1984 - Planet eBook

conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of societyintact. The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading.It would probably be accurate to say that by becomingcontinuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressurethat it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Ageand the early twentieth century has disappeared and beenreplaced by something quite different. The effect would bemuch the same if the three super-states, instead of fightingone another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, eachinviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case eachwould still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever fromthe sobering influence of external danger. A peace that wastruly permanent would be the same as a permanent war.This—although the vast majority of Party members understandit only in a shallower sense—is the inner meaning ofthe Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.Winston stopped reading for a moment. Somewhere inremote distance a rocket bomb thundered. The blissful feelingof being alone with the forbidden book, in a room withno telescreen, had not worn off. Solitude and safety werephysical sensations, mixed up somehow with the tirednessof his body, the softness of the chair, the touch of the faintbreeze from the window that played upon his cheek. Thebook fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. Ina sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was partof the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it hadbeen possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order.It was the product of a mind similar to his own, butenormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-rid-