The Annoyed Man wrote:This book was required reading when I was in high school. I'm sure that the lefties have banished it, since it describes too closely their goals.
Oddly enough, Eric Arthur Blair ("George Orwell" was his pen name) was himself an ardent socialist all of his life; but he hated communism specifically, and was an equally ardent critic of the USSR and China (and other communist nations). He alternatively described himself as "a traditionalist with a love of old English values" and as a "Tory-anarchist." When defining socialism, he said, "a real Socialist is one who wishes – not merely conceives it as desirable, but actively wishes – to see tyranny overthrown."
I'm not sure exactly what he meant by socialism, really, because his two books Animal Farm and 1984 have become anti-socialist anthems describing the horrors of socialist-statist government, as we understand it today. I suspect that his views would be more accurately described today as "Classical Liberalism".
TAM, they didn't ban it. Its their playbook