Can a society based on hatred survive?Thesis: A society based on hatred can survive as long as its leader is able to alter history, manipulate language, and physically control its constituents. As history is constantly rewritten, memories become unreliable and citizens are forced to believe everything their leader says. In the novel 1984, George Orwell depicts a totalitarian society in which every piece of information released by the government is fabricated. The Party, seemingly all-powerful, rewrites the content of all books, newspapers, articles and documents for its own purposes. He even has the Ministry of Truth, a department responsible for changing recorded facts and ensuring that "changes in political alignment, or erroneous prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times and are still present in the files containing his original data, and no other copies existed to contradict it” (Orwell 40). For example, the Party estimates that one hundred and forty-five million pairs of boots will be produced for the quarter. But the actual production is only sixty-two million. In order to claim that the quota has been exceeded, the Party asks its Ministry of Truth to reduce the planned figure to fifty-seven million (Orwell 41). This example shows how easy it is for the government to cover up its mistakes, erase or create history, and abuse the very existence of facts. While the Party modifies reported data in an attempt to present itself as infallible and all-knowing, Oceanic citizens care little about these numbers. The reason is that people can no longer distinguish truth from lies after so many tedious years of doubting the validity of every piece of information exposed by the government. Even though they know... middle of paper ......various groups and factions. They stood against Stalin and called for a lesser emphasis on industrial production. In response to dissidents, Stalin "eliminated" nearly a million people who opposed his ideas and were not unconditionally loyal to him (Stalin's Purges, par. 4-5). During the Great Terror, the purge was a functional form of physical control. By punishing the rebels, Stalin killed two birds with one stone. He removed the obstacles that stood in his way and sent a message to the rest of his people, warning them that defying Stalin would be an act of suicide. The two examples above are similar in that they describe two totalitarian governments struggling to maintain their powers. Although they have dissidents who oppose their views, the rulers manage to secure their throne through different methods of physical control.,.