raising venture (typical entry = "2 eggs") but the war-time stuff is very interesting -- especially in light of current events.
For example:
27.6.40
The unconscious treacherousness of the British ruling class in what is in effect a class war is too obvious to be worth mentioning. The difficult question is how much deliberate treachery exists…. L.M.<3>, who knows or at least has met all these people, says that with individual exceptions like Churchill the entire British aristocracy is utterly corrupt and lacking in the most ordinary patriotism, caring in fact for nothing except preserving their own standard of life. He says that they are also intensely class-conscious and recognise clearly the community of their interests with those of rich people elsewhere. The idea that Mussolini might fall has always been a nightmare to them, he says.
Up to date L.M’s predictions about the war, made the day it began, have been very correct. He said nothing would happen all winter, Italy would be treated with great respect and then suddenly come in against us, and the German aim would be to force on Britain a puppet government through which Hitler could rule Britain without the mass of the public grasping what was happening…. The only point where L.M proved wrong is that like myself he assumed Russia would continue to collaborate with Germany, which now looks as if it may not happen. But then the Russians probably did not expect France to collapse so suddenly. If they can bring it off, Pétain and Co. are working towards the same kind of double cross against Russia as Russia previously worked against England. It was interesting that at the time of the Russo-German pact nearly everyone assumed that the pact was all to Russia’s advantage and that Stalin had in some way “stopped” Hitler, though one only had to look at the map in order to see that this was not so….
In western Europe Communism and left extremism generally are now almost entirely a form of masturbation. People who are in fact without power over events console themselves by pretending that they are in some way controlling events. From the Communist point of view, nothing matters so long as they can persuade themselves that Russia is on top. It now seems doubtful whether the Russians gained much more from the pact than a breathing-space, though they did this much better than we did at Munich. Perhaps England and the U.S.S.R. will be forced into alliance after all, an interesting instance of real interests overriding the most hearty ideological hatred.
http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/page/10/
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