George Orwell's 1984 a best seller in Russia

The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was the inspiration for the novel, which portrays a police state controlled by an all-powerful leader.

The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was the inspiration for the novel, which portrays a police state controlled by an all-powerful leader.

George Orwell's classic novel of totalitarian terror 1984 was the bestselling fiction title this year in Russia.

The novel, published in 1949, takes place in a dystopian future where relentless propaganda ensures support for brutal wars.

It was the most popular fiction download on the website of the Russian online bookseller LitRes and the second most popular in any category, the state news agency Tass reported.

The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was Orwell’s inspiration for 1984, which portrays a police state controlled by an all-powerful leader called Big Brother whose citizens are monitored for “thought crimes” and forced to believe “war is peace”.

Since President Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine in February, the Kremlin has adopted a series of laws critics have described as Orwellian. In March, Putin made it an offence to promote “fake news” on the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine, while media outlets have been ordered to call the war a “special military operation”.

Kremlin propaganda has also been ramped up to unprecedented levels as the almost ten-month-long war continues. As it began all light entertainment shows were scrapped and Channel One, the country’s flagship station, pumped out pro-war propaganda for 18 hours a day from 9am to 3am.

“Russia’s actions in Ukraine are, in essence, anti-war,” Dmitry Kiselyov, the Kremlin’s chief propagandist, said on a current affairs show in April. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has even denied that Russia invaded Ukraine.

Last week Ilya Yashin, a Kremlin critic, was imprisoned for more than eight years over an online video about atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Bucha, a town near Kyiv.

Russia insists its forces have not targeted civilians in Ukraine and says that only information about the war approved by its defence ministry can be considered reliable.

Ominously for the Kremlin, 1984 also burst into the bestselling lists in neighbouring Belarus in 2020 before massive protests against President Lukashenko. However, some Russian officials have their own take on Orwell’s novel.

“For many years we thought Orwell was describing totalitarianism. This is one of the global fakes,” Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, said in May. “Orwell wrote about the end of liberalism. He wrote how liberalism would lead humanity into a dead end. He wasn’t writing about the Soviet Union, but about the society in which he lived.”

Zakharov’s comments were echoed by Darya Tselovalnikova, the translator of a new Russian edition of 1984, who insisted the novel depicted an era of “totalitarian liberalism” in the West.

Although Orwell’s book was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988 it was made available to select members of the Communist Party in a special, numbered print run. Copies of the Soviet-produced novel are on sale in Russia for thousands of pounds.