On falsifying history

First published in Tribune, 17 November 1944

One favourite way of falsifying history nowadays is to alter dates. Maurice Thorez, the French Communist, has been amnestied by the French Government (he was under sentence for deserting from the army). Apropos of this, one London newspaper remarks that Thorez ‘will now be able to return from Moscow, where he has been living in exile for the last six years’.

On the contrary, he has been in Moscow for at most five years, as the editor of this newspaper is well aware. Thorez, who for several years past has been proclaiming his anxiety to defend France against the Germans, was called up at the outbreak of war in 1939, and failed to make an appearance. Some time later he turned up in Moscow.

But why the alteration of date? In order to make it appear that Thorez deserted, if he did desert, a year before the war and not after the fighting had started. This is merely one act in the general effort to whitewash the behaviour of the French and other Communists during the period of the Russo-German Pact. I could name other similar falsifications in recent years. Sometimes you can give an event a quite different colour by switching its date only a few weeks. But it doesn’t matter so long as we all keep our eyes open and see to it that the lies do not creep out of the newspapers and into the history books.

---

All rights reserved - this material remains under copyright in the United States and may not be distributed or reused in any way or broadcast without permission from the Orwell Estate.