---
title: "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 8 of 12
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-lion-and-unicorn-fp20180531/8/
cite: "George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, section 8. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-lion-and-unicorn-fp20180531/8/"
---

# The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius

*George Orwell*

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> _Title:_ The Lion and the Unicorn
_Date of first publication:_ 1941
_Author:_ George Orwell (1903-1950)
_Date first posted:_ May 29, 2018
_Date last updated:_ May 29, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20180531

> This ebook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Al Haines, Howard Ross &
the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
http://www.pgdpcanada.net

> GEORGE ORWELL

> _The Lion_
_and the Unicorn_

> Socialism and the English Genius

> Penguin Books

> Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published in the Searchlight Books series by Seeker & Warburg 1941

> Published in Volume 2 of _The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters
of George Orwell_ by Seeker & Warburg 1968 and in Penguin Books 1970

> Published separately with a new Introduction in Penguin Books 1982
Reprinted 1984, 1986
Copyright George Orwell, 1941
All rights reserved
Made and printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd,
Bungay, Suffolk
Set in Monophoto Ehrhardt

> Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published and without a similar condition including this condition
being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

> CONTENTS

> THE LION AND THE UNICORN      31

> PART ONE: England Your England      33

> PART TWO: Shopkeepers at War      71

> PART THREE: The English Revolution      93

> _The Lion
                            and the Unicorn_

> [The end of _The Lion and the Unicorn_ by George Orwell]

## 8. II

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-lion-and-unicorn-fp20180531/8/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-lion-and-unicorn-fp20180531/8/#p-N

[¶0] The difference between Socialism and capitalism is not primarily a
difference of technique. One cannot simply change from one system to the
other as one might install a new piece of machinery in a factory, and
then carry on as before, with the same people in positions of control.
Obviously there is also needed a complete shift of power. New blood, new
men, new ideas—in the true sense of the word, a revolution.

[¶1] I have spoken earlier of the soundness and homogeneity of England, the
patriotism that runs like a connecting thread through almost all
classes. After Dunkirk anyone who had eyes in his head could see this.
But it is absurd to pretend that the promise of that moment has been
fulfilled. Almost certainly the mass of the people are now ready for the
vast changes that are necessary; but those changes have not even begun
to happen.

[¶2] England is a family with the wrong members in control. Almost entirely
we are governed by the rich, and by people who step into positions of
command by right of birth. Few if any of these people are consciously
treacherous, some of them are not even fools, but as a class they are
quite incapable of leading us to victory. They could not do it, even if
their material interests did not constantly trip them up. As I pointed
out earlier, they have been artificially stupefied. Quite apart from
anything else, the rule of money sees to it that we shall be governed
largely by the old—that is, by people utterly unable to grasp what age
they are living in or what enemy they are fighting. Nothing was more
desolating at the beginning of this war than the way in which the whole
of the older generation conspired to pretend that it was the war of
1914-18 over again. All the old duds were back on the job, twenty years
older, with the skull plainer in their faces. Ian Hay was cheering up
the troops, Belloc was writing articles on strategy, Maurois doing
broadcasts, Bairnsfather drawing cartoons. It was like a tea-party of
ghosts. And that state of affairs has barely altered. The shock of
disaster brought a few able men like Bevin to the front, but in general
we are still commanded by people who managed to live through the years
1931-9 without even discovering that Hitler was dangerous. A generation
of the unteachable is hanging upon us like a necklace of corpses.

[¶3] As soon as one considers any problem of this war—and it does not matter
whether it is the widest aspect of strategy or the tiniest detail of
home organization—one sees that the necessary moves cannot be made
while the social structure of England remains what it is. Inevitably,
because of their position and upbringing, the ruling class are fighting
for their own privileges, which cannot possibly be reconciled with the
public interest. It is a mistake to imagine that war aims, strategy,
propaganda and industrial organization exist in watertight compartments.
All are interconnected. Every strategic plan, every tactical method,
even every weapon will bear the stamp of the social system that produced
it. The British ruling class are fighting against Hitler, whom they have
always regarded and whom some of them still regard as their protector
against Bolshevism. That does not mean that they will deliberately sell
out; but it does mean that at every decisive moment they are likely to
falter, pull their punches, do the wrong thing.

[¶4] Until the Churchill Government called some sort of halt to the process,
they have done the wrong thing with an unerring instinct ever since
1931. They helped Franco to overthrow the Spanish Government, although
anyone not an imbecile could have told them that a Fascist Spain would
be hostile to England. They fed Italy with war materials all through the
winter of 1939-40, although it was obvious to the whole world that the
Italians were going to attack us in the spring. For the sake of a few
hundred thousand dividend-drawers they are turning India from an ally
into an enemy. Moreover, so long as the moneyed classes remain in
control, we cannot develop any but a _defensive_ strategy. Every victory
means a change in the _status quo_. How can we drive the Italians out of
Abyssinia without rousing echoes among the coloured peoples of our own
Empire? How can we even smash Hitler without the risk of bringing the
German Socialists and Communists into power? The left-wingers who wail
that 'this is a capitalist war' and that 'British Imperialism' is
fighting for loot have got their heads screwed on backwards. The last
thing the British moneyed class wish for is to acquire fresh territory.
It would simply be an embarrassment. Their war aim (both unattainable
and unmentionable) is simply to hang on to what they have got.

[¶5] Internally, England is still the rich man's Paradise. All talk of
'equality of sacrifice' is nonsense. At the same time as factory-workers
are asked to put up with longer hours, advertisements for 'Butler. One
in family, eight in staff' are appearing in the press. The bombed-out
populations of the East End go hungry and homeless while wealthier
victims simply step into their cars and flee to comfortable country
houses. The Home Guard swells to a million men in a few weeks, and is
deliberately organized from above in such a way that only people with
private incomes can hold positions of command. Even the rationing system
is so arranged that it hits the poor all the time, while people with
over £2,000 a year are practically unaffected by it. Everywhere
privilege is squandering good will. In such circumstances even
propaganda becomes almost impossible. As attempts to stir up patriotic
feeling, the red posters issued by the Chamberlain Government at the
beginning of the war broke all depth-records. Yet they could not have
been much other than they were, for how could Chamberlain and his
followers take the risk of rousing strong popular feeling _against
Fascism_? Anyone who was genuinely hostile to Fascism must also be
opposed to Chamberlain himself and to all the others who had helped
Hitler into power. So also with external propaganda. In all Lord
Halifax's speeches there is not one concrete proposal for which a single
inhabitant of Europe would risk the top joint of his little finger. For
what war aim can Halifax, or anyone like him, conceivably have, except
to put the clock back to 1933?

[¶6] It is only by revolution that the native genius of the English people
can be set free. Revolution does not mean red flags and street fighting,
it means a fundamental shift of power. Whether it happens with or
without bloodshed is largely an accident of time and place. Nor does it
mean the dictatorship of a single class. The people in England who grasp
what changes are needed and are capable of carrying them through are not
confined to any one class, though it is true that very few people with
over £2,000 a year are among them. What is wanted is a conscious open
revolt by ordinary people against inefficiency, class privilege and the
rule of the old. It is not primarily a question of change of government.
British governments do, broadly speaking, represent the will of the
people, and if we alter our structure from below we shall get the
government we need. Ambassadors, generals, officials and colonial
administrators who are senile or pro-Fascist are more dangerous than
Cabinet ministers whose follies have to be committed in public. Right
through our national life we have got to fight against privilege,
against the notion that a half-witted public-schoolboy is better for
command than an intelligent mechanic. Although there are gifted and
honest _individuals_ among them, we have got to break the grip of the
moneyed class as a whole. England has got to assume its real shape. The
England that is only just beneath the surface, in the factories and the
newspaper offices, in the aeroplanes and the submarines, has got to take
charge of its own destiny.

[¶7] In the short run, equality of sacrifice, 'war-Communism', is even more
important than radical economic changes. It is very necessary that
industry should be nationalized, but it is more urgently necessary that
such monstrosities as butlers and 'private incomes' should disappear
forthwith. Almost certainly the main reason why the Spanish Republic
could keep up the fight for two and a half years against impossible odds
was that there were no gross contrasts of wealth. The people suffered
horribly, but they all suffered alike. When the private soldier had not
a cigarette, the general had not one either. Given equality of
sacrifice, the morale of a country like England would probably be
unbreakable. But at present we have nothing to appeal to except
traditional patriotism, which is deeper here than elsewhere, but is not
necessarily bottomless. At some point or another you have got to deal
with the man who says 'I should be no worse off under Hitler'. But what
answer can you give him—that is, what answer that you can expect him to
listen to—while common soldiers risk their lives for two and sixpence a
day, and fat women ride about in Rolls-Royce cars, nursing pekineses?

[¶8] It is quite likely that this war will last three years. It will mean
cruel overwork, cold dull winters, uninteresting food, lack of
amusements, prolonged bombing. It cannot but lower the general standard
of living, because the essential act of war is to manufacture armaments
instead of consumable goods. The working class will have to suffer
terrible things. And they _will_ suffer them, almost indefinitely,
provided that they know what they are fighting for. They are not
cowards, and they are not even internationally minded. They can stand
all that the Spanish workers stood, and more. But they will want some
kind of proof that a better life is ahead for themselves and their
children. The one sure earnest of that is that when they are taxed and
overworked they shall see that the rich are being hit even harder. And
if the rich squeal audibly, so much the better.

[¶9] We can bring these things about, if we really want to. It is not true
that public opinion has no power in England. It never makes itself heard
without achieving something; it has been responsible for most of the
changes for the better during the past six months. But we have moved
with glacier-like slowness, and we have learned only from disasters. It
took the fall of Paris to get rid of Chamberlain and the unnecessary
suffering of scores of thousands of people in the East End to get rid or
partially rid of Sir John Anderson. It is not worth losing a battle in
order to bury a corpse. For we are fighting against swift evil
intelligences, and time presses, and

[¶10] _history to the defeated_
                        _May say Alas! but cannot alter or pardon._