Forced-labour camps

[Gladys]

When he came back his mother had disappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time. Nothing was gone from the room except his mother and his sister. They had not taken any clothes, not even his mother's overcoat. To this day he did not know with any certainty that his mother was dead. It was perfectly possible that she had merely been sent to forced−labour camp. As for his sister, she might have been removed, like Winston himself, to one of the colonies for homeless children (Reclamation Centres, they were called) which had grown up as a result of the civil war might have been sent to the labour camp along with his mother, or simply left somewhere or other to die.

Winston's mother and father disappeared in the mid 1950's, five years before the word 'Ingsoc' appeared. 'The two of them must evidently have been swallowed up in one of the first great purges of the fifties.' Presumably 'the party' had just overthrown the UK parliament and monarchy in a bloody coup, following nuclear world war. Labour camps were set up to isolate suspect citizens.

Can we assume that Ampleforth, Parsons and Syme were sent to labour camps rather than destined to Room 101 and a bullet through the brain?

[The Atheist]

Can we assume that Ampleforth, Parsons and Syme were sent to labour camps rather than destined to Room 101 and a bullet through the brain?

No; I think that would be a bad assumption.

Parsons may well have just had some electric shock therapy to destroy the renegade bit of his brain, but Ampleforth and Syme were clearly in need of more severe re-education. I suspect they would have ended up in Room 101 also.

Parsons may have done as well, because it's important to note that the Party had no degrees of crime or punishment - there is only one crime: thoughtcrime, and it's possible that complete re-education was carried out on any imperfection.

[Gladys]

I suspect they would have ended up in Room 101 also.

And later a bullet through the brain, like Winston?


Parsons may have done as well, because it's important to note that the Party had no degrees of crime or punishment - there is only one crime: thoughtcrime, and it's possible that complete re-education was carried out on any imperfection.

Does 'complete re-education' necessarily include a bullet through the brain?

If there are 'no degrees of crime or punishment', how would you explain the following passages?


To be caught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced−labour camp: not more, if you had committed no other offence.

One literally never saw them except in the guise of prisoners, and even as prisoners one never got more than a momentary glimpse of them. Nor did one know what became of them, apart from the few who were hanged as war−criminals: the others simply vanished, presumably into forced−labour camps.

The guards, too, treated the common criminals with a certain forbearance, even when they had to handle them roughly. There was much talk about the forced−labour camps to which most of the prisoners expected to be sent. It was 'all right' in the camps, he gathered, so long as you had good contacts and knew the ropes.

No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral. A great many were euphemisms. Such words, for instance, as joycamp (forced−labour camp) or Minipax Ministry of Peace, i. e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact opposite of what they appeared to mean.

Are you suggesting the existence of 'forced−labour camps' is merely Inner Party propaganda?!

[The Atheist]

The guards, too, treated the common criminals with a certain forbearance, even when they had to handle them roughly. There was much talk about the forced−labour camps to which most of the prisoners expected to be sent. It was 'all right' in the camps, he gathered, so long as you had good contacts and knew the ropes.

Are you suggesting the existence of 'forced−labour camps' is merely Inner Party propaganda?!

Yes, I think they were, because I can't see how they'd fit into the world in 1984.

Putting a man into a labour camp for five years for consorting with a prostitute is going to cause him to resent the Party and give opportunities for groups of prisoners to form rebellious cliques.

Labour camps worked ok for the USSR, but I can only see them being counter-productive in Oceania.

As to the bullet in the brain, I really do think that's quite metaphorical - in the way the bullet entered Winston's.

[Gladys]

As to the bullet in the brain, I really do think that's quite metaphorical - in the way the bullet entered Winston's. Obviously the bullet only seems to enter Winston's brain at the end of the book. But doesn't the party kill Winston soon after? Or do Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford die of old age?


Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out.

[The Atheist]

They may well have done. I think once the necessary re-programming has finished it's at the whim of the Party how long they live.