I do think that the Book is pretty accurate and it was made so in order to look and feel authentic to the prospective rebels. After all, all of them eventually get re-educated or vaporized, so there is no need to invent some other fiction, which the suspicious subversives might discover. The goal of the Inner Party here is to keep the notion that there is an Underground revolutionary movement alive, because it attracts all the people they want to get rid of as light-bulb attracts flies. It's the light at the end of the tunnel, only the light is a trap.
I agree here, the book was made as real and clear properly to attract and highlight the potential rebels, so that they could be more easily eliminated.
They also need an underground internal enemy to be able to justify the tight control on information and the occasional vaporization.
That's why they do not eliminate the rebels straight away but first re-educate them and keep alive for a while.
It's all propaganda aiming to:
- demonstrate that there is a cruel internal enemy which threaten the life of all people (notice that accusations includes the spread of syphilis) not only the state
- show that rebels are misguided or crazy people and they always repudiate their ideas against the party
- demonstrate that the party, ultimately, will always win
The system is well built to avoid any internal challenge and eliminate it before coming dangerous.
As you well argued revolution from the bottom is not likely as well as total military defeat (because of the 3-ways war which guarantee military equilibrium... at least to a good extent).
The most likely cause of collapse is entropy: production system will degrade, resources are finite, etc.
The state system to continuously spy the population and "change the past" is destined to absorb more and more people from productive activities as well as resources.
The infrastructure to control the population needs huge resources, continuous maintenance, and strong dedication from the controllers.
Who repairs those kind of two ways TV?
Without the right maintenance there will be more and more blind spots... whoever worked in large infrastructures knows that the maintenance cost for legacy systems grows continuously.
Having an education based on ideology will also reduce the pool of people capable of understanding how the system work, so there will be more and more part of the infrastructure left to decay and dysfunctional.
The more blind spots in the surveillance system, the more people will have private space to think more freely or engage in activities not sanctioned by the party.
The more they can get away without punishment, the more they will feel free; the same process will effect the controllers which will "let pass" many small acts which would have been previously sanctioned.
A continuous downward spiral in the ubiquitousness of the surveillance system and the inner party will loose their capacity to control the outer party... the beginning of the end for the regime.
Yes. Orwell relies on the assumption that the Inner Party remains always absolutely dedicated to their project and that factional struggle within the Inner Party never threatens the whole Party organization. That's... debatable, given the human nature.
Inner party members have more intellectual freedom than the outer party.
They know the reality and they like it: the only way to continue enjoying the perks of inner party is to make sure the party will remain in power.
There can be factions and personal ambition but my view is that all the outer party members have the same level: there is no struggle to get more privileges or more power, all have the same.
There isn't even a top position as leader for which people can fight for: the leader is a fictional figure!
There cannot be alterations to party policies that inner members can fight for: there is only one policy, the survival of the party.
It's all routine and, if they do their part, they get rewarded.
Naturally you could have a very hard core faction trying to really win the war, but probably the most fanatic would be eliminated earlier on.
Anyway all of this is based on the assumption that the leaders of the 3 superpowers do not have an explicit agreement.
If they had a specific agreement, then I could envision an evolution in direction of the world described in the novel "The penultimate truth" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Penultimate_Truth)
There was factional struggle inside the Soviet elite even in Stalin's later years, though. Of course, it still presented a show of unity to the outside world.
Yes that's true.
However the internal factional struggle happened when it was getting clear that the top position was getting available, factions started the hidden struggle for succession to the top position.
In Oceania there isn't really a leader, Big Brother is not necessary a real figure.