What ideas does Orwell develop in 1984 regarding the nature of reality?

When
controversial author and essayistfirst published the dystopian classic ,
some critics superficially read into it a thinly-veiled denunciation of Stalin's totalitarian
Soviet state. But it was much more than that. In fact, the USSR was a pretty fair simulacrum of
the novel's nightmare state of Oceania, a state which was the ideological realization of
's basic question - whether truth exists. , the novel's , is a realist as far as the truth is
concerned. He believes that truth is objective, external to the thinking subject, the human
person. The freedom and dignity of the person lies in the capacity to recognize and act upon
objective truth. It is for this 'thoughtcrime' that Winston is hunted down and remodeled by the
Party in the bowels of the state's torture chamber, the Ministry of Love. It is there that , the
Party's spokesman, articulates in a remarkable 'debate' the orthodox take on the nature of
reality: Truth is not external. Reality only exists in the mind, and as the Party exercises
absolute control over the minds of the citizens of Oceania, the Party controls truth. O'Brien
provides a horrifying illustration of this when he maintains
simultaneously the primitive view that the stars are bits of fire easily
reachable by men, and the scientific one, that they are suns countless light years away. The
point being made is that reality is infinitely tractile to the power of the Party. As O'Brien,
the philosophical idealist, exultantly maintains in the face of the weakening counter-arguments
of Winston Smith, the realist, the only objective of the state -- no longer chained to the
outmoded vision of improving humanity -- is the everlasting increase in
power.