time as he
forced his shoulders painfully backward (with hands on hips, they were
gyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be
good for the back muscles) -- the frightening thing was that it might all
be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this
or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than
mere torture and death?
The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia.
He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as
short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in
his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if
all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told
the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who
controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who
controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its
nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true
from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed
was an u